Expect all sorts of troubles in our life

 

By Fr. Roy Cimagala

Chaplain

Center for Industrial Technology and Enterprise (CITE)

Talamban, Cebu City

Email: roycimagala@gmail.com

CHRIST himself had already warned us about this. To his disciples, he once said: “They will put you out of the synagogues. Yes, the hour comes, that whosoever kills you will think that he is doing a service to God.” (Jn 16,2)

In another part of the gospel, he clearly said: “In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.” (Jn 16,33) Yes, Christ is assuring us that we as his believers will inevitably face trials, suffering and difficulties in a broken world, but we should keep our peace and courage since Christ will take care of everything in the end.

Other verses that express the same warning are the following:

“Everyone who wants to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted.” (2 Tim 3,12)

“We must go through many hardships to enter the kingdom of God.” (Acts 14,22)

We should not anymore make a big issue out of this fact of life. Rather, we should just strengthen our faith in Christ through prayer and the nurturing of the virtues like courage, fortitude, patience, cheerfulness, hope, etc. It would be helpful if we can develop a sporting and fighting spirit in this life.

Yes, we need a sporting spirit because life’s true failure can come only when we choose not to have hope. That happens when our vision and understanding of things is narrow and limited, confined only to the here and now and ignorant of the transcendent reality of the spiritual and supernatural world.

We therefore have to develop a strong spiritual sportsmanship in the tenor expressed in some words of St. Paul: “Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one receives the prize? So run that you may obtain it.” (1 Cor 9,24)

Aside from a strong sense of self-discipline and submitting ourselves in a continuing training program, an indispensable ingredient of this healthy sporting spirit is the sense of acceptance and abandonment that we need to deliberately cultivate. This does not come automatically, as if it’s part of our genes. We have to develop them.

We have to be sport and adventurous in facing the different conditions of our life. And it would greatly help if we too can have an abiding sense of humor. Otherwise, we would just easily fall into states of sadness, pessimism and despair which actually are unnecessary but are avoidable.

This we can do if first of all we have a strong and deep faith in God, our Creator and Father. If we have that faith, we know that God holds everything in order through his providence. He takes care of everything, irrespective of how things go. Ours is simply to relate everything to him and to go back to him every time we go astray, especially at the end of the day.

When we have this sporting and adventurous spirit, we, of course, would like to play to win and to get as much enjoyment as possible. We would give our best shot. But we also know that this is not going to happen all the time. There will be times when we lose in a game or when we get lost in our adventure. But regardless of how things go, we can always go back to God as we should, and everything would just be all right.

Thus, whether we win or lose in tackling life’s many challenges and trials, we can still manage to have fun and, more importantly, to learn precious lessons by getting to know more about ourselves and others, about our strengths and weaknesses, about the virtues we need to develop and grow, etc.

We should always be driven by love

 

By Fr. Roy Cimagala

Chaplain

Center for Industrial Technology and Enterprise (CITE)

Talamban, Cebu City

Email: roycimagala@gmail.com

THAT is the proper condition of our life. Everything we do should have love as its principle and end. We should not just be content with some worldly motives and goals which, by the way, are also important to be taken care of. But we should not get stuck on that level alone.

We have to do everything out of love for God, and because of that love, it should also be done out of love for everybody else. This way of doing and working would enable us to enter the dynamic of real love which is the very essence of God and the essence that is also meant for us.

We should not be content with doing things and working only for some temporal and worldly goals, no matter how legitimate they are. We should not be content with gaining technical achievement, for example. Nor should we be ok only with some economic gains, some political power and things of that sort.

These motives can only give our dedication a short life-span. They often work only under favorable circumstances. And most likely, they tend to corrupt us. Without love for God and everybody else as the motive for all our actions, we would just get involved in some pursuits that in the end are simply fleeting, meaningless, and ultimately empty, like chasing the wind.

It is doing things with love for God and neighbor that would keep us going irrespective of the varying circumstances. It is this love that would unite us with the very power of God himself. We would not be depending solely on our human powers, even if also need to make full use of them.

That is why it is important that we be clear about the intention we have in everything we do. Let’s remember that nothing is good, true and beautiful, nothing is fair and just, nothing is perfect if it is not done with God and for God. In short, we need to refer all our acts to God. We have to make this affirmation very clear in our mind and do everything to make that ideal a reality.

  

And so, a lot depends on our intention, because our intention is the very expression of who and where in the end we want to be. Do we choose God, or do we simply choose ourselves, or the world, in general? It’s actually a choice between good and evil.

We need to realize then that we have to take utmost care of our intention, making it as explicit as possible, and honing it to get engaged with its proper and ultimate object, who is God. 

We should try our best to shun being simply casual or cavalier about this responsibility. We can easily play around with it, since intentions are almost invariably hidden from public knowledge. We are urged to be most sincere in directing our intentions properly.

We can easily fall into hypocrisy and deception, doing what can appear good externally but is not internally, since we could refuse giving glory to God, which is the proper intention to have, and instead feed and stir our vanity, pride, greed, lust, etc.

We need to actively purify our intentions, since we have to contend with many spoilers in this regard these days. In fact, we just have to look around and see how openly opposed many people are of directing their intentions to God. 

To them, intentions are strictly personal and confidential matters that others do not have any right to meddle. While there is a certain truth to this claim, we have to remind ourselves that our intentions too are subject to a universal moral law.

Always with God as times change

By Fr. Roy Cimagala

Chaplain

Center for Industrial Technology and Enterprise (CITE)

Talamban, Cebu City

Email: roycimagala@gmail.com

IT’S unavoidable. We should not be surprised by it. In fact, we should expect it. But let’s see to it that we do not get lost. We should still be clear about where we came from, what the meaning and purpose of life are, etc. We should never miss these existential and ultimate considerations even as we go along the changing fashions, trends and cultures of our times.

That way we can still distinguish between what is good and evil, what has absolute and relative value, what is safe and dangerous among the different elements we have to face. The important thing is that we are clear about where we are going, how we are managing to get to our real destination amid these varying conditions that can be very confusing and deceptive.

