WE are reminded of this very grave responsibility of ours in the Gospel of St. John where Christ told his disciples that the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, would be sent to them and that the Holy Spirit would the one to convict the world in regard to sin and righteousness and condemnation. (cfr. Jn 16,5-11)
The Holy Spirit, he said, will convict the world in regard to “sin, because they (the world) do not believe in me (Christ); righteousness, because I am going to the father and you will no longer see me; condemnation, because the ruler of this world has been condemned.”
In other words, the Holy Spirit would be the one to put our life in its proper and ideal state. He will be the one to help us keep and strengthen our faith, hope and charity, that is, our shared life with God. He will be the one to teach us how to deal with the things of the world, as well as with the enemies of God and of our soul.
We need to learn how to live our life with the Holy Spirit, which is what our spiritual life is all about. This is what sometimes is called as the Life in the Spirit. Our life is not simply biological and social, or merely natural. It is first of all a spiritual life that is poised to enter into the supernatural world of God as we are meant to do.
If we can only give to our spiritual powers just a fraction of the attention we usually give to our physical faculties, I think we would be much better off. Our problem is that most of the time we ignore the needs of our spiritual soul while we pamper and spoil our body.
Just look at the time, effort and money spent on things of the flesh—wellness craze, looks, sports and fashion, body cult, etcetera – and compare these with the ones spent for our spiritual needs—prayer, sacraments, interior struggle, etcetera. You’ll notice there can hardly be any worse inequality.
That’s why, in the long history of ascetical literature written and lived by saints through the centuries, there has been that consistent insistence to curb the tendencies of the flesh to give way to the more important aspirations of the spirit.
We need to sharpen our ability to discern the constant promptings of the Holy Spirit in our life. For this, we need to do some spiritual exercises like praying, offering sacrifices, having recourse to the sacraments, waging ascetical struggles, undergoing continuing formation, etc.
We need to convince ourselves that by living the Life in the Spirit, we would be putting ourselves on the road toward the fullness of our humanity. It’s in that Life in the Spirit where we would be freed from the constricting world of our senses, emotions and passions.
In this regard, St. Paul once said, “Put off your old nature which belongs to your former manner of life and is corrupt through deceitful lusts, and be renewed in the spirit of your minds, and put on the new nature, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness.” (Eph 4,22-24)
We know that there’s always that tension between our flesh and our spirit, articulated by Christ himself when he told his sleepy disciples, Peter, James and John, to watch and pray, because “the spirit is willing but the flesh is weak.”
To remedy this predicament, Christ taught that we enter by the narrow gate—putting ourselves to some inconveniences and discomfort, etcetera – because “wide is the gate, and broad is the way that leads to perdition.
Exploiters
Just days after workers went to show their greivances on the streets by holding rallies on labor day, politicians are mum on their perennial promises in support of the welfare of the working class. It took just a day for polticians cum policymakers to get into other concerns, chiefly those that will give them media milleage. Truly, the issues affecting workers would not give them personal gain, especially for their next election. This is the reality that workers had lived with all their lives. They simply have no choice but to continue working for the survival of their family. The realuzation of promises to alleviate their economic condition is a long ordeal that they have to accept.
The unfortunate situation is lamentable in the proverbial story of the ditch-digger. Under the scorching heat of the sun and the fithy mud, the ditch-digger has a poignant answer when asked why he keeps digging ditches. His answer, “i dig the ditch to buy me food to give me strength to dig the ditch” is a sordid reality true to the life of the poor who have to choice but bear the pain of exploitation.
That happened to the sugarcane workers in negros. With meager wages inadequate to feed the family, they are forced to borrow money at usurious interest from their capitalist landlords, thinking that the borrowed money could make both ends meet, but actualy could still not. Buried in huge debts that keep on growing with the high interests, they have to helplessly watch their children die of malnurishment that turns to hunger and eventually, death with an emptied breadbasket.
The situation is not only true the the sugarcare plantations. It too is prevalent among farmworkers in the ricefields. The workers sweat under the heat of the sun to earn a daily wage that is not enough to feed the family for a day. It too is the condition among factory workers.
Media workers who bring the news to inform the public of the social injustice that they themselves are victims of exploitation. They earn much less than the value of their toil and resort to borrowings just to buy food that will give them strength to be able to work, akin to the ditch digger.
In all the situations, the working class remain buried in debts while their rich, powerful and influencial employers continue getting richer, powerful and influential from the sweat and blood of workers who are exploited by capitalist employers who are exploiters.
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