Keeping our focus on God always strong

By Fr. Roy Cimagala

Chaplain

Center for Industrial Technology and Enterprise (CITE)

Talamban, Cebu City

Email: roycimagala@gmail.com

IN the gospel of the Mass on Monday of the Third Week of Easter (cfr. Jn 6, 22-29), we are told about how more and more people, after learning about how Christ managed to feed 5 thousand people with a few loaves of bread, came looking for Christ. They were even willing to cross the water in boats just to find him.

This reaction of the people should also be our reaction to Christ. We should try our best to develop and keep our attraction to Christ as strong and abiding as possible. We have to convince ourselves that this is the ideal condition for us to be in, and thus, we have to be wary of the constant danger of being drawn and trapped in our earthly affairs only, with Christ regarded only peripherally, if at all.

For this, we first of all should ask for God’s grace which is actually given to us in abundance. And from there, let’s go through some systematic plan of life that will nourish and strengthen our constant and intimate relationship with God, a relationship that should involve our entire self—body and soul, feelings, emotions and passions down to our very instincts, as well as our mind and heart.

It should be a plan that should obviously include prayer in all its forms—vocal, liturgical, ejaculatory, mental, contemplative, etc. Our life of prayer should be such that even when we are immersed in the things of the world due to our work and our temporal duties, we would still be aware of God’s presence, and it is doing God’s will that should always motivate us. Our faith tells us that God is everywhere. It should not be hard to find him.

The plan definitely should include practices that will foster our spirit of sacrifice, penance and purification, given the obvious fact that no matter how much we try to be good, we would always be hounded by our weaknesses and the temptations around, and the possibility of falling into sin is high. This spirit of sacrifice would help us discipline ourselves in order to rally all our faculties for the service of God and of everybody else.

The plan should include a daily effort of ascetical struggle where, aside from fighting evil, we should aim at growing in our love for God and others, by developing the virtues as well as always strengthening them. It should help us to develop a growing concern for others, doing personal apostolates wherever we are and whatever the occasion and circumstance may be.

It should include the frequent recourse to the sacraments, especially the Holy Eucharist and confession. These spiritual and supernatural means are always effective, enabling us to be with Christ even if we do not feel his presence nor his interventions in our life. And it should also include some program of ongoing formation, knowing that our spiritual life would always need that.

It’s important to realize that the net effect of all these should be a strong and abiding feeling of intimacy with God, a strong attraction to him. We should not allow our attractions to stop at the level of some earthly and temporal goods only.  It should be God and his will and ways that should attract us most.

We should also be wary of the constant danger of getting distracted. We have to identify the usual sources of our distractions and plan an appropriate strategy to deal with them properly.

If we could only readily welcome God in our life

By Fr. Roy Cimagala

Chaplain

Center for Industrial Technology and Enterprise (CITE)

Talamban, Cebu City

Email: roycimagala@gmail.com

WE should do everything to be able to readily welcome God in our life. When we manage to do so, we would be apt to share his power too, and like him we can do great things, even miraculous things.

We are reminded of this truth of our Christian faith in the first reading of the Mass of Wednesday of the Easter Octave. (cfr. Acts 3,1-10) Sts. Peter and John went to the temple area and met a crippled man who begged for some alms. But instead of giving alms, St. Peter, strongly invoking the name of Christ, told the fellow to rise and walk, and the cripple started to walk!

“I have neither silver nor gold,” St. Peter told the cripple, “but what I do have I give you: in the name of Jesus Christ the Nazorean, rise and walk.” And the miracle happened.

We should strengthen our belief that if we truly welcome in our life God who, in the first place, takes the initiative to share what he has with us, we too can do what God can. We would be apt to do great things. Obviously, what God shares with us can only be what is truly good for us. We cannot and should not invoke his name to do something that is evil or not in accordance to the will of God.

Let’s remind ourselves frequently, if not constantly, of this wonderful reality, so that we can truly say that we are doing things always with God and not simply by our own selves. It’s not presumptuous of us to remind ourselves of this truth of our faith. We really are meant to share our life with God.

This awareness and conviction of this truth of our faith is necessary for us, since we cannot deny that in our life we will encounter all sorts of challenges, difficulties and temptations and sin, and we should just know how to handle them properly.

When these challenges, difficulties, etc. come, we should immediately remind ourselves of this wonderful truth that God is always with us and is eager to help us, though in ways that may not be accordance to our expectations.

A healthy spirit of abandonment in God’s hands is necessary even as we exhaust all possible human means to achieve our goals or simply to tackle all the challenges, trials and predicaments of our life. We should never forget this truth of our faith.

In this life, we need to acquire a good, healthy sporting spirit, because life is actually like a game. Yes, life is like a game. We set out to pursue a goal, we have to follow certain rules, we are given some means, tools and instruments, we are primed to win and we do our best, but losses can come, and yet, we just have to move on.

Woe to us when we get stuck with our defeats and failures, developing a loser’s mentality. That would be the epic fail that puts a period and a finis in a hanging narrative, when a comma, a colon or semi-colon would have sufficed.

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.

Always give God priority

By Fr. Roy Cimagala

Chaplain

Center for Industrial Technology and Enterprise (CITE)

Talamban, Cebu City

Email: roycimagala@gmail.com

WE can never overemphasize this need. When our relation with God is not strong, deep and abiding, there would be no other way than for us to get into some trouble sooner or later. We have to be wary of the clear and present danger of letting something else to replace God as the Number One priority in our life.

We have to do everything to fuel our need to put God always on top. The ideal that we should always try to pursue is that in our every thought, intention, word and deed, God should be the primary and ultimate object. This definitely will not be an exercise of fanaticism or rigidity as some people may suspect. Rather this how we would attain all the good that is meant for us.

We are reminded of this truth of our faith in the readings of the Mass for Wednesday of the 5th Week of Lent. (cfr. Dan 3,14-20.91-92.95 / Dan 3,5.53.54.55.56 / Jn 8,31-42) The first reading talks about how a king mocked the God of 3 young men who refused to worship his god, and threw them into a burning furnace only to observe that these young men were not burned. That was when the king realized their God was the true God.

The responsorial psalm presents a series of praises we ought to give God. We should make time to develop the habit of praising God because only then would we put ourselves in the proper frame of mind with respect to our abiding relationship with God. Let’s be wary of taking these exercises for granted.