I must confess that I belong to the generation of the Frank Sinatra and Nat King Cole songs, and a sprinkling of classical music of Chopin and Mozart. And through the years, I have been enjoying the different kinds of songs that became popular—from the Beatles, the Bee Gees, Rey Valera, Adele, etc. 

Nowadays, I am listening to the likes of Billie Eilish and those Pinoy comedians who sing Pilipino songs (Tagalog, Bisaya, etc.) in Korean tunes. They provide innovations that elicit mixed reactions, and are often met with both admiration and disappointment, both applauded and criticized.

Well, that’s a fact of life. We just have to learn how to accept it and learn to deal with it properly. But we need to recognize that navigating the changing currents of life requires anchoring our souls to something firm and steady. It’s now becoming clearer that we need strong core values—our foundation—to keep us stable when life becomes confusing. In short, we need to have some kind of a ‘safe harbor’ mindset.

We have to be wary of the danger St. Paul once warned us about when he said that we should be “no longer like children, tossed to and fro and carried about with every wind of doctrine by the sleight of men and their cunning and craftiness, whereby they lie in wait to deceive.” (Eph 4,4)

In other words, we should not be naïve who would just mindlessly go along where today’s current fashion and trends would bring us. Rather, we should always be circumspect, acting with careful consideration of the different elements involved in a certain matter. Yes, we have to stay guarded and vigilant as well as cultivate a practical wisdom that applies smart and realistic thinking in our daily life.

In all this, what is crucial is, of course, to stick with God always. Only with him can we be properly vigilant. It’s a vigilance that is an effect of keeping our love for God and others burn more and more. Without this impulse, we will surely be easy prey to the confusing, alluring and deceptive things of our times. This, of course, will always involve demanding on ourselves more and more.

We just have to be always vigilant. That is why the Bible is full of reminders about this need. “Be watchful,” St. Paul says, for example, “stand firm in the faith, act like men, be strong. Let all that you do be done in love.” (1 Cor 16,13) St. Paul practically has given us a good program of how it is to be watchful always.

Let’s learn the appropriate skills and art of being watchful both in good times and bad times and also in ordinary times when things appear to be neutral yet. Let’s sharpen our skill in examining our conscience, in reading the signs of the times, in assessing the different circumstances of the day, etc.

From the finite to the infinite

 

By Fr. Roy Cimagala

Chaplain

Center for Industrial Technology and Enterprise (CITE)

Talamban, Cebu City

Email: roycimagala@gmail.com

ALL these stories about the appearances of the risen Christ to his disciples simply remind us that in spite of our limited condition here on earth, we are meant to enjoy an infinite state of life in our definitive life in heaven. And this infinite state of life is actually assured of us as long as we keep at least a shred of faith in Christ.

We should therefore keep this idealistic attitude toward our life in general even as we also have to be realistic about it, considering the many limitations and varying conditions that characterize our existence here on earth. In a sense, we have to be both idealistic and realistic in this life. And the secret is nothing other than to keep ourselves close to Christ, knowing, loving and serving him.

That’s when all the material, temporal and other negative elements in our life, like our weaknesses, mistakes and failures, our sins, etc., can enjoy the redemptive character of Christ’s mission here on earth, converting them into means of our own salvation, of our own reconciliation with God, of regaining our original dignity and identity as children of God, sharers of his divine nature and life.

That’s when all the perishable elements in our life can acquire an imperishable character. That’s when we can leap from the finite character of our earthly life to the infinite state of our definitive life in heaven. And this can take place as long as we see and understand things in a theological way, that is, with faith, hope and charity, and live according to it.

We have to cultivate this theological mind, which is actually necessary for us but which we have to do freely. Theological thinking is actually not an optional thing. With this theological thinking, we would be able to see Christ in everything.

This finds basis on the fact that God is everywhere. He is our creator who gives us and the whole world our existence and keeps it. With Christ who is the Son of God who became man to redeem us, God identifies with each one of us.

The Catechism expresses this truth in this way: “Christ enables us to live in him all that he himself lived, and he lives it in us...the Son of God has in a certain way united himself with each man...” (CCC 521)

Also with this theological thinking, we would be able to relate everything to God, as it should, regardless if in human terms it is good or bad. 

As a creation of God, everything in the world can and should actually lead us to him. Nothing in it is non-relatable to God. Everything in it comes from him and belongs to him. There is no dead spot in it where God is absent or irrelevant. 

Our sciences, arts and technologies can only discover the laws and the ways of nature that have been created by God. We do not create these natural laws. We just discover them and make use of them.

As such, we have to at least thank God for whatever usefulness we can find in the things of the world. But more than that, we should try to discern how the things of this world play in the all-embracing providence of God over his creation, since we also have a role to play in that providence. God somehow makes us as his living and loving instruments in governing the world.

This is how we can turn the perishable to the imperishable, enabling us to leap from the finite character of our earthly life to the infinite state of definitive life in heaven.

Going beyond our human and natural justice

By Fr. Roy Cimagala

Chaplain

Center for Industrial Technology and Enterprise (CITE)

Talamban, Cebu City

Email: roycimagala@gmail.com

THAT’S how true love is! It, of course, does not do away with natural and human justice, but it does not get stuck with it either. It goes further. Human and natural justice somehow involves self-interest that is of the good kind. But charity enables us to give our all even at the expense of what is legitimate to us according the standards of human and natural justice. It is willing to suffer injustice.

Charity, in fact, is what perfects human and natural justice. But make no mistake about it. It should be the charity as shown, nay, commanded, to us by Christ himself. He showed this charity in its purest form when he offered his life as a ransom for our sins. It’s a charity that is purely gratuitous and most magnanimous. He suffered the greatest evil here on earth, and in return, he offered forgiveness and mercy.

How is this charity a perfection of our justice? It perfects our justice since it does not so much get stuck with what wrong we committed as it renders the best consideration of who we really are. We might commit many mistakes, even grave sins, but we continue to be children of God. And it’s for that reason that it, as shown by Christ, is willing to suffer for us and die for us if only to pay for whatever sin we commit.

