A commitment is not a straitjacket

Fr. Roy Cimagala

FAR from straitjacketing or stereotyping us, entering into a commitment would simply show that we are so driven with love and a deep sense of freedom that we are willing to take on whatever consequences our commitment would make on us.

We are human with a soul that is spiritual but with a body that is material. While our spiritual self orients us to the infinite and to an endless range of possibilities, our material self puts us under so many conditions and specifications. In a sense, a commitment concretizes the spiritual in us.

We have to learn how to blend these two fundamental qualities of our being, because we can neither be purely spiritual nor purely material. We have to be both. Our spiritual self needs to be materialized, while our material self needs to be spiritualized.

And entering into a commitment simply puts the spiritual and infinity-oriented character of our love and freedom into the material conditions and specifications of our life. A commitment is our love and freedom expressed in a concrete and specific way. It makes our love and freedom avoid being fuzzy. Rather, it makes them clear.

While a commitment has its costs, requirements, and obligations, we would be willing to meet and assume them precisely because of love and our sense of freedom. A commitment shows our level of maturity. When we enter into a commitment, we know what we are giving up in order to gain something much better than what we give up.

A commitment reflects what Christ once said about a certain detachment that is necessary to be with him. “If anyone comes to me and does not hate his father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters—yes, even his own life—he cannot be my disciple,” he said. (Lk 14,26)

We have to understand what Christ really meant by “hate” here. To be sure, it does not mean that we hate anyone in the usual way we understand the word “hate.” Let’s remember that we are commanded to love everyone, including the enemies.

Rather to “hate” here means to be detached from anyone, no matter how close he is to us, who can sort of compete with our love for God. Nothing and no one should stand in the way of our love for God, knowing that by loving God fully, we also would know how to love everybody else properly.

A commitment will always involve some sacrifices, some giving up. This happens when a man marries a woman. He marries her because he loves her, but when he already marries her, he is committed to love her till death, with a love that, since it involves the body, is exclusive.

By marrying he knows that he has to raise a family, and therefore should be ready to take on the pertinent responsibilities that will require a lot of sacrifices.

The same when a man enters the priesthood. He submits himself to the requirements of celibacy, poverty, and obedience, making himself as available as he can to the assignments given to him by his bishop and the spiritual needs of the people.

A man with a good sense of commitment knows that even if he has a concrete way of doing things, he is not envious of how others are with their own way of doing things. Neither does he feel superior or inferior to them because of their different lifestyle.

A commitment to a vocation provides one with a specific path to reach his ultimate goal, which is to be with God in heaven. One knows that his commitment to a vocation is one path among many others that can bring us to heaven. We just have to respect each other and try to figure out how we can mutually help each other.

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Reaching out. If we truly want to follow Christ, we should always feel the urge and the passion for reaching out to those who are lost, separated from him and his Church, those who are confused and in error, those in the peripheries in whatever sense “peripheries” can be understood, whether in terms of spirituality and morals or in social and economic terms, etc.

This, I suppose, is to have that universal attitude of Christ to save all men as evidenced by what St. Paul once said: that God our Savior “desires all men to be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth.” (1 Tim 2,4)

That is why Christ himself, before he went up to heaven, told his apostles, “Go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature.” (Mk 16,15) And if we preach that gospel integrally, we should not fail to realize that Christ gave special, solicitous attention to the lost, to the sinners, the weak and the sick, etc.

He, for sure, loved everyone, but he gave special attention to the lost, the sinners, the weak, the sick. He was uncomfortable only with those who were self-righteous, rigid in their own old ideas and ways of what is good and bad, what is to be with God and what is to go against him. They seem unable to improve on what they already have defined.

This truth of our faith can be seen in the lessons we can learn from the parables of the lost sheep, the lost coin and the prodigal son. (cfr. Lk 15,3-32) And all over the gospel, we can always see Christ giving special attention to the sinners and less privileged. “I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners, to repentance,” he very clearly said. (Lk 5,32)

We should try our best to adapt this same attitude of Christ. Like him we should be willing to make sacrifices just to reach out to those who are lost. We should not be afraid to get dirty, and more importantly, we should find new ways to be able to reach out to them.

That some people are lost can mean that the usual ways of dealing with souls and the status quo of the spiritualities around, do not quite work with them anymore. We have to find new ways, inspired always by the Holy Spirit, to deal more effectively with their predicament.

This is not to go against the old and traditional, or against what already has been defined by the Church’s magisterium. It is rather to find new ways and to innovate, but always under the guidance of the Holy Spirit who never runs out of new things while retaining the old ones.

This can be seen as part of Christ’s teaching as when he, in that parable of the lost sheep, said that the shepherd left behind the 99 of his 100 sheep that were already secure, just to look after the lost one.

We can just imagine what imaginative, creative and innovative things the shepherd had to do, not to mention, the effort and sacrifices he had to endure, just find the lost sheep. Even in our own spiritual lives where there will always be something that is not working well, thus, we always need find new, innovative ways to deal with it. We cannot remain with the status quo of our spiritual life.

Thus, in dealing with those who are far from God or from the Church, we have to find ways of how to effectively deal with them.

Some give-and-take will have to be made without compromising what is essential. And what is essential is in the end the spirit of love that Christ showed us, a love that goes all the way to assuming the sins of men and offering his life on the cross.

Email: roycimagala@gmail.com