Both strict and lenient

By Fr. Roy Cimagala

IF we truly want to be like Christ, full of love and mercy, we should be very strict with ourselves but very lenient with the others. Yes, we have to be very demanding on ourselves but very understanding, forgiving and welcoming of the others even if we know they are wrong in some points, or they may even have offended us.

This was how Christ was and is with his own self and in his dealings with the others. He spared nothing to carry out his mission to save us, and gave all allowances to accommodate everyone in that mission of human salvation. He even commanded us to love our enemies. He even offered forgiveness to those who crucified him.

If we are truly inspired by the love of God, we know that we have to do our best in whatever undertaking we are making. That is the law of love. Nothing can be better in expressing that most demanding, most strict love than when Christ commanded us to love one another as he himself as loved us. (cfr. Jn 13,34)

It’s a love that involves total self-giving, including one’s life. As Christ himself said, “Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.” (Jn 15,13)

The same love would make us most understanding and lenient with the others, avoiding judging others and finding faults in them, offering excuses for their weaknesses and mistakes, etc.

As St. Paul would put it, describing how our love for the others should be, “love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.” (1 Cor 13,4-7)

It does not mean, of course, that while we should be demanding on ourselves, we do not anymore acknowledge our limitations and the need to give the proper accommodations to such tenuous condition of ours. We should never forget that even our best and most demanding efforts could not take away our weaknesses completely nor do away with all possibility of mistakes and sins.

Our strictness should not be an expression of perfectionism, of some obsessive-compulsive disorder that, sad to say, seems to be on the rise today. The strictness of our love should give due allowance to our weaknesses and our over-all fragile condition here on earth, what with all the temptations and the enemies of our soul to contend with!

Neither does our love for others be so lenient that we would completely quash any effort to help others to grow in their spiritual life, helping them in any we can by giving suggestions, for example, and even giving them timely corrections.

Yes, we should be accommodating and welcoming of everyone in the way they are, warts and all, but this leniency should not be taken to mean that we should have no concern to help them grow in their spiritual life, in their love for God and everybody else as well.

They also have to learn to be strict with their own selves, if we manage to teach them how to truly love. In fact, the gauge of our effectiveness in our love for others would be if we manage to make them love God and others as well, being strict and demanding on themselves while being lenient and understanding towards others.

We really need to pause from time to time to see how we can have this kind of love that is both strict and lenient, demanding on ourselves while being understanding, compassionate and forgiving of the others.

Email: roycimagala@gmail.com