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THIS is quite a challenge we have. As persons, we are meant to enter into communion among ourselves irrespective of our differences and conflicts, sometimes deep and sharp, and the ever growing and dizzying variety of classifications that we can find ourselves in.

And communion is not simply a matter of physical togetherness, nor of some social, political, cultural, historical and legal reasons. It is much less a matter of biological or temperamental affinities.

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Rather it is a matter of life, a communion of life generated by a love that can take on anything, including what can even go against love. It’s a communion where we can care for everyone, serving him all the time irrespective of how he is.

Yes, there is such love that can tackle anything. It is the love of God who has given us everything so that we can be as we ought to be, persons and children of his meant to live in communion with him and with everybody else. He has shown this love by sending his son to us, the son becoming man and preaching us the good news about God and about ourselves, and ultimately assuming all our sinfulness by dying on the cross.

More than this, it is a love that involves God to be with us all the time in the Church, in the sacraments, in his eternal word—the doctrine of our faith—since this love always goes together with the truth who is Christ himself. It is not a chaotic, anything-goes kind of love.

This is all because of the Holy Spirit who is with us now and always. All of this because we have been created in the image and likeness of God who is love himself.

In short, God has shown us this love, nay empowered us to have this love, through his Son who became man, Jesus Christ, whose continuing presence and redemptive work is now done in the Holy Spirit.

We actually have no excuse why we cannot have this love which God gives us so abundantly. Let’s call to mind what St. Paul says about this divine madness over us. “He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, will he not also give us all things with him?” (Rom 8,32)

These are words that should be engraved deeply in our hearts and in our very consciousness. They give us the reason to hope to achieve what is meant for us, like loving everyone so that we can enter into this universal communion among ourselves in spite of the tremendous differences and conflicts among ourselves, not to mention, our mistakes and sins that we all can commit.

Let’s do our best to conform ourselves to this kind of love. It is actually commanded of us. “A new commandment I give unto you,” Christ says, “that you love one another, as I have loved you, that you also love one another.” (Jn 13,34)

We need to make adjustments in the way we deal with others. While it’s true that we will always have differences and preferences, that we one way or another will always be subjective in our estimation of things, it’s also true that with our spiritual powers plus God’s grace, we can go beyond them even while holding them at the same time. We have to learn the love of God through Christ in the Holy Spirit by praying, by making sacrifices, by learning thoroughly the doctrine of our faith, by having recourse to the sacraments, by waging ascetical struggle and by developing the virtues, etc.

We have to learn how to be patient, broad-minded, compassionate, understanding, tolerant the way Christ was and continues to be. We have to learn how to make our differences and preferences into means of unity through complementation rather than a cause of division among ourselves.

Even our mistakes and sins can be useful. If acknowledged and related to God through contrition, they can be a tremendous source of precious lessons for us that can enrich our wisdom and knowledge.

Of course as humans who learn things, grow and develop toward maturity in stages, we have to start with the small, basic and elementary things, like learning how to distinguish and relate the differences between young and old, male and female, and among the different classifications in terms of temperament, intellectual capacity, emotional and psychological condition, professional work, etc.

Going through this learning process is actually a lot of fun even if it has its share of stress, disappointments, frustrations, etc.

E-mail: roycimagala@gmail.com

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