Slowly, gradually, steadily

By Fr. Roy Cimagala

IN a gospel parable about a faithful servant and an evil one (cfr. Mt 24,42-51), we are told to be fruitful in our life and, at the same time, vigilant also, since we know that we have to contend with all sorts of enemies—mainly the enemies of God which are also our enemies.

We have our own wounded flesh, the tricky allurements of the world, and the devil himself to contend with. We should try our best to be always aware of this condition of our life and to be guarded against them. If we have faith and the grace of God, we are assured that we can actually handle them well, converting them even into occasions and reasons to get closer to God.

We cannot deny that we in this life really need to do some struggling, some wrestling. We have to develop the qualities and virtues we need to protect ourselves from these enemies and to pursue the real goal of our life here on earth.

Since this condition will be a lifelong affair, we just have to be calm and tackle the endless issues slowly, gradually, but also steadily. Thus, we need to have some daily game plans, so to speak, to make sure that we are progressing in our pursuit of what is truly the goal of our life—our own sanctification, our own redemption, with its accompanying duty to do apostolate.

Christian moral and pastoral theology strongly proposes the principle of gradualness that encourages us to grow close to God and his plan for our lives in a step-by-step manner rather than expecting us to jump from an initial conversion to perfection in a single step.

We know that our life is very dynamic, with all sorts of challenges to face, problems to solve, issues to be clarified. We need to see to it that our interior life, our spiritual life, our thoughts, desires and intentions are firmly rooted on God, their proper foundation.

We need not only to purify our thoughts and intentions from any stain of pride, vanity, lust, envy, sloth, gluttony, anger, etc. We need to also fill them and rev them up with true love and wisdom. These are the reasons why we have to engage in a lifelong interior or spiritual struggle.

The ideal situation should be that we are always in awe at the presence of God in our life, making him the principle and objective of all our thoughts, words and deeds. We have to be spiritually fit before we can be fit anywhere else—family-wise, professionally, socially, politically, etc.

Let’s never be deceived that our life is mainly physical, and its development is just a matter of struggling externally—that we manage to eat, to work, to earn, to stay away from physical danger, etc. The real battle is in our internal selves—in our thoughts and desires, our will and plans.

The struggle in life cannot just be a matter of economics or politics. The battle always starts and ends in our mind and heart, in the spiritual aspect of our life. This is where things start to happen, and where things also get resolved.

Even if there are still things to be fixed externally, we can still manage to fix them internally, because that’s where we get in touch directly with God, and with him, nothing is impossible. Let’s disabuse ourselves from the thought that we get our ultimate peace and joy somewhere else.

Email: roycimagala@gmail.com