By Fr. Roy Cimagala
THIS is the clear lesson we can draw from the Solemnity of the Most Blessed Trinity. If we are God’s image and likeness, meant to share in his life and nature, then we have to realize that just like the Blessed Trinity where the three persons of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit are in eternal relation with each other, we too need to be always in relation with God and with everybody and everything else. Only then can we fully attain the life that is meant for us.
As a direct corollary of what we have just said, to be by oneself is actually an anomaly that will always lead us to some dangers. We are never meant to be a loner. We need to be with God and with everybody else all the time.
That is the main reason why we are endowed with the spiritual gifts of intelligence and will which would enable us precisely, by knowing and willing, to enter into relation with others, first with God.
That is the main purpose of our intelligence and will. It’s God who is their main object, and everything else only plays a subordinate, instrumental but also indispensable role. The moment we would just use our intelligence and will for our own self-interest, we would be stepping away from the proper path meant for us.
We need to be clear about this basic truth about ourselves because by not living according to it, we now are having all sorts of problems and disorders. This truth has to be spread out as widely as possible, taught and explained as thoroughly as possible to everyone. More than that, everyone has to know how precisely to enter and maintain that relationship in a consistent and abiding way.
We have to acknowledge our strong tendency to simply be by ourselves, relying only on our human powers and faculties, and on our natural and human means. We have to learn how to be guarded against that tendency and how to deal with it properly.
Obviously, this will require, first of all, God’s grace that will always be made available and abundantly at that. But we have to correspond to that grace as best that we can. Given our human condition, where we learn things step by step or in stages, we should come up with an effective plan where little by little we can approach that ideal of knowing and loving the way God knows and loves his own self and all of us.
It’s clear that we really would need to know how to pray, since prayer is our basic way to connect and relate ourselves with God. We have to learn how to live always in the presence of God, which should not be difficult since in the first place, God is everywhere, and his presence is not simply something passive but is always active and attentive, ever solicitous of our needs. He is never indifferent to us even if we are indifferent to him.
We have to be guarded against the many things that can take us away from God. Distractions are all over the place, and, of course, without God, we are vulnerable to be affected easily by our erratic emotions.
We need to help one another to learn how to be with God always. We have to break whatever barrier there is that would prevent us from being with him all the time.
Email: roycimagala@gmail.com
