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Chaplain
Center for Industrial Technology and
Enterprise (CITE)
Talamban, Cebu City
Email: roycimagala@gmail.com
“SO
you also are now in anguish. But I will see you again, and your hearts will
rejoice, and no one will take your joy away from you.” (Jn 16,22)
With
these words, Christ is reassuring us that everything will be all right even if
in this life we will always have problems and troubles. He will take care of
everything. Ours is simply to try our best to be with him in the ups and downs
of our life. And so we should just be sport in our life.
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.
Besides,
life involves a till-death struggle against all sorts of enemies, starting with
our own treacherous self, the ever-seductive world, and most of all, the
spiritual enemies who certainly are more powerful than us.
Finally,
life involves pursuing a goal that is much greater, yes, infinitely greater
than ourselves. We should not be a bad sport who gives up easily without even
trying, or who surrenders in the middle of an exciting and suspenseful game.
We
therefore have to develop a strong spiritual sportsmanship in the tenor
expressed in some words of St. Paul: “Do you not know that in a race all the
runners run, but only one receives the prize? So run that you may obtain it.”
(1 Cor 9,24)
Aside
from a strong sense of self-discipline and submitting ourselves in a continuing
training program, an indispensable ingredient of this healthy sporting spirit
is the sense of acceptance and abandonment that we need to deliberately
cultivate. This does not come automatically, as if it’s part of our genes. We
have to develop them.
We
have to be sport and adventurous in facing the different conditions of our
life. And it would greatly help if we too can have an abiding sense of humor.
Otherwise, we would just 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.
When
we have this sporting and adventurous spirit, we, of course, would like to play
to win and to get as much enjoyment as possible. We would give our best shot.
But we also know that this is not going to happen all the time. There will be
times when we lose in a game or when we get lost in our adventure. But
regardless of how things go, we can always go back to God as we should, and
everything would just be all right.
Thus,
whether we win or lose in a game, succeed or fail in our adventures and
projects, we can still manage to have fun and, more importantly, to learn
precious lessons, as in, we get to know more about ourselves and others, about
our strengths and weaknesses, about the virtues we need to develop and grow,
etc.
