Advent asks us to begin well again

Fr. Roy Cimagala . 

WITH the season of Advent which marks the beginning ofanother liturgical year, we are reminded of our duty to begin well again in ourspiritual and moral life, in our life that is meant for loving God andeverybody else.

We have to remember that our life here on earth is like a divine project that has a beginning and an end, and a very concrete purpose. But it’s a project that we also take active part, since as an intelligent and free creature of God capable of knowing and loving God and others, we are meant to knowingly and lovingly correspond to God’s plans for us individually and collectively. We are not passive materials in this project.

And this divine project takes the form of a yearly cycle, what we call as the liturgical year, where the working of the whole economy of salvation that God has for us, takes place. God’s interventions in our life are actually constant and abiding.

This yearly cycle of the divine project is meant to prepare us for our ultimate eternal destination. It would be good if we make ourselves most aware of this truth of our faith, so that we know what we ought to do in this earthly life of ours.

For this, a prayer that can be helpful is the Glory Be, where we find the words, “As it was in the beginning, is now, and will be forever.” Let’s put our mind and heart into these words if only to remind ourselves strongly that we need to have a good sense of continuity and consistency between our beginning and end, between the past, present and future, and between time and eternity.

Let us foster the awareness of this basic truth about ourselves and about our life here on earth. We need to encourage everyone to have a clear and strong sense of purpose, and to know how to pursue it given our human condition and all the means that God has given us.

We cannot deny that many of us are ignorant of this truth. And if not, many are doubtful and skeptical. There are even those who are openly hostile to this truth, swayed as they are by some ideologies not based on faith but rather on some human estimation alone.

The youth especially are quite vulnerable. Often hooked to the many isms of the times, they give little regard to the truths of our faith. Even among those who profess the Christian faith, we can still find many who are inconsistent. As our bishops once observed, many of us are quite sacramentalized, but not evangelized.

In this Year of the Youth, let’s hope that we can do something to make the young people more mindful and competent in developing and living out their authentic Christian identity and dignity. They need to be pastorally accompanied, for sure, and very closely at that.

They have to be reassured of the truths of our Christian faith. A lot of explanations have to be done in this regard. But more than that, they have to be shown proofs and means of how to effectively live out these truths of our Christian faith. For sure, they will need models to look up to, and we just have to pray that we won’t be lacking in this department.

The youth, in general, look for authenticity in the things that we tell or teach them. They at first may have a rather shallow and fleeting appreciation of things, but once they get convinced, they are capable of a deep and lifelong sense of commitment.

Let us underwrite this task with a lot of prayers and spirit of sacrifice!

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State of the art. People nowadays are fascinated, and even obsessed, with getting the latest version of their gadgets. They look forward to having the so-called state of the art. To a certain extent, it’s a fascination that is legitimate as long as it does not deteriorate into an obsession which is already an anomaly and also as long as their intention is pure.

That might be a quixotic condition, given the way many people are nowadays. While reasons for greater convenience and practicality are okay in having the state of the art, such reasons many times get diluted with traces of pride, vanity, envy and the like. And that is not okay.

Besides, while this state of the art offers many more conveniences and advantages, it also brings with it new dangers. That is why we have to understand that the state of the art in our technologies should also be matched with the state of the art in our spirituality and morality. We should not have the former without the latter.

Remember Christ saying that new wine should be poured into new wineskin and not the old one. (cfr. Mt 9,14-17) We have to update the state of our spirituality and morality to flow with the new developments of the state of the art.

To exaggerate a little, we can say that we cannot apply the medieval ways of spirituality and morality to the way things are nowadays. While there are permanent and essential things in our spiritual and moral lives that should not change, we should not forget that there are also many other elements that can and should change.

We have to remember that God, whose life we share and reflect in ours, is both eternally old and new. With God, nothing is new under the sun. (cfr. Ecclesiastes 1,9) But with him, everything is also made new. (cfr. Rev 21,5)

We need to see to it that the new state of the art in the technologies should enhance, not undermine, our prayer, our spirit of sacrifice, our apostolic concern, our defenses against our weaknesses, temptations and sin, etc.

The new state of the art should make us get closer to God, enable us to give greater glory to him. It should help us get a more intimate knowledge of God’s will and ways in a more abiding way. It should make our heart stand still at the greatness of God and his overflowing love for us.

It should make us more fruitful and productive in our pursuit for holiness and apostolate. It should not just give us some material and temporal advantages, but rather more spiritual, supernatural and apostolic fruits. It should trigger further development of the virtues.

Also, it should sharpen our skills in waging the indispensable spiritual warfare in our life. Our ability to detect potential moral dangers should improve. Nowadays, with our much improved capacity to access things, we have to be wary of the subtle tricks of the devil whose business is none other than to lead us to sin.

Today, for example, it’s a given that a great majority of the people, especially the young ones, are addicted to pornography and many other vices. The new state of the art in our technologies should help us avoid these things by installing the appropriate warning, filtering and purifying apps and devices.

There should be some features in whatever state of the art is developed that would help us maintain presence of God while immersed in our temporal and earthly affairs. Some appropriate reminders in this regard should be made. They should help us maintain our spiritual and supernatural bearing.

A state of the art that ignores the presence of God is, simply said, never a sign of progress but rather of retrogression.

E-mail: roycimagala@gmail.com