Upgrading our defenses

WITH all the powerful and engaging developments we are having these days that can truly give us a lot of advantages and convenience, we should also be aware that the same developments can easily gratify our weaknesses and plunge us into the pit of perdition. There is a lot of sweet poison around that can become something like a friendly fire to us.

For this, we have to upgrade our defenses by revving up our love for God and for others, seeing to it that that love is converted into practical and practicable means, freeing it from being merely theoretical and intellectual.

If only to have some idea of how to convert our love into something that would give us effective protection from all the temptations around, we can cite what Christ told us. “Behold, I am sending you out like sheep among wolves. Therefore, be as shrewd as snakes and as innocent as doves,” he said. (Mt 10, 16)

We should have this combination of shrewdness, cunning and cleverness, on the one hand, and innocence, simplicity and as much as possible, total absence of malice, on the other hand. This is the perfect foil to the wiles and tricks of our usual enemies: our own weaknesses, the allurements of the world, and the devil himself. The ideal is for us not to be scandalized by anything. Instead we should have the strong desire to do good always.

Impossible? Unfeasible? Definitely it is if we are to rely only on our human powers. This combination can only take place when we truly have an earnest desire to identify ourselves with Christ.

Only then can we be exposed to all kinds of temptations and still manage to remain unscathed, if only in the most essential part of us, our soul. It’s a given that we may be dirtied externally, but if our defenses are good, we can still remain clean and pure internally, which is what matters most.

We have to remember that our best condition to be in is when we approximate as much as possible our identification with Christ who is the pattern of our humanity and the savior of our damaged humanity.

For this purpose, we cannot overemphasize our need to do everything for us to keep presence of God all throughout the day, having an abiding conversation with Christ, assuming Christ’s will and intentions. We have to see to it that our love for God and others remains hot and burning. A lukewarm love can easily attract temptations.

We have to overcome whatever awkwardness and resistance we may have against this ideal. The truth is that we are meant to be like Christ, to be “alter Christus” (another Christ), if not “ipse Christus” (Christ himself).

On the practical side, we have to see to it that our curiosities are under control. We should not allow them to go in any which way. For this purpose, we should see to it that our greatest and abiding curiosity is to see the face of God in everything, echoing what a psalm says, “I long, Lord, to see your face.” (27, 8)

Our curiosities should not be focused only on earthly and temporal things, no matter how legitimate they are. If not related to our curiosity of God, they can turn into a very subtle temptation to us.

We certainly need to sit down and meditate on this ideal so we can process it slowly and make it a driving motive in our dealings with all the powerful developments we have around these days./PN