........ The hardest faith to live faithfully, not just a religion to practice, is Christianity/Catholicism. “Jesus said to his disciples, ‘If anyone wants to come with me, he must forget himself, carry his cross, and follow me. For whoever wants to save his own life will lose it; but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it. Will a person gain anything if he wins the whole world but loses his life? Of course not! There is nothing he can give to regain his life.” [Matthew 16:24-26] To practice religion is to make perfect the ritual observance of faith. To live the Catholic/Christian faith is to be faithfully devoted and committed to Jesus Christ, not just practicing the rituals and observing traditions but to be God-centered not self-centered. Hence this is the sacrifice, to deny oneself of free-will and accept God’s will. What is God’s will? There are things and events in our lives that sometimes take place beyond our control that are not to our advantage or liking. One may work so hard and prayed always but just could not get ahead in life; maybe not yet, or God’s way of saying, “This is not good for you in the long run.” If truly faithful, one will accept God’s will and continues to be faithful; this is carrying ones’ own cross and still following. This is why I said, “The hardest faith to live faithfully is Christianity/Catholicism,” because it is a painful sacrifice to still believe, to still trust, to still follow the God who did not give us what we wanted when we have been religiously observing and adhering to his commands. We are asked to love our neighbors, but our neighbors hated us. We helped but we were belittled for the help we were able to give. We shared, yet still not enough, and to some, we gave until there is nothing left for us to live on, what more can we do to prove that we are living our Christian/Catholic faith faithfully? We do not need to prove; just live the faith faithfully here and now, the reward is in the afterlife, in the Kingdom of God in Heaven. It is not easy to claim that we are true Catholics/Christians by faith when are living the great and lavished lifestyle, for we will be perceived as hypocrites. So what must we do? Stop judging others. When you see a poor person, don’t say, “You are poor because you are lazy and uneducated,” instead help them get on their feet and feed them, even though it is against your own free will to help because you justify in your mind, that if you help the poor, you are supporting their laziness. Are all poor people lazy, or you just did not give them the chance or opportunity to get themselves out of poverty? You, how did you come to your wealth, were you born into it? Then, lucky you and thank God for it because your kingdom of heaven is here on earth. But remember, everything here on earth is temporary; the longest you can stay as god in this heavenly earth is what, 100 to 120 years and then, where to? You, who worked so hard and now, no longer living in poverty, how many opportunities in the past were not given to you and/or taken away from as you struggled through to get ahead, do you still have faith in your God? Or you say to yourself, I worked on my own, with my own sweat, God did not help me, it was me who helped me. You, who are poor, how many opportunities have you taken for granted or did not take to get yourself better? Do you continuously blame others for your condition or do you still cry out to your God who seemed to have abandoned you? So how can we keep our faith when we are not supposed to judge others yet we are all being judged? EXACTLY! Edelle Marie Teshiba Tulfo
Posted on: Tue, 05 Nov 2013 18:03:17 +0000