Self-denial a constant necessity

By Fr. Roy Cimagala

THAT’S because of our undeniable tendency to enclose ourselves in our own world, practically unwelcoming and even hostile to God who actually gives us the proper spirit of our humanity as his image and likeness.

We have to find ways of how we can live out this basic necessity of ours. There’s certainly a need for tremendous effort. But we should not forget that the first thing we need to do is to humbly ask for God’s mercy and grace.

We need to be humble, first of all, which is an effect at least of what is called as God’s actual grace, before we can successfully proceed with the effort to empty ourselves in order to be properly filled with God’s spirit.

Christ himself told us that this should be the law that should rule our life. “He that shall lose his life for me, shall find it.” “Whosoever shall lose his life for my sake and the gospel, shall save it.” “He that hates his life in this world, keeps it unto life eternal.”

The same idea, the same truth and ideal, is reiterated, developed and expressed in many other ways in different parts of the gospel. In one instance, Christ tells us to be detached from all possessions and even from those we consider close and important to us.

“If anyone comes to me without hating his father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple…Everyone of you who does not renounce all his possessions cannot be my disciple.” (Lk 14)

As we can see, all this business of losing and hating and renouncing is meant to make us filled with God who after all is our everything. With him, we also would have everything else we need, but in their proper order.

“Seek first the kingdom of God and his justice, and all these things shall be added unto you.” (Mt 6,33) We should never worry that what we seem to lose according to our human standards would actually be lost. On the contrary, what we lose would actually gain us a hundredfold.

Again, Christ reassures us of this truth. “Everyone that has left house, or brethren, or sisters, or father, or mother, or wife, or children, or lands for my name’s sake, shall receive a hundredfold, and shall possess life everlasting.” (Mt 19,29)

We should be quick to react to things and to reason out with faith, so that we avoid going into unnecessary episodes of anguish, sadness and self-pity. Rather, when this belief about losing so we gain the things of God truly rules our life, we can be happy and confident, with the mind of a victor, with a demeanor that would suggest elegance and poise.

Far from being a sad life, Christian life is actually a very happy life. When one conforms himself as tightly as possible to Christ, he knows that whatever self-denial and suffering he can experience in life, will always have great redemptive value.

We have to learn to rid ourselves of the fear of losing, of renouncing, and even of dying. Like a good, shrewd businessman, let’s not be afraid to throw in a big infusion of investment, as suggested by Christ, into our ultimate business of our redemption, when the hundredfold of spiritual dividends is already guaranteed to us.

To learn this, we can start in the self-denial of little things in our daily affairs—in our food and drink, in our comfort and convenience, in our dealings with others that should be marked with utmost understanding and patience, in the generous self-giving with which we do our work and other duties, etc.

Email: roycimagala@gmail.com