By Fr. Roy Cimagala
Chaplain
Center for Industrial Technology and Enterprise (CITE)
Talamban, Cebu City
Email:
roycimagala@gmail.com
Our best condition
IT’S definitely when we are vitally identified with Christ. That’s when we can have our best condition in life. Let’s remember that Christ is the pattern of our humanity, the savior of our damaged humanity. He is “the way, the truth and the life” for us. We should do everything to keep that identification effective always as much as possible.
Of course, human as we are, we often fall short of that ideal, either intentionally or unintentionally. But that should not stop us from trying again and again, as often as necessary, to achieve that condition because that is what is truly proper to us.
To be sure, this is not something quixotic, improbable or impossible. Christ has done everything, including making himself immediately available to us in a tangible way especially in the sacrament of the Holy Eucharist, to make that identification happen.
We should just do our part, strengthening our faith, developing the necessary acts of piety that would make our relationship with Christ an abidingly living one, growing in the virtues to increasingly liken ourselves with Christ, learning to fight against our weaknesses, temptations and sin, etc.
We have to know Christ as best that we can. His life, his words and deeds, all a guide for us, are all recorded in the gospels. But to know him truly well, we, of course, have to be guided by the Church Magisterium who has been given a perpetual authority to properly teach and interpret Christ’s words and who keeps the living Tradition that tells us how Christ’s words ought to be understood.
That’s because if we would just interpret the gospels and the whole of the Bible on our own, we most likely would understand things differently, if not erroneously. That’s because the language of the Bible and the gospels have nuances that our current languages and ways of expressing and understanding cannot capture.
If we would just be guided by the Bible with our own selves as the ultimate teacher and interpreter, we cannot resolve the many apparent contradictions that the Bible contains.
How can we reconcile, for example, Christ’s command to love everyone, even our enemies, when on another occasion he told us to “hate” father, mother and even our own life if we want to follow him? How can we reconcile God’s commandment to love and honor our parents with the fact that on another occasion Christ seemed to disparage his own mother by saying “Who is my mother, and who are my brothers?” (cfr Mt 12,46-50)
We definitely have to take Christ’s words and actuations always considering the living Tradition in the Church, and not just any tradition, plus the Church Magisterium. Thus, we are told that to get to the authenticity of our Christian faith, we of course have to study the Bible, especially the gospels, but together with the Tradition as preserved by the Church, and the Church Magisterium that has been empowered by Christ to teach with infallibility in spite of the weaknesses of the men involved in that office.
Anyway, what is truly important to realize is that for us to be in the best condition in our life here on earth, we have to identify ourselves with the authentic Christ, because there can be many false Christs, if not the Antichrists.