Training our mind and heart to be properly focused

By Fr. Roy Cimagala

Chaplain

Center for Industrial Technology and Enterprise (CITE)

Talamban, Cebu City

Email: roycimagala@gmail.com

THIS is what we can gather as a lesson from that gospel episode about the two sisters, Martha and Mary, in their relation with Christ. (cfr. Lk 10,38-42) Both were good sisters and followers of Christ, but the former failed to take the proper priority regarding their relation with Christ.

While everything temporal and earthly plays an important role in our relation with God, they can be dangerous if they do not have God as their beginning and end, and are simply understood and treated as temporal and earthly.

We really need to train our mind and heart to be always anchored and focused on God. This will take a lifetime to achieve, and we may not be able to perfect it, but the point is simply for us to just try and try.

Especially these days when we are heavily bombarded with fantasies and fictions in novels and movies, we can easily be gaslighted to believe in them if our faith in God is not nourished regularly in our mind and heart.

We would fail to realize that these fantasies and fictions are just make-believe things that only serve as a temporary way of rest and recreation and should not be taken seriously. With a weak hold on our faith and on our spiritual life, we would fail to realize that we are just being tickled to play the game of self-indulgence that would slowly snuff out our relation with God and with others

These fantasies and fictions often appeal to our emotions and passions, leading us to be more carnal than spiritual, more animal-like than God-like as we should be. They usually play out the law of Talion in their storylines and narratives, making the eye-for-an -eye and tooth-for-a tooth behavior as the standard of our life.

It’s not a matter of considering these fantasies and fictions as bad. They can serve a legitimate purpose and can be truly helpful to us as long as we too take the necessary precautions and prudence in enjoying them.

We need to spend time and effort to make God truly present, acknowledged and responded to in our mind and heart. Thus, the need to spend time praying and meditating on the life of God, studying and internalizing the doctrine and teaching of Christ and of the Church, having recourse to the sacraments and other human devices that would help us live always in the presence of God.

When we notice that we are more attracted to the extraordinary happenings in these fantasies and fictions than to the miracles of Christ, we would already have an indication of the wrong priorities we have in life.

We have to remember that the miracles of Christ are real while those extraordinary happenings in those fantasies and fictions are not. The miracles of Christ are meant to draw us closer to God, to grow in our faith, to lead us to another conversion, to enter into the spiritual and supernatural world, etc., while those extraordinary happenings in those fantasies and fictions are a subtle way for us to indulge on ourselves and to trap us only in the here and now.

We should have a well-articulated plan of life that can foster true piety 24/7. Especially these days when the world is rapidly developing, causing a lot of confusion, if not error, this need for an effective plan of life should be considered as urgent.