When the legitimate becomes immoral

Fr. Roy Cimagala .

WE have to be careful with this possibility that, sad to say, has become rampant nowadays. It cannot be denied that we are aware of the many blessings we have, and the many rights of our human condition. We have all kinds of talents, we have intelligence and freedom, and varying degrees of wealth, resources, power. We have the right for rest and comfort and some amount of bodily pleasure.

We obviously can use and enjoy them. We just have to make sure that these legitimate things do not become immoral as when we allow them to lead us to sheer self-indulgence, with God completely out of the picture. That’s when what is good can become bad.

This danger is always present in our life and we should do something about it. We should not allow God’s blessings and the rights we have to simply be spoiled and to spoil us because we feel they have nothing to do with God.

No, sir! God is and should be the beginning, the center and end of all these blessings and rights. They are supposed to lead us to God, to give glory to him, and not just for us to wallow in our shameless pleasure. We should not forget that these things are God-given. They are not simply and exclusively our own.

We have to remember that without God in their use and enjoyment, there is no other alternative but to fall into sin, into some self-entrapment that alienates us from God and others. We would soon lose the sense of balance, restraint and moderation, prudence and propriety, and start our wayward ways. We would just feed our bodily and worldly pleasures while starving the soul. The animal in us dominates.

Without God, we would easily fall into some form of addiction and many other anomalies, like pride, vanity, greed, self-righteousness, rash judgments, etc. We should be quick to feel something is wrong when we realize we are enjoying things without God and simply by our own selves. We should correct that predicament just as quickly.

In other words, just like in anything else we do, we should have rectitude of intention when exercising our rights and enjoying our endowments. To be sure, such practice does not undermine the enjoyment of what is legitimate in our condition.

On the contrary, it would enhance such enjoyment, purifying it and elevating it to the supernatural order which is proper to us as children of God. It would affirm the dignity proper to us as persons and children of God.

With God, we would know how to use and enjoy them with measure, with self-discipline and control. We would avoid being fully at the mercy of our worldly curiosities and other bodily impulses and urges.

Again, let us spread this caveat around. More than that, let us teach everybody the ways and means of how to rectify our intentions when exercising our rights and enjoying the blessings God has given us.

Let us remind ourselves of the importance of developing a life of prayer, to such an extent that we truly have an abiding contemplative spirit, when we would be always aware of God’s presence, and see him in everything and in everyone, and get to know his will and follow it as faithfully as possible.

This should not be regarded as alien to our human nature. On the contrary, this is what is essential and integral in our nature. Without God, we as human beings would go on a limb. Sooner or later,we would get into trouble that is made worse because we might not even know we are in trouble.

It would be good if right there in the family, this basic skill of praying is taught and lived, and the small ones would already be initiated into the ways of prayer and prudence.

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Loving God by loving others. We sometimes wonder how we can truly know and love God who is so supernatural and mysterious as to make us doubt whether we can have that possibility. We should wonder no more, because no matter how hard and apparently impossible that endeavor may be, all we have to do is to know and love our neighbor.

Let’s always have recourse to what St. John said in his first letter: “If anyone says, ‘I love God,’ but hates his brother, he is a liar. For anyone who does not love his brother, whom he has seen,cannot love God, whom he has not seen. And we have this commandment from him: whoever loves God must love his brother as well…” (4,20-21)

Said in another way, if we want God to love us, all we have to do is to love our neighbor. In this we have these words of Christ himself: “Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful. Stop judging and you will not be judged. Stop condemning and you will not be condemned. Forgive and you will be forgiven… For the measure with which you measure will in return be measured out to you.” (Lk 6,36-38)

Thus, when Christ was asked what the greatest commandment was, he readily said it was to love God with everything that we have got, and without being asked what the second greatest commandment was, he volunteered to say it—that it was to love your neighbor as yourself. (cfr. Mt 22,36-40)

As we can see, loving God and loving others always go together. We cannot have one without the other. The immediate corollary we can derive from this consideration is that we do not have to wait for some special occasions, some special reasons or persons to show our love for God.

Every moment, every person, every situation, no matter how ordinary and plain they may be, is a moment to show our love for God.

The moment we start to be nice to others, we are already starting to be nice with God, and thus loving him.

This realization should console us and calm down our anxiety that may spring from the mistaken belief that knowing and loving God will always demand heroic and extraordinary efforts. Of course, while it is true that some extraordinary effort can also be asked of us in this regard, we should not forget that the usual way of knowing and loving God is simply by taking care of our basic duties towards others.

In other words, it is always possible that we can be with God at every moment of the day as long as we realize that everything can be an occasion to know and love God by knowing and loving others.

We should not mind so much the mystery and the supernatural things involved in this duty. If God chooses to hide them from us, we should just be contented. If he reveals them to us, with their corresponding demands, then with his grace let us try to respond accordingly.

In this, let us also remember that if we want God to be very generous with us, let us also be generous with the others by giving and helping them more than what we think they deserve. Remember Christ’s words, “For the measure with which you measure will in return be measured out to you.” Let’s remember that God cannot be outdone in generosity.

We can revise the golden rule a little. Instead of just saying, “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you,” we can say, “Do unto others as you would have God do unto you.” That way we can establish a certain closeness with God since we will always be close, at least physically, with the others. God will never be far from us nor will he be an abstract notion to us only!

E-mail: roycimagala@gmail.com