Born again in Christ

By Fr. Roy Cimagala *

          THAT gospel story about the Archangel Gabriel visiting Mary

to tell her that she was going to be the mother of the son of God

(cfr. Lk 1,26-38) reminds us that like Mary, we too should say,

“Fiat,” (Be it done) to whatever the will of God is for us, so that

not only can we be born again in Christ but also become more and more

like Christ until we are made “another Christ” as God wants us to be.

          This is the will of God for us which we should be clear

about so that we would not be confused, much less, lost, as to the

real purpose of our life here on earth. We have to realize that we

have an active role to play in this “divine project.” While God is the

main agent of this project, we too have to be his co-agent.

          In a sense, we are his co-creator and co-redeemer,

understood properly in that it is only God who creates and redeems us,

but we need to cooperate and to correspond to his creative and

redemptive work on us. That’s how we have to understand these

expressions.

          The secret, of course, is that we obey God’s will for us,

whatever it is and whatever it takes. We should expect some difficult

and even impossible things to tackle, since this divine project is

eminently spiritual and supernatural in nature.

          But with God, we would also be given the grace so that what

we cannot do through our natural powers, given our weaknesses and

limitations, his power can do it for us as long as we go along with

him.

          It is our spiritual powers of intelligence and will that

would enable us to receive the supernatural power of God’s grace.

These spiritual powers of ours have what is called as the obediential

potency to receive the supernatural grace of God.

          This is what it means to be born again in Christ and to live

our life with him, in him and through him. We should always be aware

of this basic truth about ourselves and learn to act on it daily,

making use of some practices of piety, like prayer and recourse to the

sacraments, and always undertaking the ascetical struggle so that our

mind and heart would always be with God.

          Let us always keep in mind that our life here on earth is

the time God uses in his eternity to create and redeem us. He is still

shaping and directing us, helping and cleaning us of our sins, mainly

through the ordinary events of our life. Yes, we have to be keenly

aware of this reality of our ordinary daily life. God is actively

intervening in our life through these events, regardless of whether

they are humanly good or bad.

          We have to understand that this is the ideal way to live. We

need to be with Christ, the Way, the Truth and the Life for us, not

only from time to time, but all the time. To put it bluntly, we cannot

be in the right way, we cannot find the truth about ourselves and

everything else, we cannot have true eternal life, without him.

          We need to be clear about the abiding presence and love of

Christ for us. “Remember, I am with you each and every day until the

end of the age,” he assured his apostles who can include all of us if

we choose to believe and follow him. (Mt 28,20)

* Chaplain Center for Industrial Technology and Enterprise (CITE), Talamban, Cebu City

mail: roycimagala@gmail.com