By Fr. Roy Cimagala *
REMEMBER that beautiful gospel episode of a centurion whose
faith was praised by Christ? (cfr. Mt 8,5-11) He asked Christ to cure
his sick servant and did not want to bother him by going to his place.
“Only say the word, and my servant will be healed,” he said.
So impressed was Christ by this expression of faith that he
could not help but also say, “Amen, I say to you, in no one in Israel
have I found such faith.” And the servant was healed.
That story should teach us the precious lesson that we
should not hesitate to go to Christ to ask for some special and even
urgent and big favor, no matter how unworthy we feel we are. We should
never doubt Christ’s ever-ready response to attend to our needs. He is
always all there for us! We are always special to Christ, even if we
have committed some sins. Never forget that he came to save and not to
condemn.
We just have to take care of our faith. We cannot deny that
in our life we will always be hounded by all sorts of problems and
troubles. But Christ always offers us a way to deal with them properly
and gainfully. Yes, with him, we can even take advantage of these
problems and troubles.
We need to understand that as the very beginning of our life
with God, our life in the Spirit which is a supernatural life more
than just a natural life, our Christian faith has to be taken care of,
nourished and developed to full maturity.
We need to be more aware of this duty and develop the
appropriate attitude and skill to carry out this responsibility
effectively. We have to go beyond mere good intentions or being merely
theoretical in order to be truly practical and vitally engaged with
this obligation.
There is certainly a need to know the content of our faith.
We have to study and meditate on the gospel, the catechism and other
sources. We have to be attentive to the teachings of the Church
magisterium who is empowered and guaranteed by Christ to teach the
faith with authority and with infallibility.
We need to see to it that our thinking and reasoning, our
intentions, words and deeds, should be guided by faith more than just
by our reason, much less by our common sense alone. These latter
sources of knowledge cannot capture the whole of reality, most
especially the spiritual and supernatural aspects of reality.
We should be eager to ask for more faith, and to make many
acts of faith. This is a fundamental attitude to have. Let’s follow
the example of the apostles who said: “Lord, increase our faith.” (Lk
17,5) Also the father of a possessed boy who said: “I do believe,
Lord. Help my unbelief.” (Mk 9,24)
Let’s also remember that to grow in faith we have to be
willing to exert a lot of effort and to make sacrifices. We have to
understand that with faith we are dealing with spiritual and
supernatural realities that do not come easy when we simply rely on
our senses and feelings. Discipline and self-denial are required.
Of course, faith can take root deeply in our life if we
don’t just study it, but also act on it. Our faith should be converted
into action, into life itself!
* Chaplain Center for Industrial Technology and Enterprise (CITE), Talamban, Cebu City
Email: roycimagala@gmail.com
