‘Teach me your ways, O Lord’

By Fr. Roy Cimagala

THAT’S from Psalm 25,4, and is used as a Responsorial Psalm for one of the Masses in Advent. It’s a psalm that should always be on our lips, since we cannot deny that we are meant to be identified with Christ, the pattern of our humanity and the savior of our damaged humanity. His will and his ways should also be our will and our ways.

Obviously, this will involve a daunting task, a formidable undertaking requiring a herculean effort. But we should not forget that God is first of all with us and provides us with everything that we need. It would really just depend on how our faith is strong and deep to be able to carry out this duty.

First of all, we should develop in ourselves that constant awareness that since God has made us his image and likeness, he therefore is with us all the time, sharing his life and nature.

It should not be difficult for us to conclude and to assume that we also share in his powers and that there is something divine in us. We are not just human beings living simply on the level of the natural. There is something eminently spiritual and supernatural in us.

We need to spend time meditating on this basic truth about ourselves so that it may sink into our very consciousness. Also, by continually reflecting on this truth, we would know what we have to do to be consistent to that dignity and identity of ours.

Everyday we have to see to it that we are becoming more and more like Christ because we share the same spirit of love and everything that is good that Christ has. In this regard, we should realize that our knowledge of God is always made alive, updated and renewed, and our eagerness to be like him burning.

Let’s hope that at the end of each day, as we make some kind of accounting of how the day went, which is what we should be doing, we can truly say that we are becoming like Christ because we are becoming more patient, more compassionate, more apostolic, more hopeful, etc., etc.

We have to be clear about this point. We are meant to assume the identity of Christ. And that is not a gratuitous, baseless assertion, much less, a fiction or a fantasy. It is founded on a fundamental truth of our faith that we have been created by God in his own image and likeness.

And this truth of faith has been vividly shown to us since it is acted out in the whole history and economy of salvation that culminated in Christ offering his life and his very own self as the Bread of Life so we can have the eternal life with him, and so that he and us can be one.

We have to arrive at that point where we can make St. Paul’s words as our own too: “I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself up for me.” (Gal 2,20)

We just have to learn to set aside whatever difficulty or awkwardness we may have in dealing with this basic truth of faith about ourselves. We have to try our best to know Christ and to adapt his very own mind and will, his own ways, behavior and reactions to whatever situation we may find ourselves in.

Thus, we should always repeat, “Teach me your ways, O Lord.”

Email: roycimagala@gmail.com