“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.

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 examples 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.

Hypocrisy and the proper motive for all our actions

 

By Fr. Roy Cimagala

Chaplain

Center for Industrial Technology and Enterprise (CITE)

Talamban, Cebu City

Email: roycimagala@gmail.com

IN a number of instances, Christ lamented over the hypocrisy of some of the leading Jews of his time. At one point, he said: “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, you hypocrites. You lock the Kingdom of heaven before men. You do not enter yourselves, nor do you allow entrance to those trying to enter.” (Mt 22,13) And more “Woe to you’s” followed after that.

What in the end Christ was trying to tell us in these instances was that if our motive for all our actions is not love for God which will always involve love for everybody else, we cannot avoid falling into self-indulgence and all other forms of selfishness and egoism which we try to hide. In short, we cannot avoid playing the game of hypocrisy.

We need to realize deeply that all honor, praise and recognition should be given to God alone since he is the source of all good things. If we would just pursue our own idea of what is good, we can only go so far before we end up doing crazy things which we would try to hide or rationalize.

We have to familiarize ourselves with this Latin expression, “Deo omnis gloria” (To God be all glory) because that is how we should articulate our motive for all our actions. We actually are nothing without God. Without God the only thing we can do is evil.

Thus, St. Augustine once said that there is a fundamental choice we have to make in all our actions. It’s always a choice between loving God and loving ourselves in a way that excludes God. We have to make sure that we make the right choice of loving God always.

For that, we have to make some conscious effort to really offer everything we do to God as our way of giving glory to him which, in the end, is what should characterize our relation with God. To be blunt about it, we have been created by God to give him glory, that is, to love him, to follow his will, which is what would make us God’s image and likeness as he wants us to be.

But given our wounded condition due to our sins, we really need to ask for God’s grace and to exert our all-out effort. Perhaps, a prayer we can make in this regard would be the following: “Incline my heart according to your will, O God.”

It’s a passage that is drawn from a psalm (119,36) that expresses a plea for God to guide our heart, our will, affections and desires towards God’s will and away from worldly temptations.

It’s a plea that would certainly help us lead to the ideal unity and consistency of life, one that is lived with God always as it should be. That’s because as God’s creature, we are meant to belong to God. But also, as a rational and spiritual creature, we are not meant to belong to God in a merely physical way. We have to belong to God knowingly and willingly, to the point of sharing his life and very nature.

Thus, when we are not doing things with God and for God, we are contradicting the proper relation we have with God who is our Creator, Father and Redeemer. We would just be living and doing things purely on our own that has no other end but to be in the wrong side.

What is to be truly great

 

By Fr. Roy Cimagala

Chaplain

Center for Industrial Technology and Enterprise (CITE)

Talamban, Cebu City

Email: roycimagala@gmail.com

DEFINITELY, it is not in being adorned with sorts of medals and public recognition, showered with all kinds of honors and privileges. It’s rather in being simple and humble, in having a heart completely emptied of its ego and filled with love and compassion for everyone, even to the extent of offering one’s life for the others out of love, the way Christ offered his life for all of us.

We are reminded of this truth of our faith in that gospel episode where the disciple asked Christ, “Who is the greatest in the Kingdom of heaven?” (Mt 18,1) To this, Christ simply called a child over, and placing him in their midst, said: “Amen, I say to you, unless you turn and become like children, you will not enter the Kingdom of heaven. Whoever becomes humble like this child is the greatest in the Kingdom of heaven.” (Mt 18,2-4)

There you have the clear description of who can be considered truly great and how we can be so. It is to be like a child, simple and humble, the qualities that would enable us to be like Christ himself, able to capture and assume the very spirit of God in whose image and likeness we are.

We have to acknowledge the intimate and mutual relation between simplicity and humility, on the one hand, and greatness on the other hand. When one is great in his earthly stature and dignity, he knows he has to serve more and to give more, to be truly great. True greatness is never shown in pride and vanity. It is proved and verified in humility and simplicity.

Christ is the epitome of true greatness. And he showed it by going through this process of self-emptying that St. Paul once described in this way—that Christ “being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage; rather, he made himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to death—even death on a cross!” (Phil 2,6-8)

This mutual relation between humility and greatness is expressed when we manage to value others, whoever and however they are, above ourselves and when we look after their interest instead of our own. (cfr. Phil 2,3-4)

In other words, our greatness is when we are fully driven with love. That’s when we would not have any dull moments since we would always be thinking of others, of how to help them. We would even be most willing to make sacrifices for them. We would have our whole life dedicated to serving God and others.

