Always thinking of heaven and our earthly duties

By Fr. Roy Cimagala Chaplain

Center for Industrial Technology and Enterprise (CITE)

Talamban, Cebu City

Email: roycimagala@gmail.com

ON the Solemnity of the Ascension of the Lord, we are reminded that we should always have heaven in mind, for that is where we came from and where we are supposed to go as our ultimate destination and to have our definitive state of life for all eternity.

But as the readings of the Mass on this Solemnity would also remind us, we should also realize that the way to heaven is to continue carrying out our Christian duties here on earth. (cfr. Acts 1,1-11; Eph 4,1-13; Mk 16,15-20)

In other words, our path to heaven should be our Christian duties here on earth. We therefore have to learn how to unite heaven and earth in our mind and heart, and in our whole life, in their proper order, distinguishing between what is the end and what are the means.

We have to realize then that our earthly affairs are actually designed by God to bring us back to him, and it would be up to us to follow that design or not. Of course, knowing how we are, there is always the tendency to follow simply our own designs rather than God’s. And that’s something we have to be wary of and to correct.

We should be very clear about this basic truth about the world in general or about the whole of nature that has been created by God. We need to realize that as God’s creation, the whole world of nature has been imprinted with God’s laws that are meant to give glory to God and to lead us also to him, giving him glory as well. In other words, depending on how we see the world, it is actually a pathway to heaven, to God.

Everything that we discover and make use of in the world should lead us to ask ourselves whether what we are discovering are truly in accordance to God’s will, to his true designs of the world, and whether we can discern how they can be used to give glory to God, which is a matter of loving him and serving the whole of humanity.

We have to be wary of the danger of discovering and using things simply in accordance to our own understanding of them and also to our own interest only. This is a common and abiding danger that we have to be most wary about. We have to do everything to avoid and overcome that danger.

Thus, we have to develop that strong and deep attitude of always referring things to God before we put our hands on them. That way, we would be putting ourselves on the right track that hopefully will lead us to God and to see and use things the way they should be seen and used.

This attitude, of course, would require us to be guided always by our Christian faith, instead of just being guided by our human estimation of things. And for that faith to be effective in us, we obviously need to be humble. Without humility, there is no way faith can have any effect on us.

Everyday, we should be keenly aware that we need to be fruitful and productive. That’s simply because even from the beginning of our creation in Adam and Even, this has always been God’s will for us.

We should be looking for God always in everything that we get involved in. In all the things that we do or handle, we should be asking what are there in those things that are for God, rather than being interested only on what are there in those things that are for us.