What is our real treasure?

>> Thursday, July 14, 2022

THOUGHTS AND VIEWS

Fr. Roy Cimagala

WE need to be clear about what our real treasure is. It’s God. It’s when we achieve the fullness of our humanity. And that can only happen when we ultimately become God’s image and likeness, which is how God wants us to be.
    Thus, in the gospel of St. Matthew we hear Christ telling us, “Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and decay destroy, and thieves break in and steal. But store up treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor decay destroys, nor thieves break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there also will your heart be.” (Mt 6,19-21)
    We need to be most wary of our strong tendency to be trapped in earthly things and values. In this regard, we have to be constantly guarded, our heart in the right place, employing the pertinent means to keep us with the right focus and intentions.
    We need to see to it that even as we immerse ourselves as deeply as possible in our earthly affairs, we do not lose our sense of heaven and eternity, our primary relation with God. In fact, the ideal is that as we go deeper in our temporal affairs, our sense of heaven and eternity should also become sharper.
    This is always possible and doable as long as we are guided first of all by our faith rather than by our feelings and by our merely human estimation of things. Let’s always remember that it is our faith, our Christian faith, that gives the whole picture of our life — where we come from, where we are supposed to go, the purpose of our life here on earth, the true value of our mundane concerns, etc.
    Let’s be theological in our thinking and reaction to the things of this world. For that, we of course would need some training. It should consist of always referring things to God, whatever they may be—good or bad, a success or a failure, a victory or a defeat, etc. We need to feel the urge to do so.
    In short, we have to keep our spiritual and supernatural bearing which should involve a certain detachment from the things of the world. For this detachment to be lived, we should assume a certain spirit of gamesmanship or sportsmanship, since the effectiveness of our earthly affairs is not so much in whether we win or succeed in them as in whether we manage to refer them to God whatever the outcome.
    We try to do our best to win in whatever endeavor we do, but just the same, whether we win or lose we remain happy and assured that we are all friends, brothers and sisters, and children of God.
    The detachment involved here can be of the heroic type as illustrated in the gospel. “If your hand or your foot causes you to stumble,” Christ said, “cut it off and throw it away. It is better for you to enter life maimed or crippled than to have two hands or two feet and be thrown into eternal fire. And if your eye causes you to stumble, gouge it out and throw it away. It is better for you to enter life with one eye than to have two eyes and be thrown into the fire of hell.” (Mt 18,8-9)
    In this regard, we cannot overemphasize the need to meditate on heaven often. It’s never a futile exercise. Heaven should so elicit in us the strongest desire and passion that we would be willing to sacrifice everything else, including our honor and life itself.
    Email: roycimagala@gmail.com


When we find ourselves helpless

Fr. Roy Cimagala

SITUATIONS like this can happen in our life. In fact, we have to expect them. With our many limitations and the varying conditions we are subject to, there surely will be times when we find ourselves helpless in spite of all the effort we do to find solutions to our problem. 
    In the gospel, there was this official who approached Christ to importune for help for his dead daughter. “My daughter has just died. But come, lay your hand on her, and she will live.” (Mt 9,18) He must have been hoping against hope that something can still be done for his daughter. And he did the right thing. He approached Christ.
This is the lesson that we too should learn, especially when we find ourselves in similar situations. We should develop the instinct of going immediately to Christ. Let’s avoid rotting in sadness, lamentations, victim complex, etc. We know that what is impossible for us is always possible with Christ. What cannot anymore be solved by us can always be solved by Christ, if not here and now, then in the hereafter.
    Thus, we need to strengthen our faith so we can be quick to entrust ourselves to the workings of the spiritual and supernatural realities that also govern our life. We have to remember that we are not ruled simply by biological laws or physical, chemical, social, political, economic laws. There is a higher law that governs us and that would enable us to transcend our human and earthly limitations.
    This is the law of grace, a law that is spiritual and supernatural in nature. It is the law that enables us to go beyond our human limitations without, of course, compromising our humanity. It is the law that enables us to enter into the very life of God who created us to be his image and likeness.
    We have to learn to feel at home with this particular condition of our earthly life. We have to acquire the relevant attitude and skills to be able to live with this condition. It is when we seem to reach our human and earthly limitations that we have to abandon ourselves to the more powerful and merciful dynamic of God’s providence over us.
    We should always go to Christ. He always has the solutions to our problems, the answers to our questions. He always gives them, albeit not in the form we want, but always in a way that would be beneficial to us.
    In all our affairs and situations in life, we should always go to Christ to ask for his help and guidance, and to trust his ways and his providence, even if the outcome of our prayers and petitions appears unanswered, if not, contradicted.
    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 just have to remember that Christ never abandons us and is, in fact, all ready and prompt to come to our aid, albeit in ways that we may not realize, at first, just like what happened in that story of the two disciples who were on their way to Emmaus. (cfr. Lk 24,13-25)
    We should not allow our feelings of sadness to be so dominant and pervasive that we shut off Christ’s many and often mysterious ways of helping us. Email: roycimagala@gmail.com

Whatever happens, trust God always

Fr. Roy Cimagala

“WHY are you terrified, O you of little faith?” Then he got up, rebuked the winds and the sea, and there was great calm. (Mt 8,26)
    These words of Christ, addressed to his apostles who were terrified when their boat was buffeted by big waves, should remind us that we should always go and trust God, especially in our difficult moments. He takes care of everything, even if his ways may not be in accord with what we want. His way of resolving our problems will always be what is best for us.
    We have to realize firmly that nothing happens in our life without the knowledge and permission of God. And if he allows certain difficulties, calamities, predicaments to come to us, it is simply to give a trial and a chance to prepare ourselves for the end of our life. He always knows how to derive good from evil.
    So, let us never be afraid of anything. We should just learn how to react spiritually and supernaturally, avoiding being trapped in our merely earthly estimation of things. Only then, can we see God’s ever-wise and merciful designs for us in every predicament we can find ourselves in. God’s providence never fails.
With all the things that we have to contend with in this life, we certainly need to have a healthy sense of trust in     God’s loving and wise providence, abandoning ourselves in his will and ways that often are mysterious to us and can appear to be contrary to what we would like to have.
    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.
    Let us quote some words of Christ that form the basis for this belief:
    “Look at the birds of the air, for they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they?  Which of you by worrying can add one cubit to his stature?
    “So why do you worry about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin; and yet I say to you that even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. Now if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is, and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will He not much more clothe you, O you of little faith?
    “Therefore do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ For after all these things the Gentiles seek. For your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things. But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you.  Therefore, do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about its own things. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble.” (Mt 6,26-34)
    We need to engrave these words in our heart so that whatever difficulty we encounter in our life, we would know how to react. Very often, we tend to face things simply on our own, relying only on our own powers that no matter how impressive can only do so much. -- Email: roycimagala@gmail.com

 

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