This, of course, does not mean that we should do away with our human and natural justice. We can and we should pursue the requirements of our human and natural justice. But we should not get stuck there. We should continually ask for God’s grace to acquire the relevant spirit, attitude, virtues and skills of how to raise our sense of justice to the level of divine charity.

We need to see to it that we learn how to go beyond our human and natural justice by being merciful the way Christ is merciful with everyone of us. And everyday, we actually are given many opportunities to live mercy that goes beyond our brand of justice.

When we take the initiative to love and understand people, irrespective of how they are and what they may have done, we are already practicing mercy. When we are quick to disregard differences and just work for the common good, when we try to find excuses for the weaknesses if not the mistakes of others, we are clearly being merciful.

We should try our best to be above purely human considerations in our dealings with others, and just follow the example of Christ. That way we would know how to make our human and natural justice give way to mercy, the ultimate expression of charity.

I wonder if our idea of what Christian life ought to be includes this very important factor of mercy and charity. Only when we have these desires to dispense divine mercy to others can we sincerely say that we are truly Christian, another Christ if not Christ himself, as we ought to be.

In our daily examination of conscience, let us try to see if we have been doing something concrete in this regard. Are we willing to bear the sins of others, in an effort to reflect Christ’s attitude toward all of us who are all sinners? Are we quick to forgive and bear the consequences of the mistakes people commit even as we try to sort out things according to our human and natural justice?

Praying from the heart

 

By Fr. Roy Cimagala

Chaplain

Center for Industrial Technology and Enterprise (CITE)

Talamban, Cebu City

Email: roycimagala@gmail.com

THIS can only mean that our communication with God should be genuine, sincere and authentic. It’s about being honest about our thoughts, feelings and struggles. It should express our true intentions and desires.

It should not be about using fancy language or trying to impress. It’s about being real and open with God, connecting with God on a personal and emotional level, and speaking from a position of humility. It should be freed from pretenses, using the so-called “right words.”

This much we can gather from that gospel episode where Christ told his disciples: “When you pray, speak not much, as the heathens. For they think that in their much speaking they may be heard. Be not you therefore like them, for your Father knows what is needful for you, before you ask him.” (Mt 6,7-8) And from there he proceeded to give the ideal prayer which is the Lord’s Prayer or the “Our Father.”

In our quest to be true souls of prayer, we should see to it that our prayer really comes from our heart that is full of faith and humility. We have to be wary of our great tendency to be dominated by worldly and temporal concerns such that we fail to properly pray. That would be a disaster since that would be like being deluded that we are doing well in life when in fact we are failing big time.

We have to start to pick up the rudiments of prayer and begin the process of becoming authentic souls of prayer, such that wherever we are, whatever situation we may be in, somehow we are always praying, we are always in touch with God.

This should not be difficult because we know that God is always around. He is everywhere. Besides, he is always solicitous of us. He cannot fail to love us. We may fail him and earn his anger, but that anger would only be for a while, since his mercy is forever. We can always manage to pray any time and in any place if we just would have the proper disposition.

Definitely, we need to exercise our faith and be willing to exert effort and make sacrifices. That is how we can aspire to make our prayer alive always. We should put ourselves in God’s presence so we avoid anonymity in our intimate conversations with him.

What can also help is to train and use our imagination in our prayer. In fact, we have to use all our human powers and faculties—our intelligence and will, our feelings and memory, etc.—in our prayer.

And we should be ready to handle the unavoidable difficulties in our prayer. There will be times when we would feel dry and uninspired or when we would be tempted to think that our prayer is going nowhere.

Those difficulties are actually opportunities to improve our prayer and to grow in our spiritual life. If we persevere in praying, using all the means that are always available, we will see how this improvement and growth are taking place, and be filled with joy and satisfaction.

We really need to learn to pray from the heart, which also means that prayer should be second nature to us. As such, prayer becomes a constant activity. We can and should turn everything into prayer. 

Even our work and mundane affairs should be an occasion or even a means of prayer also. We should end up praying as we breathe, and as our heart beats. Thus, St. Paul once said: “Pray without ceasing.” (1 Thes 5,17)

“Your words, Lord, are Spirit and life”

 

By Fr. Roy Cimagala

Chaplain

Center for Industrial Technology and Enterprise (CITE)

Talamban, Cebu City

Email: roycimagala@gmail.com

THAT’S from the Gospel of St. John (6,63) and is used often as a Responsorial Psalm in many Masses. It reminds us that God’s words, though written also by men and use human elements with all their limitations, have a transformative power that gives spiritual nourishment and guidance to us. In the end, we are reminded that God’s words are what would actually give us the real life meant for us.

We need to understand that God’s words should take precedence over any human reasoning, philosophy or ideology. And that’s because God’s words are obviously divinely inspired that originate from a higher power and not limited by human understanding. They have a timeless and universal scope that will always be relevant across eras and cultures. They are actually infallible and contain wisdom that is beyond human comprehension.

In contrast, human philosophies and ideologies are limited by human perspective, shaped by individual or cultural biases. They are imperfect, prone to errors and flaws. And they usually are relevant only to specific contexts or times. God’s words offer, on the other hand, a broader, deeper and more enduring truth, transcending human wisdom.

Let’s remember that God’s words as spoken to us by Christ are no ordinary words that would just come and go. His words are eternal, effective and ever relevant to everything that happens in our life. His words will always shed light and give meaning to every event, situation and predicament we can have in this life.

The Letter to the Hebrews says as much: “The word of God is alive and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to the dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow. It judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart.” (4,12)

The Letter to the Hebrews continues by saying: “Nothing in all creation is hidden from God’s sight. Everything is uncovered and laid bare before the eyes of him to whom we must give account.” (4,13)

We have to realize that we need to be guided by God’s words rather than by our own thoughts, reasoning and estimations of things alone. No matter how brilliant and clever we are, we can only go so far in understanding things in this world, many of which are very mysterious to us.

We have to develop a fondness for the words of God. This we can do as long as we exert due effort and continually ask, with humility, for the grace of God. Without these requirements, we can easily be swept away by the many alluring ideologies in the world.

