Immersed yet detached

By Fr. Roy Cimagala

CHRIST’S parable about the Kingdom of heaven being compared to a net thrown into the sea and catching all sorts of fish after which the good fishes were put into a bucket while the bad ones were thrown away certainly reminds us that at the end of our life here on earth, there will be judgment. (cfr. Mt 13,47-53)

Let us hope that we are always aware of this truth of our faith so that we can try our best, always with God’s grace, to qualify as a good catch and to be confident to face that judgment.

This can only mean that we be always mindful that in this life, we are actually being tested to see if what God wants us to be—that is, to be his image and likeness, sharers of his divine life and nature—is also what we ourselves would like to be.

And the only way to pass that test is to see to it that we follow God’s will to such an extent—and this is the ideal that we should try to achieve—that our will is none other than the will of God. We should make as our own Christ’s very own words: “I have come down from heaven not to do my will but to do the will of him who sent me.” (Jn 6,38)

It is for this reason that we are placed in this world to carry out the original mandate God gave to our first parents, when he said: “Be fruitful, multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it. Have dominion over the fish of the sea, and the over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moves upon the earth.” (Gen 1,28)

We just have to see to it that in our life here on earth, we do not get trapped by the worldly things. Rather, while we should immerse ourselves in the things of the world, we need to practice a certain detachment from them to avoid missing the real purpose of our life here on earth.

We should know how to be in the world, without being worldly, trapped and imprisoned in worldly things, and failing to look, find and love God and everybody else. And the secret is to follow Christ who shows us how to be in the world without being worldly.

Christ who is the very essence of wealth and human dignity lived a very simple life: he had nowhere to be born or die, nowhere to lay his head, came to our world with nothing and left it also with nothing. In his public life, he sent his apostles to preach without extra luggage.

We need to understand that poverty and a certain detachment from earthly things are required for our hearts to be properly filled with the spirit of God and to enable us to fulfill our mission in the world and to pursue the real purpose of our life.

We have to be most wary of the danger of worldliness which is becoming practically irresistible these days. Yes, it’s true that we have to love the world since that is where God has placed us to test us if what he wants us to be is also what we ourselves would like to be. We should love the world the way God loves it, but we should not be held captive by it.

Email: roycimagala@gmail.com