We are never alone

By Fr. Roy Cimagala

Chaplain

Center for Industrial Technology and Enterprise (CITE)

Talamban, Cebu City

Email: roycimagala@gmail.com

“BEHOLD, the hour cometh, and it is now come, that you shall be scattered every man to his own, and shall leave me alone; and yet I am not alone, because the Father is with me.” (Jn 16,32)

These words of Christ should remind us of what to expect when we truly follow him. We can expect to be misunderstood and abandoned, and yet we should never feel alone because, as Christ said of himself which can also be said of us if we follow him, we can never be alone, because the Father will always be with us.

We just have to train our human faculties—our intelligence and will, our emotions, memory and imagination, etc.—to align ourselves to this truth of our faith. Let’s remember that we are not meant to be guided only by our natural powers. Given the way God wants us to be, we should be guided by God’s supernatural powers—the faith he shares with us, and the many graces and blessings he gives us.

When we feel alone, we have to convince ourselves that we are not with God, and thus, should correct this anomaly that once was articulated by St. Augustine—that God is always with us but our problem is that we often are not with him. Thus, we can feel alone.

But, indeed, we are never alone. Even in our most solitary moments, we have no reason to feel alone. That’s simply because God is always with us, is always intervening in our life, is always pouring out his love and graces to us. 

And if we make the necessary effort, we will also realize that not only is God with us, but that with God we also are with everybody and everything else. We are actually and objectively in a state of communion with God and with everybody else. With our intelligence and will, plus God’s grace, we are wired for this. To feel alone is actually an anomaly and a magnet for all sorts of temptations and dangers to come and hound us.

Not even death nor distance can and should separate us from others, much less, from God. We should be able to echo St. Paul’s words in this regard with conviction: “Neither death nor life, neither angels nor principalities, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord…” (Rom 8,38-39)

Let’s never forget that it is only when we are in the company of God and of everybody else, regarding them in the way that our faith teaches us, that we can manage to be on the right path to our eternal destination. Temptations and sin can come only when we dare to be and to feel alone.

This reminder is timely especially for those who travel alone and find themselves in new, unfamiliar places, and who do not know the people of the locality. On occasions like this, we should make it a point to make extra effort to realize that we are never alone. 

Otherwise, we become easy prey to temptations and falling into sin would just be a moment or some steps away. Let’s remember that it is on these occasions that the devil pulls his most devious tricks. 

He can whisper that since anyway no one knows us here, we can do anything we like. He can induce us to give in to what our wounded flesh likes to do. He can easily lead us to act out our fantasies and our dormant immoral desires.