The sense of the sublime and the supernatural
By Fr. Roy Cimagala
Chaplain
Center for Industrial Technology and Enterprise (CITE)
Talamban, Cebu City
Email: roycimagala@gmail.com
THE Feast of the Transfiguration of the Lord, celebrated on August 6, reminds us
that like Christ, we are meant to be transfigured to a supernatural life with God in
heaven for all eternity. While here on earth, it behooves us to be always conscious of
this truth of our faith, and to develop a sense of the sublime and the supernatural amid
the varying conditions of our earthly life.
That we are meant to a supernatural life is based on the fact that we have been
created in God’s image and likeness. How God is, as revealed fully to us in Christ and
made abidingly present in us in the Holy Spirit, is how we ought to be. We should just
rev up our faith and overcome whatever disbelief or awkwardness we may have with
regard to this truth of our faith about ourselves.
To be sure, having a strong and deep sense of the sublime and the supernatural
in our life would keep us confident, serene, hopeful despite the drama of our life here on
earth which can be quite heavy. It is our way of connecting us with God’s will and ways
which can handle anything that can happen in our earthly sojourn.
We should not forget that we are meant for a supernatural life. Our human
nature, with our spiritual soul that enables us to know and to love, and therefore to enter
into the lives not only of others but also and most importantly, of God, urges us to
develop a supernatural life.
It’s a life with God always. It just cannot be exclusively our own life, taken
personally or collectively. It’s a life that depends mainly on God who gives us the grace
that purifies and elevates it to his life, but it also depends on us, on our freedom to
correspond to this loving will of God for us.
We have to develop a taste and even an appetite for the supernatural life with
God and of things supernatural in general. In this we have to help one another, because
in the end, this is our common ultimate end in life—how to live our life with God, how we
can be immersed in God even as we are immersed also in the things of the world.
It’s always good that we develop and keep a sense of the sublime. After all, if we
are truly consistent to our Christian faith, we know that we are meant to be God’s image
and likeness, children of his, meant to share in his very own life in heaven. Ours is a
dignity like no other.
And we should always be aware of it, irrespective of how our life here on earth
goes. We are not meant for a dark, sad life, full of suffering only. We are meant for a
sublime life with God.
To be sure, developing this sense of the sublime is not a baseless and gratuitous
exercise. It is what God wants us to have, since we truly are children of his. It is not our
invention. It is, first of all, his will for us to which we have to correspond.
We should not feel uneasy about this truth, because on the part of God, he will
do everything to make what he wants of us to be fully realized. All we have to do is
simply to go along with his will and ways as far as we can.