The gospel simply reiterates the fact that only in God through Christ can we have the whole truth that brings us the real freedom and all the other good things meant for us. So, we should make no mistake about this. Only in Christ can we find true freedom. Everything else can only give us, at best, apparent freedom that in the end can only put us into some bondage, if not destroy us.

The reason for this is that Christ, as the son of God and the pattern of our humanity, is the fullness of everything that is objectively true, good and beautiful for us. He is also the one that provides us with the power to do what is good for us, since freedom is mainly about freedom to do what is good.

And since freedom is not only about freedom to do what is good but also freedom from whatever evil can hound and tie us down, Christ also perfectly fits that requirement because as our redeemer, Christ liberates us from all evil that can come to us, namely, our natural limitations, our weaknesses, temptations, sins and death itself.

We need to understand this truth of our faith well, because nowadays it is very easy to be confused about where to find freedom and how freedom should be. That’s because all sorts of ideas promoted by all kinds of ideologies and spread by powerful groups have been flooding the world.

We need to promote the real freedom that is offered to us by Christ. We have to preach about it, in season and out of season, and explain it thoroughly, using arguments that are adapted to the different mentalities and cultures of the people.

We need to make everyone understand that true freedom broadens our mind, expands our heart so as to accommodate everyone the way he is, without forgetting how he ought to be, as well as everything else in life. True freedom is what love is all about.

Truth, justice, mercy always prevail in the end

By Fr. Roy Cimagala

Chaplain

Center for Industrial Technology and Enterprise (CITE)

Talamban, Cebu City

Email: roycimagala@gmail.com

WE have to build up our conviction in this truth of our faith. God always is in control of things, no matter how twisted things in our life can be. The truth that can only come from God, his justice and mercy will always prevail in the end. We may have to suffer for a while, but we should have no doubt as to how things will end.

This is what we can gather from the readings of the Mass for Monday of the 5th Week of Lent. The first reading (Daniel 13,1-9.15-17.19-30.33-62) presents to us the story of Susanna who was falsely accused by some malicious and lustful elders of cheating her spouse for having an illicit affair.

She almost got executed for that false accusation until the young Daniel managed to expose the ruse used by these elders. She was finally exonerated, and the accusers punished instead. The truth about the whole affair came out and justice was served on her.

The gospel (cfr. Jn 8,1-11) talks about a woman caught in adultery and presented to Christ by some scribes and Pharisees for due punishment which was that of stoning her. But Christ at first kept quiet, and when later he told the accusers that he who had not sinned may stone her, these accusers left one by one. Christ then just dismissed the woman with the admonition to sin no more. Here we can see Christ’s mercy dominating the whole incident.

These truths of our Christian—that is, that truth, justice and mercy always prevail in the end—are reiterated in the responsorial psalm, “Even though I walk in the dark valley I fear no evil; for you are at my side” (Ps 23,4) and in the verse before the gospel, “I take no pleasure in the death of the wicked man, says the Lord, but rather in his conversion, that he may live.” (Ez 33,11)

We should not waste time plunging ourselves in worries, sadness and depression whenever we are falsely accused or when we may commit a grave sin. No matter how complicated our problems may be, God will see to it that truth, justice and mercy will always prevail. We just have to strengthen our faith and to remain hopeful all the time, even oozing with confidence and peace.

We have to avoid brooding and focusing on the negative aspects and elements in our life. We should rather focus on the positive ones, because even if the negative things appear to be greater than the positive ones, if we believe in God and trust in his ways, we know that everything will always work out for the good. (cfr. Rom 8,28)

With all the pressures, challenges, trials, etc., that we have to face every day, all of them corrosive of our composure, we need to deliberately foster optimism if only to survive the day, if not to do well, what with all the possibilities that are actually staring at us also every day.

It’s really a matter of attitude, a matter of choice. We can choose to succumb to these negative elements, or to be hopeful, patient and optimistic, looking beyond the here and now and detaching ourselves from the unreliable play of our emotions, knowing that there is always meaning in everything that happens in life.

We need to build up our conviction of optimism and create its corresponding atmosphere and culture around, since we cannot deny that many people and a growing part of the world today are sinking into depression and despair.

With God we have every reason to be happy

By Fr. Roy Cimagala

Chaplain

Center for Industrial Technology and Enterprise (CITE)

Talamban, Cebu City

Email: roycimagala@gmail.com

SINCE God takes care of everything, even in our worst conditions, we have no reason to worry for long and every reason to be happy instead. While we cannot avoid pains and sorrows, we also know, if we truly have God in our heart and we enter into an intimate relation with him, that everything will always work out for the good. (cfr. Rom 8,28)

We should just strengthen our faith in God who always takes care of us, especially in those situations when we would find ourselves already at wit’s end. For this to happen, we should see to it that we know how to be aware of God’s presence and constant interventions in our life.

In the gospel of the Mass for Monday of the 4th Week of Lent (cfr. Jn 4,43-54) we are presented with the example of the great faith of a certain ruler in Capernaum whose son was gravely sick. Even if Christ did not have to go to see the son, he simply believed what Christ told him—that if he had faith, his son would be cured.

This incident is proof of how God is most eager to help us. More than that, God is eager to share what he has with us, since we are supposed to share his life and nature. To be blunt about it, we can say that God shares even his very powers with us.

This, of course, would depend on how strong our faith is, on how receptive we are to what God wants to share with us. And knowing how God is all good, we have reason to conclude that God puts no limits on what he wants to share with us.

The real problem in this regard is us. Our faith and receptivity are not that strong and abiding. Before this reality about God’s loving concern for us, we behave like little children who just want to play around, unmindful of the many great things God is willing to share with us.

We, of course, as we grow more in knowledge and maturity, try to cooperate with God’s will and ways. But our cooperation is often erratic. That is why we have to come up with a certain plan where we grow in our awareness of God’s presence and interventions in our life. More than that, we should grow in our capacity to cooperate with God’s will and ways. This can only happen if our strong faith in God is translated into hope and charity.

We should see to it that as much as possible we always feel the joy of being in union with God. It should be a joy that would make us active and energetic to do a lot of good things. It should be a joy that would enable us to face any situation in our life.

When we feel sluggish, lazy or sad, it’s a clear sign that we are not with God as we should, that we are not corresponding to his will and ways. Let’s remember that more than us, it is God who actually directs and shapes our life. Ours is simply to follow him as knowingly, freely and lovingly as possible.

