Redeeming while being redeemed

Fr. Roy Cimagala .

THAT’S how we are in this life. We are both co-agents with Christ in our own redemption as well as objects of such redemption that is wrought out primarily by Christ and instrumentally by us.

Yes, we are co-redeemers with Christ, concerned not only of our own redemption but also that of everybody else. In fact, our own redemption would depend on how we involve ourselves together with Christ in the redemption of everybody else.

This is not about falling into some psychological disorder that some people refer to as the “Messiah complex.” It is not a complex, because it is what we are meant to be, and who we ought to be.

Obviously, because of its supernatural character, it may appear as unnatural. But what it actually does is to perfect our humanity and elevate it to the supernatural order of the life of God and to involve us in his redemptive work on us. That is because of all the creatures, we are made to be his image and likeness, meant to share in his life and in his work.

This is a basic truth about ourselves that we need to be most familiar with, so that we can conform ourselves to it and live it as fully as possible. And the secret is, of course, to unite and identify ourselves as closely as possible with Christ, assuming his mind and heart, his desires and his life itself which he provides so directly and easily.

Remember that Christ as the second person of the Blessed Trinity and the perfect image that God has of his own self is the pattern of our humanity, and as the Son of God who became man, he is the redeemer of our damaged or wounded humanity.

He both does the work of redemption and shows us how we can be redeemed by simply suffering and dying for our sin. That is why from the beginning of his earthly mission, he already knew what was going to happen to him. He was even predicting his passion, death and resurrection, something that his apostles did not quite understand at first and were hesitant to ask for an explanation.

We need to assume the mind of Christ to be both co-redeemers with him and the object of his redemptive work. This means that we too need to suffer and die as Christ suffered and died for us, so that we too can resurrect with him.

As St. Paul said in his second letter to Timothy, “If we died with Him (Christ), we will also live with Him. If we endure, we will also reign with Him. If we deny Him, He will also deny us. If we are faithless, He remains faithful, for He cannot deny Himself.”(2,11-13)

What we can derive from this consideration is that our attitude toward suffering and death in life should be the same as that of Christ. It should be active, and not merely passive. We have to look for it, not avoid it. As much as possible, if we are generous and heroic, we have to look forward to a lot of suffering and to death itself.

That was the attitude of Christ as it was in all the saints. The latter were not afraid to suffer and die. In fact, they looked for it. We have to learn to look for suffering and to be happy with it, but with the same motivation as Christ and the saints had.

It is for the sake of our being co-redeemers with Christ as well as the object of Christ’s redemption on us. Let’s leave behind our fear for suffering and death. Let’s welcome them the way Christ and the saints welcomed them.

It’s when we assume the mind of Christ when we suffer and die that we co-redeem with Christ as well as being redeemed by Christ.

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God predestines no one to hell. One burning question many people ask is, if God is truly God and knows everything from all eternity, why does he still create a person when he would already know that that person would end up in hell? Does he not predestine that person to hell?

The answer, of course, is a big No. God predestines no one to hell. If one gets to hell, it is because of him rather than because of God who will do everything to save that person. His mercy is forever, but we, with our freedom, can manage to reject that mercy, to reject God definitively.

It may be difficult to imagine that a person can definitively reject God, given our weaknesses, but it is still possible. That’s why there is hell, as revealed in the gospel. Hell is not just a literary device to scare us and to pressure us to behave well.

It’s purely God’s love, his goodness, his desire to share what he has with us that makes him create all of us irrespective of whether we reciprocate his love or not. To be sure, God loses nothing if we choose to lose ourselves from him. We are just being given a chance to be with Him for eternity, with his help.

But God will continue to love everyone. As St. Paul would put it, God “desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth.” (1Tim 2,4) He loves everyone, including those in hell.

In a manner of speaking, he cannot help but love everyone because he is love himself. (cfr. 1 Jn 4,8)

And since we are supposed to be the image and likeness of God, we are supposed to reflect and assume that same attitude toward everybody else. We need to love everyone, including our enemies as Christ himself told us, because God loves everyone.

This can mean many things in practical terms. It can mean, for example, that we have to be understanding of everyone, always charitable, quick to forgive, willing to suffer and even to die for the others. It can mean that we should not be judgmental and that we try to find excuses for the defects and mistakes of the others. And more than condemning others for their mistakes, our attitude should be to help them.

When we are humbled by others and even offended, we should avoid fighting back, imitating the example of Christ who, according to St. Peter, “did not retaliate when they heaped abuse on him. He made no threats when he was made to suffer, but entrusted himself to the One who judges justly.” (1 Pt 2,23)

Given our human condition, wounded by sin, we really would need to train ourselves thoroughly to acquire this attitude and spirit of God especially toward those who not only do not reciprocate our love but also who contradict and offend us.

Of course, we would depend first of all on the grace of God which is actually given to us abundantly. Just the same, we have to ask for that grace and correspond to it as faithfully and generously as possible, so we can have the same spirit as Christ, as God wants us to have.

Toward this end, we have to learn to suffer, even to the extent of suffering the way Christ suffered and died to achieve our salvation. We should not be afraid to go through some extreme sufferings, because a lot of blessings can definitely come to us. God cannot be outdone in generosity. If we are generous with him, he will be much more generous with us.

God’s love is such that he is willing to suffer and die for us as shown by Christ. That is how we should be, how our love for others should be. If God predestines no one to hell, neither should we condemn anyone definitively.

E-mail: roycimagala@gmail.com