By Fr. Roy Cimagala *
IT’S the season of Advent again, opening a new liturgical
year. There can be many things that can come to mind with this season
of Advent. For one, it’s a time of expecting and preparing for the
birth of Christ on Christmas. That is in the short run. In the long
run, it is also a time of expecting and preparing for the second and
glorious coming of Christ, the Parousia.
Advent also means that since it marks the beginning of
another liturgical year, we need to re-enliven our sense of making a
new beginning in our spiritual life that is the very foundation of our
whole life, since it is what relates us to God, our Father and
Creator, our be-all and end-all, as well as to everybody else. There,
therefore, is a great need to make some serious and effective plans
and strategies to pursue that most important goal of our life.
We have to remember that our life here on earth is like a
divine project that has a beginning and an end, and a very concrete
purpose. But it’s a project that we also take active part in, since as
an intelligent and free creature of God capable of knowing and loving
God and others, we are meant to knowingly and lovingly correspond to
God’s plans for us individually and collectively. We are not passive
materials in this project.
And this divine project takes the form of a yearly cycle,
what we call as the liturgical year, where the working of the whole
economy of salvation that God has for us, takes place. God’s
interventions in our life are actually constant and abiding.
This yearly cycle of the divine project is meant to prepare
us for our ultimate eternal destination. It would be good if we make
ourselves most aware of this truth of our faith, so that we know what
we ought to do in this earthly life of ours.
For this, a prayer that can be helpful is the Glory Be,
where we find the words, “As it was in the beginning, is now, and will
be forever.” Let’s put our mind and heart into these words if only to
remind ourselves strongly that we need to have a good sense of
continuity and consistency between our beginning and end, between the
past, present and future, and between time and eternity.
Let us foster the awareness of this basic truth about
ourselves and about our life here on earth. We need to encourage
everyone to have a clear and strong sense of purpose, and to know how
to pursue it given our human condition and all the means that God has
given us.
We therefore cannot overemphasize this basic need of ours to
make plans and strategies. If we have to develop ourselves as we
should, if we have to be truly productive and fruitful, if we have to
take advantage of everything in life, whether good or bad, to attain
our ultimate goal, then we have to plan and strategize our moves.
Making plans and strategies may require some time and
effort, but it’s an investment that is all worth it. The little time
and effort required can actually multiply our time and make our
efforts more productive at the end of the day. It’s like the little
rudder that St. James talked about in his letter. (cfr. 3,4) Our plans
and strategies can have the power to accomplish great things, like a
little rudder giving direction to a big boat.
* Chaplain Center for Industrial Technology and Enterprise (CITE), Talamban, Cebu City
Email: roycimagala@gmail.com
