What Leads Us to Our Eternal Life

By Fr. Roy Cimagala

CHRIST said it very clearly. “For this is the will of my Father, that everyone who sees the Son and believes in him may have eternal life, and I shall raise him on the last day.” (Jn 6,40)

Yes, what leads us to our eternal life is to do the will of God which is to believe in his Son, Christ. It is Christ who is the fullness of the revelation about God and about ourselves who are God’s image and likeness, sharers in his life and nature.

And the ultimate revelation Christ gave us is that we should love one another as he himself has loved us. (cfr. Jn 13,34-35) This will of God summarizes and perfects all the other commandments given previously.

We need to train ourselves to do and to live always and as perfectly as possible the very will of God. The ideal to pursue is to make our will nothing other than to do God’s will. Christ himself, the pattern of our humanity, exemplified this perfectly when he said, “I can of mine own self do nothing: as I hear, I judge; and my judgment is just, because I seek not mine own will, but the will of the Father who has sent me.” (Jn5,30)

Mary also, who next to Christ embodies the perfection of humanity, also lived by this divine indication. This was especially highlighted in the event of the Annunciation when she was told about the incredible message that she was going to be the mother of the Son of God. Though we could imagine that she could not fully understand the message, she just said, “Fiat mihi secundum verbum tuum” (Be it done to me according to thy word.)

It would be very good if we can always remember the close connection between eternal life and doing the will of God, and make it the operative principle of our life. We should be asking frequently during the day, “Am I really doing the will of God, or am I just doing my own will?”

God’s will can be known in many ways. He already has given us the 10 commandments, which explicitly articulate his will for us, though not yet in a perfect way. What perfects the 10 Commandments or the Old Law is the New Law or the New Commandment as spoken by Christ himself, “Love one another as I have loved you.”

Of course, this New Law contains a lot of mysteries even if we have many ideas of how this New Law can be carried out. It has mysteries because it involves nothing less than our total identification with Christ who, being God, will always remain mysterious to us even if he has given himself completely to us.

We just have to learn to go along this divine adventure that involves us in God’s mysterious ways even if on our part we try our best to know his will all the way to the littlest detail. Such is our human and temporal condition until we identify ourselves completely with Christ which can happen only in heaven when we see him “face to face.”

In the meantime, let’s realize that God’s will is known by studying the doctrine of our faith. What can also help is to be familiar with the living testimonies of saints who had managed to know, love and obey God’s will.

Email: roycimagala@gmail.com