Our most radical identity

Fr. Roy Cimagala

WE need to be clear about who we really are. Before we identify ourselves by the name we bear, or by the many other data that describe our identity, like our gender, our nationality and legal status, our place and date of birth, our residence, etc., we have to know that we are first of all creatures of God, raised to be his image and likeness, children of his, and in spite of our defects and mistakes, redeemed and continually loved by him.

This is our core identity on which all the other specifications of our person are based and through which they are all animated. When we identify ourselves or distinguish ourselves from everybody else, we should not forget that we are first of all creatures and children of God.

This is the bedrock of our identity that offers us the ultimate context and perspective for everything that can happen in our life. With it, we would know the proper way of understanding all the events of our life, big or small, good or bad, etc. In other words, it’s this foundation of our identity that would enable us to have a universal outlook.

That would spell a big difference. Such acknowledgement does not compromise our uniqueness. It would rather enhance our singularity without detracting from the fact that we all belong to the family of God, object and subject of his love and his laws, as well.

But it would relate our uniqueness to the universal collectivity of humanity.

We need to recover the awareness of this truth about ourselves. That’s because at the rate the world is developing right now, with all the multiplying developments in every field of human interest, there is the big danger to fall into personal isolation and social fragmentation, since these developments, if not handled properly, favor the anomalies of self-seeking, self-assertion, self-absorption and plain self-centeredness.

With the consciousness of our most radical identity, we would know how to cruise the ocean of life, with all its ups and downs, its twists and turns. That’s because with such awareness, we dispose ourselves to have the mind and the ways of God who knows how to handle things irrespective of how they evolve.

We need to understand that the dynamics of God’s plan for each one of us is not like that of an architectural plan, or that of a political strategy, with so many alternative options like Plan A or Plan B, etc.

God’s plans and ways have the dynamism of grace or divine love that knows how to adapt to any situation no matter how much we complicate or mess up things. They are not rigid or limited or controlling in a human way. They are flexible, with limitless possibilities and capabilities, and always open and somehow game to any situation and condition.

In the worst scenario, when we openly and abundantly go against God’s plans and ways—in other words, when we deliberately sin against him in a systematic way—God’s plans and ways would never fail, since he knows how to derive good from evil. As St. Paul once said: “Where sin has abounded, the grace of God has abounded even more.” (Rom 5,20)

God is open and game to however we use or abuse our freedom. Though our freedom in theory can be infinite, given our spiritual nature, it somehow can be limited by the more infinite and powerful providence of God that is full of wisdom, love and mercy.

That is why, when we think, for example, of what God’s will is for us either in any given moment or in the context of our whole life, we should not think that he has a will that is like our last will and testament, all items and conditions spelled out to the last detail.

His will is both dynamic and at the same time definitive.

His will can only reflect the very essence of God who is full of dynamism and yet is not changing. That certainly sounds like a contradiction, but it is a truth that we cannot understand fully, since this is a mystery, and as such, goes beyond what our rational mind can comprehend.

We have to remember that we cannot reduce God’s plans and ways to our own ideas of how things can and ought to be. Here, what is needed is the exercise of our faith that is given to us by God himself freely and abundantly.

By being aware of our most radical identity, we unite ourselves to God’s plans and ways, no matter how erratic we are in our human affairs.

E-mail: roycimagala@gmail.com