By Fr. Roy Cimagala *
LET’S be clear about this. We can all be saints. In fact, we should try our best to be saints, since insofar as God is concerned, everything has been given so that what he wants us to be can really turn into reality. Things just depend on us, on how we correspond to the will of God for us.
Remember St. Peter citing a passage from the Scripture: “You must be holy because I am holy.” (1 Pt 1,16) And St. Paul reiterates the same idea: “This is the will of God—you sanctification.” (1 Thes 4,3) And Christ himself said: “Be perfect even as your Father in heaven is perfect.” (Mt 5,48)
With everything that God through Christ in the Holy Spirit has done for this purpose, we can say that our ultimate failure would be if at the end of our earthly life we fail to be saints.
Not only is God offering us grace, the Church, the sacraments, the doctrine, etc., etc., he in Christ is also eager to identify himself with our worst condition in our life, showing us how to handle it so we can manage to share his own life, that is, to be holy and be saints. Thus, in the gospel of the Solemnity of All Saints, we are reminded of the beatitudes that reassure us that we can be blessed in our bad conditions of being poor, persecuted, etc., if we follow him. (cfr. Mt 5,1-12)
We should feel at home with this most wonderful will of God, overcoming whatever disbelief and awkwardness we may have about it, and trying our best to follow all that Christ has taught, shown, commanded and empowered us.
Sanctity should be a constant concern we ought to have. We should not be derailed from this pursuit by aiming only at some practical purposes and other earthly and human goals which, no matter how legitimate, can only be at best a means, an occasion, an instrument to develop sanctity and to do apostolate which always go along with the pursuit for holiness.
Our work, for example, for which we spend most of our time during our active life, can and should be a wonderful occasion to seek sanctity and do apostolate. It’s there where we can truly encounter God and others and develop our intimate relationship with them.
We should never regard our work as purely worldly as to have no relation with God and others. If we let ourselves be guided by our Christian faith, we know that our work, no matter how mundane and small as long as it is honest, is always our cooperation in the abiding providence of God over all his creation. It is supposed to lead us to God and to strengthen our relation with everybody else. There is something sacred in it.
When we end the day with an examination of conscience which is highly recommended if we are truly serious with our God-given life, we should have the sensation that there is some growth, no matter how small, in our sanctity. We should not judge the value of our day by purely earthly standards like efficiency, profitability, practicality, etc.
There should be the sensation that we are getting closer to God and everybody else, because we manage to give our heart to them, willing to fight and overcome any obstacle that we can encounter in our pursuit for our love for God and others, which is the essence of sanctity.
* Chaplain Center for Industrial Technology and Enterprise (CITE), Talamban, Cebu City
Email: roycimagala@gmail.co
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