When bad things happen

 

By Fr. Roy Cimagala *

WE should be ready when bad things happen in our life. In fact, we should expect the worst in life, like when death, which cannot be solved anymore, would finally come to us. Before death, we should be ready when cases of severe misfortune or harsh crisis of some kind come our way.

We are somehow reminded of this need for readiness in the gospel reading of Wednesday of Holy Week. (cfr. Mt 26,14-25) There Christ was talking about his impending betrayal by no less than one of his apostles and did not run away from it since he knew it was his time to consummate his redemptive mission.

We should try our best to have the mind of Christ when bad things happen to us.  If we still can have time and find some solutions to these problems and difficulties, then by all means, let’s do it. But if there is no more time or that solutions are hard to find or, worse, when no more solutions can be found, let’s see to it that we do not fail to go through these situations always with Christ.

Of course, when times are good, we should always enjoy them with Christ too. Otherwise, those good things can easily turn bad for us. In fact, there should be no time, no circumstance, no situation in our life when we can distance ourselves from Christ.

We therefore need to develop a certain discipline where Christ should always be in our mind and heart whatever the circumstance or situation is. We cannot deny that we tend to forget Christ in certain situations and prefer to deal with them simply with our own human powers. Obviously, we have to make full use of our human powers and faculties, but we should never fail to depend on God, on Christ, first of all!

We should always go to Christ who is “the way, the truth and the life” since he surely is the one who will show us how to handle the difficulties we encounter in life. In all our affairs and situations in life, we should always go to God, to Christ, to ask for his help and guidance, and to trust his ways and his providence, even if our prayers and petitions appears unanswered, if not, contradicted.

This should be the attitude to have. It’s an attitude that can only indicate our unconditional faith and love for God who is always in control of things, and at the same time can also leave us in peace and joy even at the worst of the possibilities.

Remember the Book of Ecclesiastes where it says that for everything there is a season, “a time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up what is planted; a time to kill, and a time to heal…” But everything is under God’s control, and even if we are capable of eternity, we just the same “cannot find out what God has done from the beginning to the end.” (3,1ff) We just have to trust him.

We have to follow the example of the many characters in the gospel who, feeling helpless in the many predicaments they were in, earnestly rushed to Christ for some succor. They went to him unafraid and unashamed and they got what they wanted.

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

Email: roycimagala@gmail.com