It’s when we listen and live by God’s words that we attain our human and Christian maturity. And as St. Paul would say, we would then be like infants no longer, “tossed back and forth by the waves, and blown here and there by every wind of teaching and by the cunning and craftiness of the people in their deceitful scheming.” (Eph 4,14)

It’s important that we spend time developing a liking and an intimacy with the words of God. We have to read and meditate on them daily, and use them as the spirit behind all events, activities and concerns that we have during the day.

Let us promote a culture of gospel-reading and meditation everyday. A few minutes with the gospel daily can go a long way in putting our life on the right path. We should not miss the great treasure we have in the gospel. We can use the new technologies to promote this culture.

How to endure temptations

 

by Fr. Roy Cimagala

Chaplain

Center for Industrial Technology and Enterprise (CITE)

Talamban, Cebu City

Email: roycimagala@gmail.com

WE get this happy assurance from the Letter of St. James. “Blessed is the man that endureth temptation; for when he hath been proved, he shall receive a crown of life, which God hath promised to them that love him.” (1,12)

God can allow temptations to come to us. But when that happens, it’s because it can occasion a greater good for us, as long as we make use of our temptations to go to God rather than to run away from him.

St. Paul assures us that God is always in control of things. This is what he said: “No temptation has overtaken you except what is common to mankind.” These words somehow reassure us that there is nothing new about temptations. We should not over-react when we are tempted. 

And St. Paul continues, “God is faithful. He will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, he will also provide a way out so that you can endure it.” (1 Cor 10,13) What better deal can we have when we have to deal with unavoidable temptations? We should just stick to God, to his ways. We should just enliven our faith, and not allow ourselves to be dominated by our own estimation of things.

The first thing to do when tempted is to immediately go to God, to run to him, to stick to him as closely as possible. That’s simply because God is our rock and fortress, the ultimate source of strength. Missing this reaction, we open ourselves to a long, tortuous episode that can end badly.

Missing this reaction is actually a common thing to happen because in the first place our relation with God is not strong. If ever there is some relation, it is more on the theoretical level and hardly on the practical, much less something that involves our feelings and instincts.

And so, we have to work hard in building up this relation with God if we want to keep some safe distance from temptations. If our love for God is hot, the devil will find it hard to get near us, just like a fly would not get close to a hot soup.

Our usual problem is that we tend to be by ourselves when temptations come, and to rely simply on our powers which actually are already heavily compromised since our wounded flesh is an ally of the enemies of our soul. We always have a Trojan horse in our personal lives.

Without God’s grace we simply cannot do anything except to fall, if not soon then later. It would just be a matter of time. But when we are with God, we get to see the whole picture, and can distinguish the poison embedded in the many good, beautiful, true and sweet things that temptations come with.

From there we would know what strategy to take. Very often, what can be effective is simply to ignore the temptation and to pour scorn on the evil spirits behind the temptation. This is effective if in the first place our spiritual life is healthy, with faith and love for God and for souls vibrant and strong.

But then when such faith and love is not that strong, the temptations can gain some foothold in us. When we notice this, our reaction should be just to stay calm and not to dare to get overexcited. When there is a storm around, we usually would stay home or at a safe place to ride it out, and avoid going around. In the end, let’s always be with God.

When we ask for a sign from heaven

 

By Fr. Roy Cimagala

Chaplain

Center for Industrial Technology and Enterprise (CITE)

Talamban, Cebu City

Email: roycimagala@gmail.com

THERE are two ways of asking for a sign from heaven—the good one and the bad one. The former is when we do it to see if what we intend to do is really what God wants us to do. This happens when we are not sure whether the initiative we are making is really coming from God. The bad one is when we are doubting the divinity of Christ, just like what some Pharisees did in the gospel of St. Mark (8,11-13). They did it to tempt Christ.

We need to see to it that our faith in Christ, in God, is beyond question. Only then can we start to perceive the loving guidance Christ is giving us at every moment of our life. We should not question the divinity of Christ. We need to understand that it is Christ who guides us and cares for us, directing us toward our ultimate perfection.

But for that to happen, we should truly be humble to capture this reality. It is humility that is the gateway for God’s grace and Christ himself to enter into our lives, empowering us to do what God himself, who is all love, does. Humility involves a certain giving up, a certain dying that actually gives rise to a better life, just like a seed has to die before it bears fruits. 

Remember what Christ said about this point. “Truly, truly, I tell you, unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a seed. But if it dies, it bears much fruit.” (Jn 12,24) And he continued: “Whoever loves his life will lose it, but whoever hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life…” (12,24)

How important it really is to learn how to be humble, unafraid of the many inconveniences it would surely involve! To humble oneself is actually never an act of cowardice nor the misfortune of a defeat. On the contrary, it requires a lot of courage to leave behind the nest of our comfort in order to fly to far distances, pursuing nothing less than heaven. And success and victory are assured, since Christ himself promised it. We should just have faith in Christ.

Humility is emptying ourselves that would strengthen our faith, since we would fill ourselves with nothing less than God himself, of whom we are supposed to be his image and likeness. Humility enables us to receive grace, and with grace we are enabled, in spite of our weaknesses and differences and conflicts among ourselves, to do what is impossible for us to do. It would be Christ doing it for us and through us.

We need to be humble to attract and receive God’s grace that would enable us to do what we cannot do on our own—to be able to love everyone, including our enemies. Christ has told us, nay, commanded us to love our enemies, and that is just impossible for us to do unless we have God’s grace.

But the grace of God, which is always made available, cannot enter into our heart and would have no effect in us unless we humble ourselves, denying ourselves of our own likes and preferences and willing to carry the cross of Christ, which is the cross that signifies everything that we do not want and also all the sins of man.

Charity knows no bounds

 

By Fr. Roy Cimagala

Chaplain

Center for Industrial Technology and Enterprise (CITE)

Talamban, Cebu City

Email: roycimagala@gmail.com

WE have to be ready for the challenge of charity which is actually the perfection of our humanity. It is what would make us like Christ and fulfill the ideal meant for us as God’s image and likeness.

