Spiritual deepening

By Fr. Roy Cimagala

WHEN Christ told Peter to “put out into deep water and lower your nets for a catch,” (Lk 5,4) the immediate conclusion we can make is that Christ was telling Peter to be enterprising and aggressive in reaching out to people, i.e., in doing apostolate. This can be validated when Christ told Peter, after such a big catch of fish was made, flooring Peter in amazement, that “from now on you will be catching men.” (Lk 5,10)

But we should not forget that for us to be good apostles, we should first take care of our growing identification with Christ because only then can we feel the urge to be energetic and vigorous in our apostolate. Our apostolic zeal can only come about when we truly identify ourselves with Christ, assuming his very mind and heart that is full of desire to save all men.

Thus, we can say that unless we have this burning apostolic zeal, we are not really identifying ourselves with Christ as we should. Of course, this goal of identifying ourselves with Christ would be a lifelong endeavor. But we should start it as soon as possible and sustain it as far as we can. To be truly apostolic, we need to have a continuous spiritual deepening. This apostolic duty can only be an overflow of our spiritual life with Christ.

Yes, we need to spend time meditating on this Christian duty of ours so that little by little we can start to feel this apostolic urge and sustain it as much as we can. We also should sharpen our apostolic skills, training ourselves to enter into the lives of everyone we meet. It always pays to be friendly with everyone, despite our unavoidable differences and conflicts. Smiling, having a warm and open disposition, will go a long way in carrying out this apostolic duty.

But even before all this, we should bring to our prayer our apostolic plans and desires, since only then can we be divinely inspired to carry out this apostolic duty as Christ wants. Only then would we be bold enough to talk about God, about things spiritual and supernatural, about vocation, with everyone.

We have to be ready to get interested in everyone apostolically. We should be interested both in the rich and the poor, those in the mainstream of society as well as those in the peripheries. Everyone without exception should be an object of our apostolic duty.

For this, we need to be patient, persevering, creative and versatile. We have to learn how to “waste time” with everyone, especially those who may be very different from us in terms of temperament, social and economic status, etc.

We should not wait for some favorable circumstances before we do apostolate. To do apostolate should be like our heartbeat. We should feel its urge the way we feel the urge to breathe, eat and drink. And this can only happen when we truly are with Christ.

Of course, to do apostolate is not a biological urge, but a spiritual one, to be triggered by an act of our will that is animated by God’s grace. We do not do apostolate because we happen to have some extra time. We do it because we are supposed to be apostles, and we always look for time to do it.

We should neither forget that first of all we should ask for God’s grace, since only then can we be truly effective and zealous in our apostolate.

Email: roycimagala@gmail.com