This is what we clearly see in the life of Christ. Let’s call to mind that stunning example of his when he shocked his apostles when he started and insisted to wash their feet at the Last Supper.

For us to have this humility and greatness in our life, we need to be always with Christ. We need to be in constant conversation with him, referring everything to him, asking him for the answers to our questions, clarifications to the many issues we have to grapple with in life, strength for our weaknesses and temptations, contrition and conversion after our falls, etc.

Always with God while in the midst of the world

 

By Fr. Roy Cimagala

Chaplain

Center for Industrial Technology and Enterprise (CITE)

Talamban, Cebu City

Email: roycimagala@gmail.com

THIS is the ideal condition for us to be in. Given the way we are, as willed by God himself, our Creator and Father, we need to be always with him all the time even as we go through our earthly and temporal affairs. To acquire the art and skill for this is definitely a very important, if not an indispensable, requirement of our life. More than that, to have the very spirit of God is the bottom line of our life here on earth.

This does not mean that we have to stay away from the things of the world. Rather, we have to learn to love the world without being worldly, trapped in its ways without leading us to God. 

The secret for this is to see to it that our mind and heart are always with God. We should not allow ourselves to be fully taken by the charms and deceiving allurements of the world. A certain sense of vigilance and detachment is needed so that we avoid ignoring God as we engage in our worldly affairs. 

But yes, we need to love the world and the things in it the way God loves them. After all, God created them and all he created is good. We just have to understand the true nature and purpose of the world. It has been created for us to be tested whether what God wants us to be—that is, to be his image and likeness, children of his, sharers of his life and nature—is also what we want ourselves to be.

We have to be wary when we get swallowed up by our earthly and temporal affairs, making them the main objective in our life rather than a mere occasion and means for us to achieve our real goal as defined for us by our Creator. The world is supposed to be only a pathway to heaven where we truly belong. The proper attitude we should have toward the world is to love it without becoming worldly.

That is the challenge! So, the question to ask is: How does God love it so we can also love it the way he does? We just cannot rely on our ideas and ways of loving the world, because without God, that loving would be suspicious at best. 

Let’s remember that as Creator, God has given everything in the world its proper nature and laws whose purpose is nothing other than to give glory to himself. We on our part can only use and develop the world properly when we respect the God-given nature and laws of everything that is in it. More than that, we should try to discern how each thing in the world becomes a living part of the abiding providence of God over all of us.

We have to be wary of our tendency to ignore the designs of God in the world and to simply pursue our own personal interests, leading us to fall into self-indulgence. Rather, what we should try to do is act as a Christian leaven that infuses the Christian spirit in all our worldly and temporal affairs.

This duty to be a leaven for the world is actually very doable, because what is needed first of all is the intention to do so. We may not be doing something with big public significance or some external manifestation, but with the little ordinary things that we do everyday and done with faith and love for God and for others, we can already effectively leaven the world.

The priesthood

 

By Fr. Roy Cimagala

Chaplain

Center for Industrial Technology and Enterprise (CITE)

Talamban, Cebu City

Email: roycimagala@gmail.com

AUGUST 4 being a Memorial of St. John Mary Vianney, patron saint of priests, is a good occasion to review who a priest is and how he should be. St. John Mary Vianney (1786-1859), also known as the Cure of Ars, can provide us with a good idea about this since he was well known for his heroic priestly and pastoral work in a parish in France that resulted in a radical spiritual transformation of the community and its surroundings.

To be a priest is actually a profound calling to serve Christ and the Church that necessarily involves a deep relationship with God, a commitment to holiness, and a dedication to lead others to Christ. It is a ministry of sacrifice, love and availability to the people entrusted to his care. 

With the sacrament of Holy Orders, the priest shares in the priesthood of Christ himself, that is, Christ as Head of the Church and not just a member of it. This is another proof that God shares his power with us since, in the end, we are meant to be his image and likeness, sharers precisely of his life and nature.