In the gospel, we see Christ performing all sorts of miraculous healings. The more healings he made, the more people needing some cure would come to him. (cfr. Mk 6,53-56) And he did not run away from this, even if he also had to find time to do his prayer in some isolated place. 

We have to be prepared to tackle the arduous side of love which, as we all know, is given without measure and without expecting any return. It’s purely gratuitous. That’s just how true love is. That is to say, if it is the love that flows from the same love which is the very essence of God and that is also meant for us.

We just have to do our part which, of course, will take some time and some process. The important thing is that we should try to put our mind and heart into this responsibility, and no matter how things go, we should just move on. God is always understanding and patient with us, “quick to forgive, slow to anger.”

We need to realize that true love has a universal scope. It is all inclusive. We are meant to love our neighbor, who is actually anyone and everyone, including those we do not know, and those who are strangers and are even our enemies.

Let’s also remember that our love for God is expressed and is proven by our love for others. St. John in his first Letter said as much, “He who does not love his brother whom he has seen, cannot love God whom he has not seen.” (4,20)

In this regard, we have to see to it that we are always thinking of the others, and of how we can serve them in any way. This will prove our love for God, since love is deeds and not just sweet words.

Obviously, to pursue this ideal will always be a work in progress, requiring a lot of patience and prudence. Before anything else, it will require that we be more and more Christ-like because only then can we really have this inclusivity of charity. Let’s hope that we are game with that.

Obviously, if we are to rely only on our own powers, there is no way we can have this kind of self-giving. This can only take place if we are truly identified with Christ, if we have his grace and are corresponding to it with all that we have got.

It’s only in this condition that we can go beyond the limits of our natural self and above the usual drama in life. We of course have our limitations, physical, mental, emotional, etc. And yet, as long as we are truly with Christ, we can still manage to give ourselves unstintingly. The spiritual and supernatural in us through Christ would enable us to give ourselves despite our natural limitations and worldly conditions.

That is why Christ commanded us to love even our enemies, to offer the other cheek when we are slapped in the one cheek. That’s because true love does not count the cost. Let’s remember that Christ in loving us assumed all our sins and conquered them by dying on the cross and rising from the dead. He even asked the Father to forgive those who crucified him.

“Wisdom is better than strength”

By Fr. Roy Cimagala

Chaplain

Center for Industrial Technology and Enterprise (CITE)

Talamban, Cebu City

Email: roycimagala@gmail.com

THAT’S from the Book of Wisdom, (cfr. 6,1) simply telling us that true wisdom, the one that comes from and is a participation of the wisdom of God, is obviously far superior over whatever human strength and power we may have. 

True wisdom guides us in our decision-making and provides us with lasting benefits, builds stronger relationships among ourselves, and gives us a deeper understanding of ourselves and the world in general.

For us, Christian believers, wisdom is understood as a divine “gift which perfects the virtue of charity by enabling us to discern God and divine things in their ultimate principles, and by giving us a relish for them.”

In the Book of Revelation, it is described as the light that abides in a person, such that “night shall be no more, and they shall not need the light of the lamp, nor the light of the sun, because the Lord God shall enlighten them.” (22,5)

To be sure, wisdom can be had by anyone, anytime, anywhere. Everything can be made use of to find, develop and exercise wisdom. The poet and the farmer, with God’s grace received with the proper disposition, can have it. They can arrive at the same truth even if pursued through different ways.

What we have to do to make use of this divine gift is for us to regularly reflect on our thoughts, feelings and actions in order to gain a deeper understanding of our own selves and of our motivations. We need to be aware of our strengths, weaknesses and biases in order to make good decisions.

We can also make use of our life experiences—our successes and failures—to gain valuable insights, even using our mistakes and failures as opportunities for growth and learning.

And yes, we need to continually seek knowledge by reading and studying, and guidance by availing of the help some reliable persons, mentors and spiritual directors can offer. We have to practice mindfulness and patience, cultivate virtues—especially humility, empathy and compassion—so we can better navigate the complexity of human experiences.

In the end, we always need to pray, meditate, do regular reflections, and enliven our spiritual and supernatural life, knowing that it is only with God that we can have true wisdom. Indeed, it is through faith and obedience to God’s will that we can enjoy the essential components of wisdom.

We just have to be wary of our tendency to have everything that truth stands for—joy, peace, beauty, harmony, etc.—to be almost always abducted and frustrated by an endless number of causes and factors.

We tend to get stuck at a certain point, or at a certain level. We don’t want to go on, since we tend to be held captive perhaps by comfort, laziness, ignorance, lack of faith, pride, greed, attachments to worldly things, anger and the unruly movements of our passions, etc. In short, we tend to use our powerful faculties not to seek and love God, who is the ultimate and constant truth for all of us, but to seek and love ourselves.

We have to do everything to keep and protect this divine gift of wisdom. This we can do if we regularly reflect on our experiences and decision to reinform our understanding of things. Yes, regular reviews of decisions made and making adjustments when needed are helpful in this regard.

It also is helpful to stay curious always for new ideas and perspectives, even considering alternative viewpoints. This will enrich our understanding of things and definitely contribute to make our wisdom channel the very wisdom of God.

Let’s keep growing and going

 

By Fr. Roy Cimagala

Chaplain

Center for Industrial Technology and Enterprise (CITE)

Talamban, Cebu City

Email: roycimagala@gmail.com

THIS is the ideal we should pursue in our self-giving, first to God and then to everybody else. If we truly love God and everybody else, with a love that is nothing less than a participation of the love God has for us and as commanded by Christ to us, then we will never say enough in our self-giving.

While it’s indeed laudable that in whatever we do, we try to give it our best shot, we should never forget that our best will never be enough insofar as pleasing God and everybody else is concerned. Our best can always be made better.

This should not surprise us, much less, cause us to worry. But we should acknowledge it so that we avoid getting self-satisfied with what we have done and then fall into self-complacency. That’s when we stop growing and improving as a human person and as a child of God.

We have to remember that we are meant for the infinite, for the spiritual and the supernatural. That’s a goal that we can never fully reach in our life here on earth. But we are meant to keep on trying.

