By Fr. Roy Cimagala
Chaplain
Center for Industrial Technology and Enterprise (CITE) Talamban, Cebu City
Email: roycimagala@gmail.com
A structured but open life
THAT’S what is ideal for us. Our life should have some structure, some routine to follow, some schedule kept, all for the purpose of seeing to it that our life gives due attention to all our needs—physical, mental, spiritual, social, etc. Such structure would insure that we make use of our time, giving us a sense of direction, and avoiding the dangers of idleness and wastage of time, energy and other resources.
But it should be a structure that is not rigid and too fixed, trapping us in certain ways and making us closed, deaf and blind to new things, to innovations, growth and development in the different aspects of our life. Actually, if handled well, such structure should rather facilitate the discernment of the new things and the readiness to adapt to them.
And the secret again is to come up with a structured life that is animated by the proper spirit of love. That’s what would make the structure living not dead, resilient and versatile not rigid. It should not be a structure that is simply mechanical in character, but one that is living and perceptive of the impulses of love that ultimately should come from God and from our abiding concern for the others and the world in general.
Obviously, such structured life would give priority always to the importance of prayer, to the living contact with God whose constant presence we should always be aware of, and whose will and providence we try our best to correspond.
We should never forget that our life is supposed to be, first and last, a life with God. It is never just our own life, lived only at the instance of our own will and designs. Even Christ himself, notwithstanding the tremendous mission he had to undertake, always found time to pray and to strengthen his obedience to the will of the Father.
We have to make this truth about our life more known, more appreciated and more actively pursued. We cannot deny that all around us are conspicuous pieces of evidence that show people are just living on their own, ignoring God in general, and therefore leading a life that can only show the marks of human frailty and proneness to sin and evil, even if it manages to appear impressive in human terms.
Precisely because of this condition, we can see around a lot of idleness, complacency, waste of time. And if there is some activity, burst of energy and intense pursuit of some goals, the most likely motives are those of pride, vanity, conceit, greed and all forms of self-indulgence. Without God, we cannot help but fall into sin.
In other words, all that energy and deployment of human powers are misused and misdirected in ways that often are sweet and deceiving. And so, their comeuppance would just be a matter of time.
Everyone should be taught as early as possible to develop a properly-animated structured life. In this regard, the family, especially the parents, holds eminent responsibility. And so, we should realize that the proper formation and education of the families is of prime importance, since the families are the first schools of the people.
Let’s hope that we give the appropriate attention and energy in this direction, especially in a world that is fast becoming secularized, paganized, Godless!