All the Way to the Gates of Hell

By Fr. Roy Cimagala

THAT’S how willing we should go in our apostolic tasks if we truly dedicate ourselves, as we should, to Christ’s continuing work of human redemption. We should not be afraid of anything, the effort, sacrifices and all sorts of contradictions that may be involved along the way. We should do all we can, yes, even going all the way to the gates of hell if only to snatch a soul from entering there.

Christ already warned us that we will be like “sheep in the midst of wolves” in this world. In pursuing this mission, he told us to be “wise as serpents yet simple as doves.” (cfr. Mt 10,16) We should not be naïve, we should not be afraid to get dirty. We have to be tough and learn how not to be scandalized by anything in this life.

If we truly are good and saintly, we would not be scandalized by any evil that can hound us. It’s not that we are not affected by evil. Like anybody else, we are. At least, we would be annoyed and can get angry. We can even try to seek justice and retribution to anyone who might have done us wrong. But we would not respond evil with another evil.

Like Christ, we would know how to bear evil patiently. And more than that, like Christ we would be aroused to correct evil with charity, and even to love those who cause us evil. We would try to correct them with charity and seek their conversion. That is what is most important to carry out.

And even with those who have no more hope of conversion, like the evil spirits who already have made their definite choice to go against God and everything that comes from God, like Christ we would refuse to fall into hatred or any form of evil. We may have to defend ourselves against them, as we should, but we would not be baited to fall into lack of charity.

As Christ said, we have to love even our enemies. (cfr. Mt 5,44) So we have to be most careful when in our pursuit for goodness and holiness, we end up hating those who are not good and holy and who give us trouble.

That kind of goodness and holiness is not the goodness and holiness of God. They would be fake, and are based simply on our own gratuitous and unjustified ideas of goodness and holiness. It would be the goodness and holiness of the prude persons, the puritans, the self-righteous and hypocrites, etc.

We really need to learn how to suffer. The massive problem we have now is precisely that many of us do not know how to suffer. We complain and cry even at the slightest touch of suffering. We become sad and fall into a hard case of depression. Self-pity and idle passivity can dominate us, sinking us into a spiral of problems and predicaments.

Learning how to suffer is an art and skill that is available if we only care to notice. It’s all there as clear as noonday, its cause and meaning precisely defined, its antidote and vaccine abundantly provided. Our Christian faith sheds tremendous light on this mystery of our life. Christ is showing us the way, and is actually empowering us.

The most important thing to always keep in mind is do everything to bring souls back to God. We should not shy away from this mission, because God himself will do it with us if we would just care to cooperate with him.

Email: roycimagala@gmail.com