In our spiritual life, we need to always go forward, to advance, to cover more area. In other words, we have to always go on the offensive, always growing and going. We cannot be all the time defensive, though that is also necessary, but as a complement to our efforts to reach our ultimate goal.

For our spiritual life to be truly alive and healthy, we should not just wait for things to happen. We have to make things happen. We cannot afford to be cold. We have to try our best to be as hot as possible and for always.

This is not going to be an easy task, of course. But we have been assured of God’s grace, and if we correspond to that grace as much as we can, somehow some progress can be made. More virtues can be acquired and developed. We can reach out to more and more people. We can do a lot of good.

Let us remember that in our spiritual life, that is, in our relation with God and with everybody else which is marked always by love, there is no such thing as a fixed position. Either we move forward or we slide backward. Let us not be deceived by the idea that we can be in some stable and fixed condition. The spiritual life is supposed to be always in a dynamic state.

What can keep us going in this regard is certainly not our own effort alone, much less our desire and ambition for fame, power or wealth. It’s not pride or some form of obsessions. These have a short prescription period. A ceiling is always set above them. In time, we will realize that everything we have done was just “vanity of vanities.”

It is God’s grace that does the trick. It’s when we correspond sincerely to God’s love for us that we get a self-perpetuating energy to do our best in any given moment. It’s when we can manage to do the impossible.

It’s a correspondence that definitely requires a lot of humility because we all have the inclination to be proud of our accomplishments that would kill any desire to do better. It’s also a correspondence that is always respectful of our human condition, given our strengths and weaknesses, our assets and limitations. 

It is important that this attitude be instilled actively in all of us, since it is what is proper to us as persons and children of God. It’s what keeps us growing and going.

Our human laws can only go so far

 

By Fr. Roy Cimagala

Chaplain

Center for Industrial Technology and Enterprise (CITE)

Talamban, Cebu City

Email: roycimagala@gmail.com

UNLESS our human laws can capture the logic behind that divine commandment to love one another as Christ has loved us and continues to love us, even to the extent of loving our enemies, we can only say that indeed our human laws, despite all the good things they can accomplish, can only do so much for us.

Our human laws can only struggle to capture the divine wisdom of loving our enemies because they are designed more to maintain order, human justice and protection within a society, whereas the commandment to love our enemies is a moral and spiritual teaching that certainly goes beyond the scope of legal codes.

Our human laws can mandate behaviors like not harming others, but they cannot legislate things that are mainly on the spiritual and supernatural levels which actually are the ultimate dimensions that shape our life not only as persons but also as children of God, created in God’s image and likeness.

While we obviously need to be governed by the rule of law, we should also see to it that we manage to distinguish between the letter of the law and the spirit of the law, and know how to understand and apply our human laws properly.

Ideally, both the letter and the spirit of a certain law should be in perfect harmony. But that is hardly the case in real life. The problem, of course, is that the articulation of the law is conditioned and limited by our human powers that cannot fully capture the richness of human life, considering its spiritual and supernatural character that will always involve the intangibles and mysteries and the like.

That is the reason why we can go beyond but not against a particular human law, when such law cannot fully express the concrete conditions of a particular case. We know very well that strictly following the letter of the law may not align with the law’s intent or broader justice. We need to discern the spirit of the law that involves considering the context, intent of the lawmakers, and the ultimate purpose the law aims to achieve.

For this, we have to understand, first of all, that all our laws should be based on what is known as the natural law that in the end is a participation in the divine eternal law of God, our Creator and the first and ultimate lawgiver. And that part of natural law that is specific to man is called the natural moral law that would recognize, as its first principle, God as our Creator and source and end of all laws.

A legal system not clearly based on this fundamental principle about laws would already be a system that is defective ab initio. A legal system that is based only on some human consensus would put the spirit of the law in full subservience to the letter of that law.

Our human laws certainly need continuing refinement. They should not be regarded as something static or stagnant, averse to the need for improvement. They should continually be diligently perceptive to evolving things, and should be adaptive to new conditions.

That's simply because charity, truth, justice, and mercy, which our laws should in the end embody, have aspects that can be mysterious and that will always demand new requirements from us.

Let's hope that the proper structures are made available to address this ongoing need with respect to continually polishing our laws. 

What is our greatest expectation?

 

By Fr. Roy Cimagala

Chaplain

Center for Industrial Technology and Enterprise (CITE)

Talamban, Cebu City

Email: roycimagala@gmail.com

IT’S, of course, to meet God at our judgment day. This should be the abiding and life-long expectation we ought to have, for which we should always be vigilant and, more than anything else, properly prepared.

We are reminded of this duty in what Christ told his disciples about being always watchful and prepared to receive the master of the servants in his return from a wedding. (cfr. Lk 12,35-38) “Let your loins be girt, and lamps burning in your hands,” he said. He told them that they should be like “men who wait for their lord, when he shall return from the wedding; that when he comes and knocks, they may open to him immediately.”

And Christ continued by saying, “Blessed are those servants, whom the Lord when he comes, shall find watching. Amen, I say to you, that he will gird himself, and make them sit down to meat, and passing will minister unto them. And if he shall come in the second watch, or come in the third watch, and find them so, blessed are those servants.”

In this regard, we have to continually update and upgrade our vigilance skills. Remember Christ telling his disciples: “Beware that your hearts do not become drowsy from carousing and drunkenness and the anxieties of daily life…Be vigilant at all times.” (Lk 21,34.36)

Times are constantly changing. Although we are told that nothing is new under the sun, still we cannot deny that there will always be new developments that will require us to upgrade our skills in handling them, knowing how to take advantage of the benefits they give and to avoid the dangers they also pose.

Truth is the many developments today, while giving us a lot of advantages and conveniences, can also easily lead us to bad things. They can foster complacency, self-indulgence, vanity, pride, greed, envy, discord, etc. They can turn us into materialistic monsters, totally insensitive to the spiritual and supernatural realities of our life and to God himself.