Again, we have to remind ourselves that Christian life is a happy life even if it also would involve a lot of suffering, challenges and difficulties, for which we just have to learn how to be patient the way Christ bore all the sufferings due to the sins of all men

Let’s learn to listen to God’s voice

By Fr. Roy Cimagala

Chaplain

Center for Industrial Technology and Enterprise (CITE)

Talamban, Cebu City

Email: roycimagala@gmail.com

THIS is definitely a necessity for us. We have to learn to listen to the voice of God who actually intervenes in our life all the time, prompting us about what to think, desire, speak and do. And that’s simply because our life is supposed to be a life with God. We, as God’s image and likeness, are meant to share God’s life and nature, without erasing the distinction between God as Creator and us as creatures.

We need to realize that failing to listen to God’s voice in an abiding way undermines our humanity, and there’s no other way for us to go than to fall into some anomaly. About this truth we are reminded in the readings of the Mass for Thursday of the 3rd Week of Lent. (cfr. Jer 7,28-28 / Ps 95,1-2.6-7.8-9 / Lk 11,14-23)

In the first reading, we are told of how God begged the people to listen to him. “This thing I commanded them, saying: Hearken to my voice, and I will be your God, and you shall be my people: and walk ye in all the way that I have commanded you, that it may be well with you.”

But they refused, and so the inevitable happened. “They hearkened not, nor inclined their ear: but walked in their own will, and in the perversity of their wicked heart: and went backward and not forward…”

The responsorial psalm presents to us God’s appeal to all of us, to which we should try our best to correspond the best way we can. “If today you hear his voice, harden not your hearts.”

The gospel spells to us in no uncertain terms what would happen to us if we are not with the Lord. “He that is not with me, is against me; and he that gathers not with me, scatters.” That’s simply the way the cookie crumbles.

We really need to learn how to listen to God’s voice, discerning his will and ways in an abiding way. In this we should not be sparing in our effort to pursue it. Definitely, it will require a lot of discipline, given the way we are, dominated as we are most of the time merely by what we can get through our senses, emotions and our very limited capacity to know and understand things.

We have to feel more and more at home with the truth that we are meant to be real contemplatives even as we immerse ourselves in our earthly and temporal affairs. It should be encouraged to pursue this effort when we realize more deeply that we are meant to share not only the knowledge of God but also, and more importantly, the very power of God as shown to us by Christ who was willing to bear everything just to save us.

We have to learn to be both active and contemplative in our life. Active in the sense that we immerse ourselves as deeply as possible in the dynamic of earthly and temporal affairs, while also contemplative in the sense that in all these affairs, we see God, we are driven by love for God and everybody else, we get to know, love and serve him and everybody else.

It’s an ideal that definitely is not easy to achieve. But we have our whole life to develop it, and we actually are also given all the means to attain it. It just depends on us as to whether we want to have that ideal or not. We are actually wired and equipped for that ideal, since that’s how God created us.

Beware of the danger of worldly entrapment

By Fr. Roy Cimagala

Chaplain

Center for Industrial Technology and Enterprise (CITE)

Talamban, Cebu City

Email: roycimagala@gmail.com

THIS worldly entrapment is actually a clear and present danger. But the intriguing part is that hardly anyone is aware of it. Many of us allow ourselves to be caught in the widening web of the modern technologies which, while offering us a lot of conveniences, also hook us into the dynamic of self-indulgence, with love for God and the others practically thrown out of the window.

We are reminded somehow of this danger in the readings of the Mass for Wednesday of the 3rd Week of Lent (Dt 4,1.5-9; Mt 5,17-19) where we are strongly told to give priority to following the commandments of God which actually give us the proper condition for us to be in this life.

In the first reading, a prophet told the people of Israel, “Give heed to the statutes and ordinances which I teach you, and do them, that you may live, and go in and take possession of the land which the Lord, the God of your fathers, gives you.” 

And in the gospel of the day, we hear Christ telling the crowd who followed him, “Think not that I have come to abolish the law and the prophets; I have come not to abolish them but to fulfil them.” These words clearly tell us where we can find the fulfillment of the law proper to us—it’s in following Christ.

We should train ourselves to have as our abiding and strongest passion, as our most precious treasure, the need and urge to be intimate with Christ. We actually cannot afford to be without Christ. The only thing to expect in that condition is to get into some form of disaster!

This will, of course, require us a lot of effort, a tremendous dose of faith, hope and charity, to contend with our usual feeling of doubt and awkwardness with respect to this need of ours. But, to be sure, it would all be worthwhile! We just have to humble ourselves and remind ourselves to always pray, to always do things with Christ and for Christ. We should not take this most basic need of ours for granted.

We cannot deny that especially nowadays, the lure and the hook of worldly entrapment that has as its bait the many wonderful technologies we are having these days, can be so overpowering that we can feel helpless before this phenomenon. We really need a lot of discipline to put ourselves always in God’s presence and to consciously follow his will and commandments.

In this we have to help one another. We cannot afford to be casual anymore to this need. All around us are many cases of people in certain types of addiction, obsessions and other forms of bondage.

Even those who appear to be good and saintly-looking can be in the grip of some of these forms of bondage, usually hidden and well covered by all sorts of justifications and rationalizations.

It has to be made clear to everyone that what is proper to us is to have God first and everything else would just follow in their proper order of importance. Let’s never forget that we are meant to be always with God. Our life, given the way we have been created, cannot but be a sharing in God’s life and nature. To stay away from him would be a fundamental anomaly that would have bad consequences for everything else in our life.

We should therefore give priority to our spiritual needs of prayer, recourse to the sacraments, development of virtues, the habit of having the presence of God always, doing everything with God and for God, etc.

Faith should always guide our reason

 

By Fr. Roy Cimagala

Chaplain

Center for Industrial Technology and Enterprise (CITE)

Talamban, Cebu City

Email: roycimagala@gmail.com

THAT Bible story about that Syrian general, Naaman, who was a leper, (2 Kings 5,1-15) and the gospel reading about Christ reproaching the people in the synagogue for not believing the prophets (cfr. Lk 4,24-30) remind us that while we have to make full use of our reason, it should always be guided by faith, it should always bow to faith when at a certain point we are made to choose between our faith and our reason. These are the readings of the Mass of Monday of the 3rd Week of Lent. 

