By Fr. Roy Cimagala

Chaplain

Center for Industrial Technology and Enterprise (CITE)

Talamban, Cebu City

Email: roycimagala@gmail.com

Always watchful and focused

“BE like servants who await their master’s return from a wedding, ready to open immediately when he comes and knocks.” (Lk 12,36)

With these words, Christ is practically telling us that we should always be watchful in life and focused in pursuing what is truly essential in life. Remember Christ also telling his disciples: “Beware that your hearts do not become drowsy from carousing and drunkenness and the anxieties of daily life…Be vigilant at all times.” (Lk 21,34.36)

Truth is the many developments today, while giving us a lot of advantages and conveniences, can also easily lead us to bad things. They can foster complacency, self-indulgence, vanity, pride, greed, envy, discord, etc. They can turn us into materialistic monsters, totally insensitive to the spiritual and supernatural realities of our life and to God himself.

We should never underestimate the tricks and snares of the devil, the false allurements of the world, and the dynamic of our weakened and wounded flesh. These enemies of our soul will constantly make new guises to mislead and tempt us. To upgrade our vigilance skills is not a matter of paranoia. It is to be realistic. It is to be effectively prudent.

We should not be naïve to think that with our current skills at spiritual and moral vigilance, we are already okay. We have to sharpen our sense of purpose in life, seeing to it that its general goal is being consistently lived and reinforced in the many subsidiary purposes we have during the year, month, week, day, and even hour.

With how things are now, we cannot simply rely on a generic sense of purpose. We have to learn how to be vigilant in all circumstances and situations in life, especially when we are tired, troubled, or when thrilled and excited.

We need to be properly focused and driven in pursuing what is truly essential in life. And that is none other than God himself. He is the supreme good for all of us. There could be no other good better than him to whom we should be attracted more or who should arouse in us a greater attraction.

God is everything to us. More than that, he loves us so much that he created us to be like him. It’s with him that we can have our eternal joy in heaven, and while here on earth we can always count on his help, guidance and powerful, wise and merciful providence.

Obviously, we need to process this basic truth properly and thoroughly, since it is a truth of faith that certainly involves a lot of mysteries that we have to learn to live with. Once we get convinced of this truth, then it follows that God should be the constant and strongest cause of our desire and attraction. His presence and interventions in our life should be intimately felt by us. Pursuing or being with him should give us  our greatest joy.

We have to be wary of our tendency to get entangled and trapped in some worldly and temporal goals as our main focus in life. These goals, for sure, also have their objective value. But we need to understand that these worldly goals cannot stand on their own. They have to be grounded on God, on his will, on his abiding providence over us. Otherwise, they can only pose as a danger to us.