We should never underestimate the tricks and snares of the devil, the false allurements of the world, and the dynamic of our weakened and wounded flesh. These enemies of our soul will constantly make new guises to mislead and tempt us. To upgrade our vigilance skills is not a matter of paranoia. It is to be realistic. It is to be effectively prudent.

What we have to develop is the skill of looking for God first and always in everything that we do in this life. We have to reassure ourselves that that is the best thing that can happen to us. With God, we would know how to properly think, speak, react and behave in any situation of our life. Yes, we are reassured of joy and peace. And most of all, we would be achieving the final goal of our life—our salvation, our sanctity.

We really need to develop an abiding and burning desire to fulfill the real purpose of our life which is precisely for us to be “another Christ,” God’s image and likeness. We should be clear about this ultimate purpose of ours so we can have the proper sense of direction and focus in our life, and the corresponding urge to fulfill it.

To be sure, God is everywhere. Not only that, he constantly intervenes in our life. He is never passive. He is full of love, concern and solicitude for us. We really have to learn how to correspond to this tremendous madness of love God has for us!

Yes, desiring to be with God in the end and always should be our greatest expectation!

“Not to destroy souls, but to save”

 

By Fr. Roy Cimagala

Chaplain

Center for Industrial Technology and Enterprise (CITE)

Talamban, Cebu City

Email: roycimagala@gmail.com

THAT’S what Christ told his disciples, James and John, who, feeling aghast that the Samaritans were not welcoming to Christ, suggested that fire come down from heaven to consume them. (cfr. Lk 9,51-56) Of course, Christ rebuked them, telling them straight that they did not have the right spirit.

The proper spirit is precisely what Christ showed them and to all of us which is that of all-out charity, full of understanding, mercy and magnanimity. It’s a charity that can continue loving even the enemies and would enable one to continue serving everyone even to the extent of giving one’s life as a ransom for all of us. (cfr. Mk 10,45)

We have to be wary of our tendency to fall into what is termed as bitter zeal. While it’s true that we should try to be always zealous in our life, we have to make sure that our zeal is righteous, holy and charitable, not bitter, with a clear and proper sense of purpose, not just aimless.

Righteous zeal is always respectful of legal, juridical and most importantly of moral standards, especially that of charity and mercy. Bitter zeal wants instant results while ignoring legal and moral requirements, let alone the requirements of charity and mercy. It may pursue a valid cause, working for truth and justice, but without taking care of the appropriate means.

Bitter zeal makes a person hasty and reckless in his assessment of things. It fails to consider all angles, to listen to both sides, so to speak. He is prone to imprudence. In the end, it’s animated by the evil spirit of self-righteousness.

Inflammatory, incendiary words are its main weapons. Being belligerent is its style. It relishes in rousing controversies and sowing intrigues. It’s actually not as interested in looking for the objective truth and justice as carrying out one’s own personal agenda.

Especially when we engage ourselves in matters of opinion, we have to learn to practice restraint and moderation since no one has the exclusive ownership of what is right and fair. Opinions are views that are hardly based on absolute truths of faith and dogmas. They are more expressions of one’s preferences and tastes, and therefore we should expect a wide spectrum of differences, since things depend on people’s different temperaments, backgrounds, cultures, etc.

We have to learn how “bear each other’s burdens” as suggested by St. Paul in his Letter to the Galatians (6,2). It’s the surefire formula of how to live genuine charity, one that is down to earth and easily and abidingly doable.

In this regard, we have to learn how to be magnanimous, knowing how to suffer since suffering is an unavoidable consequence of evil. Magnanimity is part of the charity as described by Christ. “Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you,” he said. (Mt 5,44) “If anyone strikes you on the right cheek, turn to the other also…”

We need to enlarge our heart, to make it more universal to accommodate everyone and any situation and condition properly. We should avoid being caught by the grip of our strong views, and even our positions that we think are so essential that they are not anymore subject to opinion.

We have to see to it that our thoughts, desires and intentions, our words and deeds are always animated by charity. There should be no negative elements in them. We have to have a good grip on our emotions, able to dominate and properly orient our biases, preferences and other idiosyncrasies that constitute our differences and even conflicts with others. We have to learn to focus more on what we have in common rather than what divides us. We have to learn how to dialogue with everyone.

The perfection of Christian morality

 

By Fr. Roy Cimagala

Chaplain

Center for Industrial Technology and Enterprise (CITE)

Talamban, Cebu City

Email: roycimagala@gmail.com

TO be upfront about this point, it is when we do everything for the glory of God when we can truly achieve the perfection of Christian morality. Our human acts should not just be done to pursue a purely natural goal, no matter how legitimate it is, as in being interested only in achieving efficiency, effectiveness, profitability, etc. It should all be done for the glory of God.

Aside from the matter of our human acts, which should in itself be in accordance to God’s laws, the intention of our human acts plays a crucial role. With it, we can determine whether we are truly good and moral, or are simply playing around, playing the game of hypocrisy, appearing righteous when we truly are not.

We know that with our intention, we can direct our acts to God, following what was once indicated by St. Paul, “Whether you eat or drink, or whatsoever else you do, do all to the glory of God.” (1 Cor 10,31) That’s how our acts become good, or moral. Otherwise, they are bad, or at least dangerous.

This is so, since God, being the Creator, is the standard for everything. And more than the standard, he is, in fact, the very substance of what is good, true and beautiful, what is fair and just, what is perfection itself.

             

Nothing is good, true and beautiful, nothing is fair and just, nothing is perfect if it is not done with God and for God. In short, we need to refer all our acts to God. We have to make this affirmation very clear in our mind and do everything to make that ideal a reality.

It is actually when we do everything for the glory of God that we achieve the best condition of our life, where we can find peace and joy despite the challenges, trials and the possibility of committing mistakes in our life. It is when we do everything for the glory of God that we can work better.

We should see to it that we have the proper intention in all our human acts, avoiding simply being casual or cavalier about this responsibility. We can easily play around with it, since intentions are almost invariably hidden from public knowledge. We are urged to be most sincere in directing our intentions properly.

We can easily fall into hypocrisy and deception, doing what can appear good externally but is not internally, since we could refuse giving glory to God, which is the proper intention to have, and instead feed and stir our vanity, pride, greed, lust, etc.

