By Fr. Roy Cimagala
THIS is the challenge we all have to face if we truly want to follow Christ. We have to try our best to know how to blend the inclusivity of charity and the exclusivity of truth.
We know that charity has a universal coverage, such that we are even commanded to love our enemies. It’s very inclusive. But truth always sets boundaries between what is true and real, and what is false and fake. It’s quite exclusive.
Blending charity and truth definitely is no easy task to carry out. It also involves the issue of how to blend mercy and justice. But difficult or impossible as they seem to be, we just have to do them, because they, in the end, is what us truly proper to us as persons and children of God.
We just have to live with the reality that what is simply expected of us is to try our best to approximate the ideal blend. That blend will never be perfect in this world, in the sense that it would not need any more perfection. It will always be in a condition of ongoing perfectibility.
In the end, it will be God, as shown and revealed to us by Christ, who will make things perfect. Ours is simply to go along with God’s ways as best that we could. On our own, we cannot, and we are not expected, to perfect the blend between charity and truth. The mysteries and the intangibles involved in this task of blending charity and truth, mercy and justice, are just too much for us to handle perfectly.
But that impossibility of achieving the perfect blend should not stop us from trying. We just have to be willing to go through what Christ went through in saving us. He preached the truth about everything, he did a lot of wonderful things, but in the end, he had to assume all the sins of men by suffering and dying on the cross, and all the while offering forgiveness to everyone, including those who crucified him.
Christ in consummating his redemptive work did not leave a perfect world. The world continues to have its imperfection, and but it now has the capability of being perfected. And that capability is given to us by Christ himself, if we truly follow him and identify ourselves with him.
Thus, we have to learn how to be magnanimous, patient, strong, etc. We should not be easily scandalized by sin, even those committed by people whom we consider to know better. We have to learn how to suffer. And we have to convince ourselves that it is only with Christ that we can blend the inclusive charity and the exclusive truth, the magnanimity of mercy and the fairness of justice.
We also have to realize that only in Christ can we properly make, understand and apply our human laws. It is only with him that charity blends with truth in a dynamic and not frozen, static way. Only with him can mercy and justice be achieved.
In other words, for us to properly blend charity and truth, mercy and justice, it is not enough to be intellectually prepared and with significant experience in the field to boot. It is indispensable that we live a genuine piety where our relationship with Christ is intimate, deep and strong.
Email: roycimagala@gmail.com
