Taking care of our powers

Fr. Roy Cimagala .

WE need to give due attention and care for our spiritual faculties of the intellect and will. As our Christian faith tells us, of all the powers and capabilities we have, it is the intellect and the will that make us image and likeness of God before all the other components of our humanity, like our body, can partake of the same dignity.

That’s simply because these powers of ours enable us to know and to love, and therefore, allowing us to enter into communion with the objects of our knowledge and love. They are spiritual powers that transcend the dynamics of our physical or material constitution, i.e., our biological, chemical make-up, etc.

As such, these powers of ours are capable of receiving and acting not only on things of nature, but also on the spiritual and supernatural realities. A philosophical term is applied to this phenomenon. And this is called their “obediential potency,” that allows them to be elevated to the supernatural order, to the world of grace, the world of the spirit and of God.

As a Catholic dictionary would put it, obediential potency is “the capacity to receive either a miraculous change or a supernatural perfection that exceeds the natural capacities of a being.” Of all the creatures of God, we, together with the angels, have that potency.

It stands to reason therefore that we have to give due attention and care for these powerful faculties of ours. We just cannot allow them to develop on their own, simply guided by what our senses can discern.

They have to be inspired and guided by the things of God who give us a share not only of his knowledge but also of his very life through the gifts of faith, hope and charity, or the gift of grace in general.

Unless our spiritual faculties of intellect and will are guided by faith, hope and charity, they can only go anywhere and nowhere, and in fact can expose and lead us to a lot of dangers.

Indeed, they can be our worst enemy, our gravest curse!

Without faith, hope and charity, or without grace, we may know a lot of things and get involved also in significant human affairs, but we will fail to reach the goal meant for us. We would be prone to get entangled in controversies and endless contentions.

That is why nowadays we see a lot of controversies and wranglings, bashings, not to mention sins that are now considered as the right things to do, like abortion, contraception, corruption, same-sex marriage, divorce, etc.

With faith, hope and charity, or with grace, we get to see and behave beyond the physical sense and to reason beyond the human sphere. In short, we get to reflect the life and the ways of Christ in our own lives, Christ who is the very pattern of our humanity and the redeemer of our wounded humanity.

To be sure, letting our intellect and will to be inspired and guided by faith, hope and charity does not undermine the natural operations of these spiritual faculties of ours. If at all, it will only enhance their functions, using them in their fullest potentials.

With faith, hope and charity, our intellect and will can avoid getting trapped in a bubble that isolates them from the spiritual and supernatural world. With faith, hope and charity, even the smallest and insignificant activity of these spiritual faculties can acquire an eternal value.

We need to see to it that our intellect and will are truly inspired and guided by these theological virtues, going deep in our knowledge of the doctrine of our faith, availing of the sacraments, developing the virtues, and waging a lifelong ascetical struggle.

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The sinner and his sin. It is said that we have to love the sinner but hate the sin. I suppose that’s simply because what is wrong is sin itself, but the one who committed it, though he may be guilty of what he did, is still a brother or a sister of ours whom we have to love and help to get back to the right way.

It is easier said than done, of course. What usually happens is that we are easily overtaken by our feelings and emotions and, in a sense, throw the baby with the bath water. That is, while we hate the sin for the inconvenience, damage and other evils it causes, we end up hating the sinner also. This is a very common phenomenon.

We have to find ways of distinguishing the sinner from the sin. But the basis for this effort to keep loving the sinner in spite of his sins is the example of Christ. We need to meditate often on the life and death of Christ, because it is where we are shown how to love the sinner while hating the sin.

And the example of Christ is clearly that of proclaiming the truth about what is right and wrong, what is good and evil, and of offering forgiveness for everyone, even if the requirements of justice were not fully met yet. Anyway, with what we owe Christ, we can never fully fulfill the requirements of justice.

This is something we have to learn as early as possible.

We just have to deepen our knowledge of what is right and wrong, what is good and evil, and conform our life to it as best as we can. And then like Christ, let us be quick to forgive, or at least, to offer forgiveness, just as we have to be quick to ask for forgiveness if we are ones in the wrong.

Of course, we should also be interested in living as best as we could the requirements of justice among ourselves. But we should also realize that no matter how much we try to live justice, we can never have it perfectly. And the last word we have to give is that of mercy. Mercy is the ultimate expression of justice.

Like Christ, we have to be willing to bear the burdens of the others. That’s precisely what St. Paul said in his Letter to the Galatians. “Carry each other’s burdens,” he said, “and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ.” (6,2)

Yes, Christ just bore all our sins to save us, to bring us back to where we came from and to whom we belong—God. He just had to forego the requirements of justice to reconcile us with God. That was why he just kept silent when he was tried and sentenced to death in the most unfair trial of all times. He did it to save us.

That is the attitude we ought to have when we are faced with the sins of men. While sins will always be sins and ought to be condemned, we have to do everything, including foregoing justice and just handing mercy, to save the sinner.

We may even have to find excuses for the sinner who can be ourselves too. Not only that, we can and should take the initiative to bring the sinner back to the right path, even if that effort would meet resistance and hostility.

In other words, let’s have the magnanimity of Christ, his heart that is full of love and compassion. Otherwise, if we just get stuck with our concern for justice, we will never end in our wrangling, our quarreling, our animosities, etc.

Remember, the sinner is still our brother or sister. He or she is still a child of God.

E-mail: roycimagala@gmail.com