Season of the lens

‘OH Lord, make me chaste, but not yet.” I chuckled when I first encountered those words taken from the Confessions of St. Augustine. But come to think of it, the said saint captured the kind of relationship many of us have with God. One foot in the path of redemption, the other in the murk of sin.

I beg the indulgence of my readers if I suddenly shift to religious discourse with this article. It’s after all the Christian season of Lent.

As a young Catholic, the Lenten Season was portrayed by my elders as an enforced time of the year to lead a virtuous life for 40 days (cuaresma), characterized by various practices of mortification designed to cleanse the soul of sins committed during the year.

Now that my spirituality has matured, “Lent” has personally become synonymous with the word“lens” as in “to see, focus, and reflect.” It is a time to look inward and take stock of and replenish our spiritual resources from which to draw during the dry days of the soul. I have not abandoned the traditional observances and rituals of my youthful days but now, I look at them through a different lens: as spiritual disciplines to have a deeper, more intimate relationship with God.

We Filipinos deem ourselves to be religious. Many Catholics like me still go to mass every Sunday and observe the religious rituals and practices that at times border on the superstitious. Other Christians, specially those of the fundamentalist bent, love to share excerpts from the Bible, even if many times they are taken out of context.

But how deep is our faith? As Christians, how many of us are ready to commit ourselves to Christ’s call to “take up your cross and come follow me?”

As I see it, our response is more of the type of “Lord, we will follow you but not totally yet.” Saka na. Maybe later, but not now. It is all drama, pakitang tao, pangako na napako.

Let’s be honest, it’s a compartmentalized expressionof faith and commitment. during holy week, we go through all the rituals prescribed by the church. We proudly display the ash rubbed on our foreheads during Ash Wednesday, abstain from eating meat on Fridays, pray the Stations of the Cross, and so on. But the rest of the year, it’s ok to go with our sinful deceitful ways. It’s a split-level Christian life. One for appearance’s sake. The other is a hidden life only known to us.

My friend Del, a painter, was once gushing over a gifted evangelizer and articulate defender of the Christian faith. To humor him, I looked this man up and watched his recorded talks on Youtube. Indeed his videos show him as a charismatic, mesmerizing and knowledgeable speaker. He knew his bible and could articulate his arguments very logically. He was, in fact, a well sought-after speaker in Christian circles around the world, and I’m sure got highly paid for it. But something about his glibness did not endear himself to me.

Sometime ago, his demise was reported. Soon after, revelations of his hidden life began to trickle through the news. My friend was devastated when he learned about it of course, and deeply embarrassed that he had highly recommended the said man’s videos to me. I consoled him half-sincerely by saying it’s the message not the man, that he was just a channel of God and so on.

Now back to ourselves. Are we deeply committed?

The truth is I am not ready or willing to take Christ’s call literally.

I have strived to nourish my spiritual life even in the midst of a harried life. I try to be a good provider for my family, a devoted husband, and bring a fatherly presence at home. But not perfectly, of course. Yet I always look at my daily actions and the daily happenings as a form of prayer, which I silently offer to God unworthy as they are. To me the irritations and frustrations, domestic altercations, health issues experienced day after day are mini crosses that I must bear in response to Christ’s call. Above all, they serve to nourish the life of the spirit in me.

Not to justify my procrastination, there are other ways to take up the cross. To me it is giving 100 percent of your effort as you observe rituals and rites. Truth to tell, I love Catholic rituals. After all, as someone said, rituals are like ladders, they take you to a higher place. When I go to mass, I give my full attention to the message of the readings and the homily no matter how bad the acoustical system, how atrociously the lector or priest mangles the enunciation of words. I exert effort to contemplate on them and try to envision their applications in my daily life. I now look at the consecration or the mystery of transubstantiation in deeper focus, while asking God to increase my faith. When I do abstinence, it is not out of obligation but because it is a means of offering it as a small sacrifice for other souls who are in a state of struggle.

But above that, I strive to put my wholehearted commitment in practicing what Jesus says is the greatest commandment: love. He assures us in the Gospel that “God is love, and whoever abides in love abides in God, and God abides in Him.” For in the end, God will ask us: How much love did you put in all the things you’ve said and done?

By all means, let us strive for excellence and abundance of worldly achievements, but remember, without love, without service, all these are empty and devoid of true meaning and fulfillment. Christ never sacrificed others to save self. He sacrificed self to save others. I don’t remember who said that but it’s a good meme to remember.

Let us therefore put effort in living meaningful lives in serving others, not shallow, vain, and empty lives serving only ourselves. Even if you give tons of money and material goods to the poor to gain karma points, but have not love, you gain nothing, says St. Paul.

There is also another in sigh ti picked up somewhere. If God forgives us, let us not just stop there. Do likewise to others. Invert the word “forgive,” and you have “give for.” If you want to forgive, you must learn to give for.

But I must confess, it’s better thought than done. In spite of my endless resolutions to mend my ways, I still find myself being beguiled and succumbing to worldly temptations.

God understands, I’m sure. Look at St. Augustine. He fled the “hound of heaven,” resisting Him, all the while saying “not yet, not yet.” Finally he gave up, and reached the ultimate realization: “Thou hast made us for Thyself and our heart is restless until it finds its rest in Thee.”

As St. Augustine tells us, God doesn’t need our lies, nor our excuses. He is just waiting, biding His time and guiding. For God created human beings as free enough even to defy the Divine will. Our struggle, our resistance, restless delaying efforts are all a means of grace. The arc of a sinful life may zigzag along the way and make all kinds of detours but it eventually leads towards God.

The Church has wisely set aside Lent to give us time for deeper intimacy with God, to look at Him through a lens, a mirror that reflects Him, in the same way we look at the eclipse of the sun not directly but through its reflection in a mirror. That lens, that reflective mirror is within our soul and that is where we can see God, if we care to adjust our focus.

Then, once that is done, we now must reflect the Divine in our life every day of the year. Be a mirror, rather than a self-proclaimed savior. Through this lens we can always see the good in others.