Dirtied but not contaminated

By Fr. Roy Cimagala

WE have to be ready for this very-likely-to-happen phenomenon. We can get dirtied in life, what with all the trials, temptations, weaknesses, etc. that we have to unavoidably contend with. But let’s see to it that we do not get contaminated, compromising what is truly essential in our life.

Yes, we can expect to get dirty in life. But let’s hope that it will just be on the outside, not on the inside; that it be superficial, not profound; that it be in the incidentals in life, not the essential; that it be in the optional, not the necessary in life.

Again, the secret to achieve this ideal is to be with Christ who got dirtied himself but never contaminated by compromising his redemptive mission here on earth. Christ bore all the sins of men, past, present and future, by going through the most agonizing passion and death of his on the cross, but he never wavered on his love for us by carrying out the will of the Father to the end.

He conquered all this with his resurrection, a classic case of how the victim became the victor. St. Paul put it so eloquently when he said: “God made him (Christ) who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.” (2 Cor 5,21) Yes, Christ absorbed all the dirt of our sin without committing sin, if only to save us, to recover our dignity as God’s children, image and likeness of his.

From this consideration, we should learn the precious lesson of truly identifying ourselves with Christ so that we would know how to convert our sufferings, our falls and sins into the very means of our own salvation, of our true joy.

That is why we can never overemphasize the need for us to simply be sport and game in life, knowing that there will be fouls committed along the way. But the spirit to go on with life, intent on winning the race, should be kept alive.

We should not be too delicate and sensitive in all the possible difficulties and humiliations we can encounter in life. Remember that episode of the Syrophoenician woman who asked Christ to

expel the devil possessing her daughter. (cfr. Mk 7,24-30)

She was at first rejected by Christ who even referred to her as a dog. “The children should be fed first, because it is not

fair to take the children’s food and throw it to little dogs,” Christ said to her. (v.27)

But she did not relent. She did not feel offended. Instead, she reasoned out, “Yes, sir, but little dogs under the table eat the scraps from the children.” (v.28) This response from the woman simply melted Christ’s heart and led to the instant cure of her daughter.

In our life, we can encounter humiliations from the hands of others, humiliations that God allows to happen. But if we have a strong faith, we would just go on being faithful to him, and he, for sure, will do much more than just to make up for the humiliations he allows us to suffer. God cannot be outdone in generosity.

When we feel initially rebuffed not only from others but

even from God, we should not waver in our love and fidelity to God and to everybody else. Evil should never be responded with evil.

Rather, evil should always be responded with good, no matter how unreasonable that behavior would seem to us. That’s because that is simply how evil is overcome. When we respond to evil with evil, we would create a greater evil. And so it stands to reason that, as one saint put it, evil should be drowned with an abundance of good.

So let’s just be ready to get dirty in life, but never allowing ourselves to be contaminated by it.

E-mail: roycimagala@gmail.com