Let’s always be friendly

Fr. Roy Cimagala .

WE should try our best to be friendly always with everyone. Irrespective of how they are—and this can include those who in our human standards we consider to be unlikable, or who have done us wrong, or who are even hostile to us—we should just try our best to be friendly with them.

And the reason is because that is what Christ commanded to do. “Love your neighbor as I have loved you,” he said, and we know that his love covered everyone, including the enemies. His love has a universal scope. Even in his passion and death, he managed to offer forgiveness to those who crucified him.

Of course, the ultimate basis for this Christian duty is that regardless of our differences and even our conflicts, we are all brothers and sisters. We form one family, we all come from the same source and are meant to have a common end. We therefore are meant to care for one another, to be responsible for one another.

We have to develop the appropriate skills to carry out this duty. We have to start with the most elementary requirement of always being nice to everyone. In this regard, we have to overcome the usual differences we have in our human condition. We have to be pro-active in this regard, not waiting for the others to merit our friendship. We should try to live out what St. Paul once said: “To be all things to all men…”

That is why we need to strengthen our will to carry out this duty. We should not just depend on some favorable conditions before we start to be friendly. We should not be friendly only to those who are nice to us or to those who please us in some way. We have to train ourselves to be indiscriminate in our friendliness even as we also train ourselves to be discriminating in our dealings with everyone.

Gestures of affections, no matter how small and insignificant, always count. Our friendship should be not only intentional and theoretical. It should be tangible, seen and felt. Smiling, greeting, engaging in some small talk go a long way to start and keep our friendships going. We have to learn the many social skills of always being warm and welcoming of everyone.

Of course, this is easier said than done. Thus, we really need to train ourselves, using both the supernatural and human means, the spiritual and the material means. This may strike as something awkward to do at the beginning, but then if we try again to consider the necessity of such training, such awkwardness will disappear.

Everyday we have to train ourselves to develop a keen interest in the others, especially in those cases where due to some natural and human reasons no big interest can be felt at the beginning. This is the challenge we have to face everyday. But once we manage to do this, we would be on the way to becoming friendly to everyone irrespective of how they are.

We may have to force ourselves to be interested in knowing more and more about the others, even ‘wasting’ time with them since friendship will also require a lot of time. We should see to it that we just don’t give some cursory attention to them. Our attention to them should be full. We have to make every effort to be directly in touch with them, and not simply relying on technological communication.

Obviously, for friendship to blossom we really have to pray and to offer sacrifices for the others. We should be willing to be patient with them, especially if for one reason or another we are made to suffer in some way in the process.

Yes, we need the grace of God to learn how to be friendly always with everyone.

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Pattern our life after Christ’s life. We have to understand this truth of our faith well. While the life of each of us is very personal and unique, we have to realize that, for our life to be the life meant for us by our Creator, it should be patterned after the life of Christ who, as he said, is “the way, the truth, and the life” for us. (cfr. Jn 14,6)

Of course, this business of patterning our life after Christ’s life is not a matter of literally going through the same events that comprised Christ’s life as recorded in the gospels.

That’s not possible, since the circumstances of the life of each of us vary. What it means is that we should try to shape our life according to the spirit, the will, and the ways of Christ as he tackled all the possible scenarios that our human condition here on earth would entail.

Developing our life independently of the spirit, will and ways of Christ would not lead us to our proper end which is to be with God, our Creator, in whose image and likeness we have been created.

As we have been taught by our Catechism, Christ as the Son of God and therefore 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 savior of our humanity damaged by sin.

We need to understand that the spirit with which the life of Christ was shaped has a universal applicability for all of us. We cannot consider that life is just one more among many others. His is the life meant for us. Our life would not be as it should be if it is not patterned after Christ’s life.

That’s why we need to know very well the life of Christ. We have to try to discern what Christ is telling us in each event of his life, what he is trying to teach us with his words, deeds, reactions. We have to know what his mission was here on earth, for that also should be our mission. We have to expect to experience what Christ also experienced, although in different ways and forms.

We have to have the very mind of Christ, the very identity of his, to such an extent that with St. Paul, we can say, “It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me.” (Gal 2,20)

When we make our plans for our life, let us be more active in conforming our plans with the spirit, will and ways of Christ.

That’s because, even if we fail to consciously conform our plans to his, Christ on his part will shape it just the same according to the plan he has for each one us.

It will always be a personal relationship that Christ will develop with each one of us. He is actually shaping us so that we can be God’s image and likeness, and children of his.

His love for us precedes and is meant to inspire our love for him in return. It would be good if we do our part in corresponding to his love as knowingly and lovingly as well. We have to understand that Christ offers us the way of how to properly handle whatever situation we find ourselves here so that we can manage to achieve our final goal. In the end, Christ gives his own self to us.

Christ predestines no one to perdition. If one ends in hell, it is because of his total and direct rejection of Christ, not because Christ destines him to hell. The “Son of perdition” mentioned twice in the New Testament is a reference to a person who formally rejected Christ, in spite of what Christ has done for all of us.

Email: roycimagala@gmail.com