As the Naaman story went, he was at first hesitant to believe what the prophet Eliseus told him, that is, for him to wash 7 times in the River Jordan. He expected that Eliseus would go to him and, invoking God, would heal him.

“Are not the Abana, and the Pharphar, rivers of Damascus, better than all the waters of Israel, that I may wash in them, and be made clean?,” Naaman complained. But his servants managed to convince him to follow what the prophet told him. And when he did, he was made clean.

The gospel story simply reiterates the same point. Christ told the people in the synagogue of their usual tendency when they would prefer to listen to their own reasoning and estimation of things than to what the prophets would tell them. “No prophet is accepted in his own country,” he lamented, and proceeded to tell them that only those who believed the prophet got their favors granted.

We have to realize very deeply that our reason always needs the light of faith. Being the human faculty we use to know and later to love, our reason just cannot be beholden to the data provided by our senses and our own understanding of things.

That would confine our reasoning to the world of the sensible and the intelligible, that is, to the world of matter and of ideas. Thus conditioned, our reason cannot go beyond those levels and would miss the world of the spiritual and the supernatural. It would get trapped in some subjective mode as opposed to what is entirely objective.

It’s important that we do some disciplining to our reasoning because it tends to get contented only with the sensible and the intelligible in the many forms that they come and attract us. It can willingly let itself be held hostage by these dimensions of reality.

We know that our reason does not create the truth. It does not create the reality. It can only apprehend, reflect, process and transmit the truth and reality. It will always depend on a reality that is outside and independent of itself.

And reality just cannot be sensible and intelligible. A lot more goes into it than what our senses can perceive and our intelligence can discern and understand. Our reason itself, if used properly, can acknowledge that at the limits of its capability, it can discern a world that is beyond the physical and the ideal.

This is where we need to humble ourselves, a predicament that many of us find hard to resolve. We tend to hold on to our own ideas and the facts and data that we can manage to gather, guided mainly by our senses and intellect. In short, we make our own selves, and to be more specific, our own senses and intellect, to be our own sole guide, our own god.

Be always merciful and not judgmental

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. (cfr. Lk 6,36-38) “Be ye therefore merciful, as your Father also is merciful. Judge not, and you shall not be judged. Condemn not, and you shall not be condemned. Forgive, and you shall be forgiven.”

This does not mean that we are not meant to make some judgements and some condemnation. We are actually designed by God himself to judge things because that is how we begin to know. Together with those judgements is the possibility of some condemnation, since we really need to reject what we know is truly wrong and evil.

We just have to realize that our judgments and condemnations can never be final, since only God can do that. And that’s because only God knows everything thoroughly, while our knowledge of things, the basis for our judgements and possible condemnations, can only go so far.

In other words, while we try to be as clear as black and white in our worldview, we should never forget that there are many grey areas also that we need to handle with utmost care, delicacy and discernment. And because of that, we have to withhold our final judgements.

This is indeed a most tricky thing to carry out, because while we have to make judgements, we have to know also up to where our judgements can go. And we are told by Christ himself that given this condition of ours we should just have to be merciful the way God in Christ showed mercy to all of us.

And how was Christ merciful to all of us? First of all, being the son of God, he emptied himself to become man. That way, he already adapted himself to our wounded, sinful condition. He identified himself with us so that we would have a way to identify ourselves with him. He preached the truth about God and about ourselves. 

He gave preferential attention to the sick, that is, the sinners. He was always ready to forgive, his mercy and compassion having no limits—“not only seven times, but seventy times seven times,” he said. (Mt 18,22) He taught about loving the enemy and lived it. He did not mind all the insults and mockeries that were poured on him just to accomplish his mission of saving us.

And in the end, he assumed all our sins without committing sin by dying on the cross. In that way, he dealt death to all our sins, and with his resurrection he offered us a way for our own salvation and reconciliation with our Father God. He was thoroughly magnanimous.

This is the ideal we should try our best, with God’s grace, to aim at. This, of course, will be a lifelong, let alone overwhelming, effort and process. But it can be done. And it would be good if we can start it as soon as we can. God waits for us to learn this virtue. And to be sure, he provides us with all that is needed in this regard.

On our part, we have to exert the effort to widen our heart so as to resemble it with the merciful heart of Christ. Everyday, we have to practice to detach our heart from the clutches of our own likes and dislikes, the very earth-and-flesh-bound condition of our physical, emotional and intellectual dynamics, so that it can conform itself to the universal heart of Christ, full of mercy and compassion. 

We have to be wary of the danger of being pharisaical in our judgements.

The power of God’s word

By Fr. Roy Cimagala

Chaplain

Center for Industrial Technology and Enterprise (CITE)

Talamban, Cebu City

Email: roycimagala@gmail.com

WHAT reassuring description we have about God’s word! From the Book of Isaiah in the first reading of the Mass for Tuesday of the 1st Week of Lent, we read: “As the rain and snow come down from heaven, and return no more thither, but soak the earth, and water it, and make it to spring, ang give seed to the sower, and bread to the eater: so shall my words be…” (55,10-11)

What should then be our attitude toward the word of God? I would say that basically it should be the same attitude that we have toward God himself. And the reason is this—since God is absolute simplicity with no division, parts or distinction in his being, his word must be his being also, his whole divine substance himself. 

We, on our part, make some distinction between God in his being and in his word because that is how we understand things in general. We need to distinguish and analyze things, breaking them into parts, before we can arrive at the whole, integral picture.

In fact, in the Trinitarian nature of God, the Second Person whom we refer as the Son, is described also as the very Word of God, the Divine Word, who is God himself insofar as he perfectly and fully knows himself and all his creation. So, God’s word is God himself!

The word of God which now comes to us with some human and natural instrumentalities through the Gospel or the Sacred Scripture together with Tradition and the Church Magisterium, should be regarded in that light. 

Its primary purpose is to bring us back to God. And so more than just giving us some helpful earthly knowledge, it gives us the ultimate spiritual knowledge we need to return to God. This character of God’s word is described in the following words in the Letter to the Hebrews:

“For the word of God is living and effectual, and more piercing than any two-edged sword, and reaching unto the division of the soul and the spirit, of the joints also and the marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.” (4,12)

Its purely eternal, spiritual, sacred and transcendent nature is now subjected to the conditions of time, culture, history, etc., in view of how we are. But we should not forget that it is primarily purely eternal, spiritual, sacred and transcendent, which with our spiritual powers plus God’s grace we can manage to abstract from its temporal, material, mundane and prosaic condition.