We need to actively purify our intentions, since we have to contend with many spoilers in this regard these days. In fact, we just have to look around and see how openly opposed many people are of directing their intentions to God.

We really need to train ourselves to make God the beginning and end, the Alpha and Omega, of all our thoughts, words and deeds. We need to rectify our intentions and keep that rectitude all the way to the consummation of those intentions.

This will indeed require a lot of discipline. Very often we are simply dominated by worldly values, like efficiency, profitability, practicability, etc., which if not inspired by love for God will always fall short of what is proper to us.

Given our unreliable condition, rectifying and purifying our intentions should be a constant concern of ours if we truly are interested in achieving the perfection of Christian morality.

In the end, the perfection of Christian morality is when we do things with God and for God. And that means we do things with God’s grace, identifying ourselves fully with him.

Who we are in the eyes of God

 

By Fr. Roy Cimagala

Chaplain

Center for Industrial Technology and Enterprise (CITE)

Talamban, Cebu City

Email: roycimagala@gmail.com

IT would be good if all the time we have it clear in our mind who we really are, what our true identity and dignity are, in the eyes, in the mind and heart of God. It would help us to stay calm, confident and happy despite the ups and downs of our earthly sojourn.

We are God’s beloved! His love for us, to put it bluntly, is the same as his love for his own self. And that’s because we have been created in very image and likeness, meant to share his very own life and nature.

In spite of our human limitations that are due first of all by our lack of faith in our true identity and by the misuse of our freedom and all the other God-given powers, God never fails to love us just the same. He would go to such an extent as to become man, to preach the Good News to us, and ultimately to offer his life for us. That way, he himself bears all our sins and conquers them with his resurrection.

To top it all, he remains with us all throughout time, his real presence and the ever-ready offer for our redemption are made available in the sacraments, especially in the Holy Eucharist. He knows our weaknesses, he knows that we continue to fall, and yet he is all there, ready to forgive us and to make us new again.

These considerations should always be in our mind. That is the real challenge because we all know that our thoughts and intentions, more often than not, are guided simply by our human reasoning, based mainly on feelings, on worldly standards, etc., rather on the gift of faith that God himself gives us.

God wants to share who he is and what he has with us. But it is us who fail to correspond to such tremendous gift and truth. It would be nice if from time to time, we pause and consider again this most wonderful truth about ourselves.

That awareness, nay, conviction, would help us to live good and happy lives, able to deal properly with whatever human situation and condition we may find ourselves in. We can have the strength to say “No” to temptations, and if ever we fall, we would not hesitate to go back to God, convinced that God’s mercy would always be given to us.

More than that, we would have the power to do a lot of good, to continue working with Christ for the redemption of mankind. Yes, we would be able to “bear all things and conquer all things.”

Yes, there’s really no reason for us to be too worried and anxious when we encounter some difficulty in our life. In fact, we have every reason to be confident and at peace, focused on what we are supposed to do. And that’s because we are always in God’s hands.

Whatever situation we may be in, we can be sure that God will always provide for what is truly needed by us, and it may not be what we want. We just have to trust him completely for he knows better than we do, and what we want may not be what we need. It may not even be what is good for us.

God always knows what to do in any situation we may find ourselves in. He may allow some evil to come to us, an evil that can do us no harm unless we let it, but God knows how to draw good from evil.

We should just remember who we are in the eyes of God!

Overwhelming joy and gratitude

 

By Fr. Roy Cimagala

Chaplain

Center for Industrial Technology and Enterprise (CITE)

Talamban, Cebu City

Email: roycimagala@gmail.com

THIS is how we should feel every time we celebrate or attend a Holy Mass. If we only know what a Holy Mass really is, we cannot help but be filled with extreme joy and ineffable thanksgiving. If we do not feel it that way yet, then it’s time we do something about it.

What we have in the Holy Mass is what we may regard, if we are to be guided by our faith, as God’s supreme gift to us. He did not only create us, making us his image and likeness and given the charge to have dominion together with him over the whole world.

He continues to take care and to love us all the way even if we have been unfaithful to him. And this he has shown by sending his Son to us. His Son is Jesus Christ, the second person of the Blessed Trinity who became man. 

Christ assumed all our wounded condition, becoming like sin himself without committing sin if only to show and give us the way of how we can convert our wounded condition into “the way, the truth and life” meant for us. 

For this, what he did was not only to preach and give us good example of how we should live. He offered his life, assuming all our sins and conquering them through his passion, death and resurrection.

And that is not enough. He perpetuated this supreme sacrifice and gift of his to us by making his very passion, death and resurrection continually present up to the end of time through the celebration of the Holy Mass where he himself gives his whole own self to us as the Bread of Life.

For sure, if we can only capture this reality about the Holy Mass, we cannot help but be overwhelmingly happy and thankful. Thus, the challenge for us now is how to train ourselves, involving our mind and heart, our senses and feelings, etc., to enter into this most wonderful reality of Christ’s gift to us.

Yes, we have to learn how to step into this wonderful spiritual and supernatural reality and teach ourselves to be truly amazed at what happens in the celebration of the Holy Mass. We should not forget that at every celebration of the Holy Mass, we are made contemporaries of Christ in his supreme sacrifice and gift for us on the cross.

It is this sacrifice of Christ on the cross that conquers all sins and evils in this world. We have every reason, despite our weaknesses and sinfulness, to feel ever confident, hopeful and focused on doing what we are supposed to do, that is, to do a lot of good in this world.

In the Holy Mass, we are invited to also join, in vivo, in that sacrifice of Christ. Yes, there is suffering and death involved, but let’s not forget that all this would lead us to that victory of Christ’s resurrection that takes care of everything in our life.

Indeed, we need to prepare ourselves properly before celebrating or attending a Holy Mass. We should know what is actually taking place every time the Holy Mass is celebrated. For this, we need time and effort to condition our mind, heart and our whole being to capture this reality.

It cannot be denied that despite our weaknesses, mistakes and all that, we would be filled with overwhelming joy and gratitude after each Mass that we celebrate or attend.