A caveat to the more gifted

By Fr. Roy Cimagala

 

THIS is something we have to be most aware and careful about. The more gifted we are, the more humble and child-like we should be. That way the good things and the blessings God has endowed us with and that would make us better than the others or superior to them in some ways, would not spoil us. Rather, these good things become powerful means to help the others.

Being child-like means we should retain our innocence even as we gain more knowledge and power. We have to be quick and strong in rejecting evil thoughts or malicious intentions that can always come to us like flies attracted to sweet things.

We should always be transparent and open to everyone, never afraid of showing ourselves as we really are, warts and all, because that quality can only facilitate our relations with everyone. That would easily remove whatever invisible barriers we may unwittingly put up that would separate us from others.

Like a child also, we should always be humble and simple, always willing to serve and to lend a helping hand to the others. These virtues would make it easy for us to understand and to adapt ourselves to everyone despite the big differences among ourselves. And if we are the ones who commit a mistake, these virtues would help us to ask for forgiveness. We would bear no grudges and ill feelings toward anyone.

Most of all, being child-like would attract God to us, revealing things that are most useful to us. That is why Christ said, “I praise you Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and the learned, and revealed them to little children.” (Mt 11,25)

In the end, what really matters most here is that we take good care of the most important endowments God has us. And these are our intelligence and will that would enable us to know and to love and to be free. We have to see to it that these best gifts God has given us would always lead us to be with God, and not just to anything or to anyone else.

We have to be careful when we pursue our quest for knowledge of any kind. God should be the beginning and end of such operation, the front and center of our effort. Without God, our knowledge would only be vain, fake, dangerous, despite the brilliance it may have according to human standards.

Remember St. Paul saying that “knowledge puffs up, but love builds up. The one who thinks he knows something does not yet know as he ought to know.” (1 Cor 8,1-2) True knowledge that is proper to us is a knowledge that makes us grow in love for God and for others. That’s because a knowledge rid of love is not knowledge at all.

Without God, our knowledge can only lead us to be proud, conceited, judgmental and self-righteous. It would be a knowledge that is prone to lead us to petty envies and jealousies, and to be used for the sake of greed, lust and the like. It would be a knowledge that would complicate our life. Instead of giving ourselves to the others, we would simply be doing self-indulgence.

We really need to grow more in the qualities of a child so as not to be spoiled by the powers God has given us. For this we should always try to develop a way to maintain a constant presence of God, rectitude of intention, and to cultivate the instinct of always referring everything in our life to God, including, yes, our business and politics, our sciences, arts and technologies, our sports and entertainment, etc.

In this regard, we can never underestimate the importance of some practices of piety that would train our mind and heart to go and to be with God whatever the circumstances may be!

Email: roycimagala@gmail.com