Let’s remember that God became man. With his incarnation, the divine word assumes the nature of a human word. And just as God became man to bring man back to God, his divine word becomes human word to bring and reconcile the latter with the former where it comes from and where it belongs to.

Since God’s word is God himself and God is everything to us, we have to understand that it contains everything for our needs, especially our ultimate need to be with God. All things true, good and beautiful are contained in the word of God.

Thus, insofar as our sciences, arts and technologies contain truths, goodness and beauty, no matter how technical they are, we have to conclude that they also come from God’s word and belong there also. 

Anyone who does not acknowledge this truth about our sciences, arts and technologies can be considered ungrateful and presumptuous. We need to overcome the dichotomy that detaches our sciences, arts and technologies from God’s word.

Toughness needed to face life’s challenges

 

By Fr. Roy Cimagala

Chaplain

Center for Industrial Technology and Enterprises (CITE)

Talamban, Cebu City

Email: roycimagala@gmail.com

THAT’S what the readings of the 5th Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year B, reminds us of. From the Book of Job, we are already warned that our life here on earth is some kind of warfare. (cfr. 7,1) And St. Paul in the Second Reading also tells us that we have to learn to be “all things to all men to save all.” (1 Cor 9,22) That’s definitely a tall order, given the way we are.

And Christ himself showed us how our life—with all its challenges, difficulties and dangers—can and should be. In spite of the many good things he already was doing, many more people with great needs came to him asking for help. (cfr. Mk 1,29-39) That he had a very complicated life is indeed an understatement.

All of us, but especially priests and others in similar positions, should be tough and strong. We need to be tough because aside from bearing our own personal burdens, from contending with our own personal demons, we also have to bear the burdens of others. It is no joke to serve like the receptacle of the problems of others and to find ways to help them.

Since we priests, for example, usually hear confessions and give counseling and spiritual direction to others, we cannot help but be affected somehow by what we hear. And the problems of some people can be so heavy and heart-wrenching that we end up exhausted, practically emptied of any strength and energy. 

The worst part is what to say as advice and how to say it. It indeed is a big challenge to be able to present the mercy and love of God when the people’s problems seem to have no human solution or when their miseries and weaknesses seem to be persistent and insurmountable despite their efforts.

In these cases, the challenge is how to present God’s love in such a way that his love and mercy is seen as soothing, acceptable and meaningful. The challenge is how to present God’s love such that even if pain and suffering are unavoidable, people can see that God’s love takes care of everything. They would realize that what they cannot solve, God will always solve it for them in his own mysterious ways.

There is no doubt that a lot of spiritual and supernatural means are needed here. We have to pray that the people’s faith gets stirred and enlivened, that their hope gets reaffirmed and strengthened, that their love for God gets enkindled.

Aside from prayer, a lot of sacrifices are also needed. Prayer and sacrifices vitally unite and identify us with Christ who is the one to give us all the strength and light we need. Let’s remember what St. Paul said in this regard: “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.” (Phil 4,13)

Yes, it’s only with Christ and in him that we priests can truly be tough and strong as we should be as we carry out our ministry of helping people in their spiritual and moral life that can be filled with all sorts of problems and challenges.

Our toughness should be the toughness of Christ who was and continues to be willing to bear all the problems of men, and goes all the way to offer his life for the salvation of men.

Let our hope spring eternal

By Fr. Roy Cimagala

Chaplain

Center for Industrial Technology and Enterprise (CITE)

Talamban, Cebu City

Email: roycimagala@gmail.com

WE all have reason to be always hopeful and even optimistic despite the ugliest fears and worries we may have in our life. And that reason can only be that we can always count on God who is all powerful. Not only that, he truly cares for us, though in ways that may escape our understanding and appreciation. 

This truth of our faith is highlighted in that episode where Christ drove out a legion of evil spirits that possessed a man. (cfr. Mk 5,1-20) Even in the worst scenario, when we inflict ourselves with the gravest of sin, there is still hope because as St. Paul said, “where sin increased, grace abounded all the more.” (Rom 5,20)

We have to reassure ourselves, based on what Christ has promised and has actually done for us, that there can be no crisis that is too big for the grace of God to handle.

We have to remember that nothing happens in this life without at least the knowledge and tolerance of God. And if God allows some really bad things to happen, it is because a greater good can always be derived from them. 

We just have to put ourselves in God’s side to tackle whatever crisis plagues us. That is the real challenge we have to face. And just like what Christ did and continues to do to redeem us, we have to follow the formula he once spelled out: deny ourselves, carry the cross and then follow him. (cfr. Mt 16,24)

If we are willing to do that, then we can even gain a lot more than what we appear to lose and to suffer. In other words, we can say that the bigger, the more serious the problem, the bigger, plentier and stronger also the grace God will give us. So, let us just be game and do our part of the bargain.

It’s not easy, of course. But neither is it impossible. It would really depend on how we see things. If we only consider the enormity of the problem, then we cannot help but feel overwhelmed and even get discouraged. But if we consider God’s abundant grace, even the impossible can be possible for us.

We need to educate ourselves to always remain calm and optimistic when faced with grave problems, and just try our best to discern what God is showing us with respect to resolving a crisis.

Yes, we have to learn to suffer. But let’s never forget that there is always the resurrection of Christ. Christ has already won for us the war against any form of evil. We just have to learn to be with him and not to be so stupid as to do things simply on our own.

We have to strengthen our conviction that every problem and crisis is an opportunity to grow in strength and quality in our spiritual life, in our love for God and others and the world in general. Yes, we need to develop a proper love for the world. We have to conquer the world that will always be beset with the effects of our sins.

Again, let’s do all this with a sporting spirit based on our faith, hope and charity. We may get dirty from time to time, but we can always get up and then move on. To repeat, there is no crisis too big for the grace of God to handle!

The need to unite our will with God’s will

By Fr. Roy Cimagala

Chaplain

Center for Industrial Technology and Enterprise (CITE)

Talamban, Cebu City

Email: roycimagala@gmail.com

THAT need is clearly seen when Christ himself said: “Whoever does the will of God is my brother and sister and mother.” (Mk 3,35) If we always abide by our Christian faith that we have been created in God’s image and likeness, meant to share in his divine life and nature, then the only conclusion we can make is to unite our will with God’s will.