The priest, so ordained, should realize more deeply that he should transform himself into Christ, and to love and suffer as Christ did for everybody, and to see the things of the world through the eyes of Christ. His lifestyle should be that of total self-giving, unafraid of the effort and costs it involves. This, of course, would require a special vocation.

As such, a priest is expected to be a model individual, a living example of faith, love and holiness that should effectively inspire others to follow Christ. He has to see to it that people see and hear Christ through him. He is not just a good orator, an amusing comedian, or a creative artist. Of course, it would be good if he could integrate all these good traits but seeing to it that it is Christ that is seen and heard by the people.

This is, of course, a very overwhelming ideal for a priest to pursue. Thus, a priest should be so deeply rooted in prayer and to spend time with God that he can fairly say he is acting “in persona Christi capitis” (in the person of Christ as head of the Church). He has to realize that his formation—human, doctrinal, spiritual, pastoral, etc.—is a continuing affair, a till-death pursuit.

A priest should have a very deep love for souls, always making himself available to the people, offering guidance, comfort and support. He should give priority to the celebration of the sacraments, especially Confession which is a means of grace and healing. Of course, the daily celebration of the Holy Mass holds the most important duty for him.

If every person is supposed to be “alter Christus” (another Christ) since we are all created in God’s image and likeness which is what Christ is, the priest should be the first one to show it to the world, aware that he is called to be the very instrument of God’s love and grace.

To be a priest should be an all-time affair. Once a priest, he is a priest forever. He cannot say that he is a priest at certain moments of the day only when he celebrates the sacraments, or in certain situations and conditions in life. He is and should be a priest at every breath he makes. 

The priest as agent of unity

 

By Fr. Roy Cimagala

Chaplain

Center for Industrial Technology and Enterprise (CITE)

Talamban, Cebu City

Email: roycimagala@gmail.com

THIS is the ideal condition for clerics to be in, when controversial issues, especially in the area of politics, are involved. Though they can have their own views and opinions, they should see to it that instead of insisting on their own views and even on their beliefs, they should listen to all parties and try, in a charitable way, to sort things out. Everyone always has a valid point to make even if at the end they can be wrong.

Let’s remember that no error or anything evil can stand on its own. It always has to stand on something true and good that may not be fully appreciated or understood. Everyone should be made to realize that no one has the monopoly of what is true and good. We should try our best not to project ourselves as having that monopoly. Otherwise, we would only cause division among ourselves.

Let’s hope that we can persuade our politicians to go slow on their views and positions regarding certain issues. They should always be open to having courteous dialogues with the different parties involved.

Only God has that monopoly since he is the author of all that is real. And if we study how he handles that monopoly, as shown to us by Christ, who is the fullness of God’s revelation to us, we would know that while he was clear about what is right and wrong, what is good and evil, he was open to all kinds of views and beliefs even as he made clarifications and corrections, sometimes quite strongly, but in the end always with mercy. 

We have to be wary of our tendency to have some kind of exclusivism or monopolistic mentality, which is part of our wounded human condition. This is due mainly to our tendency to use merely human or worldly standards, instead of the sense of unity that comes from God and is what is truly proper to us, children of God as we are.

We also tend to stereotype people, to box them in, practically straitjacketing a person as if that person cannot change for the better. We seldom give others second chances. We end up being stricter than God who always blends his strictness with mercy.

Priests should promote the culture of respectful dialogue in the world of politics. That is truly how they can humanize and Christianize politics, rather than allowing it to go to the dogs where all sorts of uncharitable and unfair means are used just to hold on to some political power.

Here a lot of prudence and discretion are needed. It’s indeed a tall order that should not be used as an excuse to completely be indifferent to the goings-on in the political world. And priests should realize that this is part of their pastoral duty toward the faithful.

It’s about time to apply the brakes on the free-fall toward utter chaos that our politics in general, here and abroad, is clearly heading for. We should avoid at all costs any temptation of bullying just to make our point.

Truth is, politics has to be humanized and Christianized through charity. It just cannot be left alone, fully at the mercy of our passions, brute force and worldly elements. It too can and should be a way to our sanctification. 

Politics ought to be pursued always in charity. It cannot be any other way, since charity is the mother of all virtues and good values. If we want justice, truth and fairness, charity has them all. If we want competence, order, discipline, etc., again charity has them. If we want objectivity, charity has it. Charity covers all our needs.