Our will, which is where we find our true selves, should not just be floating around on its own, thinking that it is how it enjoys its freedom. We need to acknowledge that our will is a creation of God and is meant to be united with God’s will. We need to acknowledge the truth that our real freedom is when our will is united with the will of God.

This, definitely, is not an easy task to do, given the fact that it is precisely in our will where we choose whether we would like to be with God, to be part of his family, or to be simply on our own. And given how we handle this issue, starting with our first parents all the way to the present, we always have the strong tendency to think that our will is simply our own.

We therefore have to be strongly wary of this danger and do everything we can to avoid it. I suppose it goes without saying that we need to be frequently reminded that our will needs to be anchored on the will of God. That’s how our will acquires its proper status.

Especially nowadays when there are just so many things that can grab our will to be on its own, we really need to train ourselves to develop a strong regimen of self-discipline and constant rectification.

It would be good if we frequently make pauses during the day to see where our will is anchored. That’s because even in those areas where we can exercise a certain autonomy or where we are encouraged to make initiatives, etc., we should be clear that all these things should be done in accord with God’s will. Everything should be referred to God’s will.

We need to always remember that our true humanity or the perfection of our humanity can only be properly pursued if our will is united with God’s will. Christ, the pattern of our humanity, shows us the way when he himself said, “Truly, I tell you, the Son can do nothing of his own accord, but only what he sees the Father doing.” (Jn 5,19)

This constant need to refer everything to God’s will will obviously require tremendous humility on our part, given our strong tendency to do our own will alone. That’s why Christ himself said that if we have to follow him, we need to deny ourselves and carry the cross. (cfr. Mt 16,24) There is no other formula for us to discipline our will to be united with God’s will. 

We need to convince ourselves strongly and frequently that it is when our will is united with God’s will that we can achieve the condition proper to us. Yes, it may involve a lot of sacrifice, but the joy and fulfillment such sacrifice would yield us is so much greater, infinitely greater than any sacrifice we may have to go through.

It’s important that we be always aware that our will is always united with God’s will! That’s where we can be in our best condition in life.

Let’s be like little children

By Fr. Roy Cimagala

Chaplain

Center for Industrial Technology and Enterprise (CITE)

Talamban, Cebu City

Email: roycimagala@gmail.com

“LET the children come to me, and do not prevent them; for the Kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these.” (Mt 19,14) With these words, Christ is giving us a clear idea of how it is to be in heaven. We should be like little children, a bit messy perhaps but definitely with a pure heart devoid of any malice. We should strive to be like them in spite of our advanced age and exposure to the things of this world.

To be sure, it’s not a call to be childish, as in being whimsy, capricious, thoughtless. Rather we are asked to be always humble and simple, full of trust in the authorities and especially in the providence of God, and eager to believe in what is good, precisely like a child whose worries are few and not deep and lasting.

We have to remember that Christ also said that even while we have to be simple and innocent like doves, we should also be shrewd and clever like serpents. (cfr Mt 10,16) We have to find ways of how to blend these two apparently contrasting qualities together.

To be child-like is to have a lot of faith in God. It is to be led more by that faith than by our merely human estimation of things. It is to accept whatever happens in our life but always be confident that God never abandons us and is leading us to him through the ups and downs of our life.

To be child-like is to have a pure and innocent heart, incapable of malice, ambition, pride and arrogance. It is to have the confidence that even our defects and mistakes, if immediately referred to God, do not really matter much.

To be child-like is to be transparent, simple and sincere, unafraid to be known as they really are, warts and all. The knowledge and vast experience they gain in life do not alter their simplicity which neither negates prudence and discretion.

To be child-like is to be welcoming to suggestions and corrections made on them. These do not make them feel humiliated, but rather thankful. To be child-like is to be teachable, flexible and docile. When one is child-like, he can be told anything and he tends to believe and obey. Attainments, achievements and successes do not spoil him. Neither do difficulties, temptations and failures crush them and plunge them to sadness or bitterness.

To be child-like is to be easy to be motivated and consoled. It is to be optimistic despite problems and difficulties. Falls and mistakes are easily forgotten. To be child-like is to be disposed to see things as they are, whether they are self-evident natural truths or highly mysterious supernatural realities. What is not understood is simply accepted and believed, relying simply on the recommendation of parents and elders.

To be child-like is to capture the spirit of the beatitudes, where being poor in spirit, being meek or in a state of mourning, being pure of heart and being persecuted, insulted and the like are no big problem. They are good occasions to go closer to God.

And more directly, St. Paul said: “When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child. But when I became a man, I put away childish things.” (1 Cor 13,11)

The Baptism of the Lord

By Fr. Roy Cimagala

Chaplain

Center for Industrial Technology and Enterprise (CITE)

Talamban, Cebu City

Email: roycimagala@gmail.com

IT’S one of the intriguing episodes in the gospel. Why did Christ ask to be baptized by John the Baptist? In fact, John was hesitant to do so. “I need to be baptized by you, and do you come to me?” he said. (Mt 3,13) But Christ insisted. “Let it be so now; it is proper for us to do this to fulfill all righteousness,” Christ told John. And so, Christ was baptized.

This “to fulfill all righteousness” must mean that Christ wanted to establish the sacrament of baptism through which all of us can become members of his mystical body, the Church, and sharers of the merits Christ earned for us through his redemptive mission. With this sacrament we are given the chance to earn the “all righteousness” that is meant for us.

This episode of Christ’s baptism also highlights the interesting fact that Christ was clearly confirmed as the Son of the Father. That’s when suddenly a voice was heard while Christ was still immersed in water, “You are my beloved Son; with you I am well pleased.”

We should therefore have no doubt as to the importance and indispensability of the sacrament of baptism and as to the identity of Christ in whom we should give total belief and love. 

Our belief in Jesus as the Christ, as the First Letter of St. John says, proves that one is born of God. This is how one becomes a child of God. More than that—by believing in Jesus as the Christ, one shows his love for God by keeping God’s commandments. (cfr. 5,1-3)

Again, the question may be asked: why do we still need to be baptized if in the first place, man has already been created in God’s image and likeness? The answer, of course, is that the original image and likeness man had at the beginning was deformed because of the sin of our first parents that led all of us to be born with original sin. We need to recover our dignity as children of God.

This was done when God became man in Christ who offers us “the way, the truth and the life” that is proper to us. We need to be conformed to this God-made-man. And this conformity of ours to Christ starts to take place in our baptism.

This time, our continuing creation and testing would need us to conform to the sacrament of baptism which was instituted by Christ himself through his own baptism in the River Jordan.

With baptism, we have Christ as the pattern of our salvation, embedded, so to speak, in our life. That is why we need to be baptized. It is to recover our original dignity as true children of God, his image and likeness, meant to participate in the very life and nature of God. 

With Christ, we can receive the supernatural grace that would enable us to attain our ideal state. It would not be enough for us to know God with our intelligence and to love him with our will, without God’s grace through Christ.

We need to clarify and emphasize the importance and necessity of baptism since there is now a trend to downplay this sacrament in our life. But even before that problem came to be, the usual issue is that many people do not realize the implications of the sacrament—that we need to duly correspond to the abiding redemptive action of Christ all throughout our life.

We have to be aware that once baptized we commit ourselves to vitally identify ourselves with Christ, which is going to be a lifelong process!

The mysterious ways of God

By Fr. Roy Cimagala

Chaplain

Center for Industrial Technology and Enterprise (CITE)

Talamban, Cebu City

Email: roycimagala@gmail.com

THE story of how St. Andrew discovered his vocation as one of the apostles gives us an interesting insight into the mysterious ways of God. (cfr. Jn 1,35-42) As narrated in the gospel, he was just curious about where Christ was staying, and not only did he end up becoming an apostle, he managed to draw his own brother, St. Peter, to be one also.

Things like this can happen in life. What may appear at first as something insignificant and casual may end up as something extraordinary and very special. It can even happen that what may appear first to be something against the things of God can provoke an instant conversion, just like the case of St. Paul who in the middle of his campaign against the early Christians heard the voice of Christ that led to his conversion.

The providence of God, the ways of God, can certainly work beyond what we can imagine and expect. It can adapt itself to the ways of men and can take advantage of whatever human condition and circumstance there is to execute his divine designs for us. As is said, God can write straight with crooked lines.

There have been many stories of unlikely characters who became saints or at least made significant transformations for the better in their lives. That was the case of St. Augustine, for example. 

Of course, there also have been unfortunate stories of men and women who started well but ended badly. This only shows that in our relationship with God, there is always the interplay of God’s grace and our freedom. It’s in how we use our freedom that would determine whether things would go north or south.

What we should draw from this observation is that every event, condition and circumstance of our life, whether considered humanly good or bad, can be a pathway to God if we only know how to deal with these situations properly, as shown to us by Christ himself.

Yes, Christ has shown us how to deal with any situation, whether we are at the peak of human glory and success, or at the abyss of the worst human misery imaginable. That is why we can never overemphasize the need for us to know and follow Christ who himself said that he is “the way, the truth and the life” for us.

Making Christ the center of our life, making him alive in our life through our prayer, studying his life and words, and having recourse to the sacraments, etc., should be the main concern that we should have. After all, he is the one who will enable us to make any situation in our life as a way to heaven, a means to achieve our sanctification which is the fullness and perfection of our humanity.

That is also something that we have to be more aware of. The fullness and perfection of our humanity is when we truly become God’s image and likeness, sharers of his divine life and nature, as he wants us to be. This truth of faith may sound too incredible to us, but that is just how it is.

Let’s remember that we are not meant to understand everything about God and ourselves. What we are meant is to be guided by faith, hope and charity more than anything else.

New Year thru Mary

By Fr. Roy Cimagala

Chaplain

Center for Industrial Technology and Enterprise (CITE)

Talamban, Cebu City

Email: roycimagala@gmail.com

HAPPY NEW YEAR, everyone! Once again, we begin a new year and let’s hope that as another year starts, we can truly say that we are getting stronger in our resolve to pursue the real purpose of our life here on earth.

Liturgically, January 1 celebrates the divine motherhood of Mary which tells us a lot of amazing things. From the Letter of St. Paul to the Galatians, for example, we are told this wonderful, if incredible, truth about ourselves, about who we really are:

“When the fullness of time had come, God sent his Son, made of a woman, made under the law: that he might redeem them who were under the law, that we might receive the adoption as sons. And because you are sons, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into your hearts, crying: Abba, Father. So, you are no longer a slave but a son, and if a son then also an heir, through God.” (4,4-7)

We need to process these words slowly so they may sink into our very consciousness and start to live them out. Hopefully, we can little by little overcome whatever disbelief and awkwardness we can feel about this truth about ourselves.

Of great help to us in this regard is to have a deepening devotion to Mary, the mother of Jesus and our mother. If we try our best to imitate her faith in God, we too, despite all the difficulties and effort involved, can somehow also incarnate Jesus in our own lives. We are actually meant for that, since we are patterned after him and he is also the savior of our humanity that has been wounded by our sins.

With Mary always in our mind and heart, we would always be led to Christ. She would teach us how to find Christ in everything that we do, no matter how mundane things are. Even the little ordinary things we deal with everyday can be an occasion to have an encounter with Christ as well as a chance to be like Christ as we should. As one saint had put it, Mary is the shortest, surest and safest way to Jesus.

If we truly have Mary in our mind and heart, then we can learn how to always ponder the truths of our faith and to act on them. (cfr. Lk 2,19) Yes, we can develop a contemplative life even right in the hustle and bustle of our earthly affairs. Yes, we are all meant to be contemplatives because we need to be aware that we are meant to live our life with God and with everybody else.

We are never alone. Feeling alone is an anomaly in our life. As persons, endowed with intelligence and will, we are meant to be always in relation with God and with everybody else. This potential of ours should be actualized. We need to find ways of how to actualize such potential.

We need to see to it that we should always feel the urge to pray, to engage with God, to be with him. If we do not feel that urge yet, let’s convince ourselves that we have something most important to work on. Thus, like the disciples of Christ, impressed by how Christ was to them, we should beg him to teach us how to pray. (cfr. Lk 11,1-4)

Again, Happy New Year, everyone! And good luck!

“A holy day has dawned upon us”

 

By Fr. Roy Cimagala

Chaplain

Center for Industrial Technology and Enterprise (CITE)

Talamban, Cebu City

Email: roycimagala@gmail.com

FINALLY, it’s Christmas! A child is born for us! Thus, in the Alleluia verse of the day’s Mass, we are made to say: “A holy day has dawned upon us. Come, you nations and adore the Lord. For today a great light has come upon the earth.”

It’s indeed a day of great, indescribable joy! In the Opening Prayer of the Mass for the day, a beautiful sentiment is expressed: “Lord God, we praise you for creating man, and still more, restoring him in Christ. Your Son shared our weakness: may we share his glory…”

Once again, our Christian faith tells us who we really are. Despite our natural awkwardness in believing this truth of our faith, the truth is that we have been created to be like God, to share in his very life and nature. And no amount of our sins and foolishness can detract from that truth. God will do everything to recover us. All we have to do is to go along with God’s will and ways as far as we can.

We need to process this truth of our faith about ourselves very slowly, because it will obviously astound us to think that we are supposed to be one with Christ. Who, me, one with Christ? We most likely would be tempted to say, tell it to the Marines!

But that’s just the naked truth about us, whether we like it or not.  We cannot be any other if we just bother to know why it is so. An expression that is relevant to this matter is ‘alter Christus,’ another Christ. And it’s worthwhile to know what it is all about.

We are supposed to be ‘alter Christus,’ the goal and ideal that is meant for us, though we need also to do our part, free beings as are, to achieve that status. God, our Creator and Father, wants us to be that way, though he does not impose it on us without our consent that should also be shown with deeds and not just with intentions and words.

We are supposed to be ‘alter Christus’ simply because, if we have been created in the image and likeness of God, and Christ is the Son of God who is the perfect image and likeness that God has of himself, then we can only conclude that we have to be like Christ.

In other words, Christ as the Son of God is the pattern of our humanity. If we want to know who we really are, how we ought to be, all we have to do is to look at Christ and try our best, with God’s grace, to identify ourselves with him.

More than that, because of our sin that defaced the original state in which we, in Adam and Eve, were created, Christ is the Son of God who became man to save us. The immediate conclusion we can derive from this truth of our faith is that for us to know how to handle our sinfulness, again all we have to do is to look at Christ and try our best, with God’s grace, to identify ourselves with him.

So, let’s welcome Christ to our life. At his birth on Christmas Day, we should also remind ourselves that Christ actually wants to be born in each of us, so we can truly be “alter Christus” (another Christ), if not, “ipse Christus” (Christ himself).

Have a Merry and Blessed Christmas, everyone!

Sports as preparation for Christmas

By Fr. Roy Cimagala

Chaplain

Center for Industrial Technology and Enterprise (CITE)

Talamban, Cebu City

Email: roycimagala@gmail.com

CHRISTMAS being the birth of Christ our Redeemer, we should be properly prepared for it in both body and soul. The spiritual preparation, of course, takes precedence over the bodily preparation, but the latter also needs to be given due attention, otherwise our spiritual readiness to receive Christ on Christmas Day would be undermined.

One good way to make ourselves bodily prepared for Christmas is through sports. If its true purpose is understood and lived well, sports can give us a tremendous help in properly welcoming Christ into our lives.

We have to understand that sports should not just be a matter of winning in a game or in a race. While that is the immediate intention of anyone who plays, we should go beyond that level and capture the more important purpose of sports.

Sports should train our body and all its faculties—the senses, emotions, passions, imagination, memory, etc.—to be properly aligned to the true dignity of man which is that of being the image and likeness of God, children of his, sharers of his divine life and nature. 

In short, sports should make us like Christ, the pattern of our humanity and the savior of our damaged humanity. How? By seeing to it that we regard our life here on earth like a sport too, where we have to train ourselves, submitting ourselves to a certain discipline, etc.

We should echo what St. Paul once said: “Everyone who competes in the games goes into strict training. They do it to get a crown that will not last, but we do it to get a crown that will last forever. Therefore, I do not run like someone running aimlessly. I do not fight like a boxer beating the air.” (1 Cor 9,25-27)

This discipline required in sports and in our life is somehow indicated in the readings of the Mass of December 19 where we are told about Samson whose hair should not be cut (cfr. Judges 13,2-7.24-25), and about John the Baptist who would not take strong drinks. (cfr. Lk 1,15)

The real victory that our sports should give us is not so much a matter of winning a particular game, or of making a lot of points, etc., as in making us more a child of God, filled with love for God and for everybody else, whether we win or lose in a game.

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 fall into states of sadness, pessimism and despair which actually are unnecessary and 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 everytime we go astray, especially at the end of the day.

Christian confidence amid mysteries

 

By Fr. Roy Cimagala

Chaplain

Center for Industrial Technology and Enterprise (CITE)

Talamban, Cebu City

Email: roycimagala@gmail.com

WE are now days before Christmas. Our longing for the birth of Christ is heightened, thanks to our tradition of the Simbang Gabi that up to now enjoys vast popularity especially among the simple people who are gifted with a lot of faith. Let’s hope that this tradition continues “sine fine” or “in aeternum.”

In the readings of December 18, we are told about a branch of David that will be raised up, a king who is wise and shall execute judgment and justice in the earth. (cfr. Jer 23,5-8) This is, of course, referring to Christ himself. We should feel the excitement of his coming.

Thus, in the responsorial psalm, we are made to declare with joy, “Justice shall flourish in his time, and fullness of peace for ever.” (Ps 72,7) Obviously, that’s what Christ would accomplish, although his kind of justice and peace may not coincide with our own ideas of them.

The gospel of the day talks about Joseph who thought at first to divorce from Mary when he found her with a child in her womb even before they lived together. But a special divine intervention was made to clarify the matter to him. And he immediately changed his mind and followed what God had wanted him to do and to be. (cfr. Mt 1,18-25)

All these readings somehow tell us that we have every reason to be confident and happy even amid some mysteries and unpleasant circumstances, as long as we stick to God in his will and in his ways. This trust in God should always be nourished by us.

We need to realize that our life always has more to offer to us than what we can understand, let alone, cope. In the face of all this, I believe the attitude to have and the reaction to make is to be calm, pray hard, and while we do all we can, we have to learn to live a certain sense of abandonment in the hands of God.

In this life, we need to develop a sportsman’s attitude, since life is like a game. Yes, life is like a game, because we set out to pursue a goal, we have to follow certain rules, we are given some means, tools and instruments, we train and are primed to win and do our best, but defeats can always come, and yet, we just have to move on.

It would be unsportsmanlike if we allow ourselves to get stuck with our defeats and failures, developing a loser’s mentality. That would be the epic fail that puts a period and a finis in an ongoing narrative, when a comma, a colon or a semicolon would have sufficed.

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.

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

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