All the way to the
gates of hell
By
Fr. ROY CIMAGALA, roycimagala@gmail.com
July 11, 2025
THAT’S how willing we
should go in our apostolic tasks if we truly dedicate ourselves, as
we should, to Christ’s continuing work of human redemption. We
should not be afraid of anything, the effort, sacrifices and all
sorts of contradictions that may be involved along the way. We
should do all we can, yes, even going all the way to the gates of
hell if only to snatch a soul from entering there.
Christ already warned us
that we will be like “sheep in the midst of wolves” in this world.
In pursuing this mission, he told us to be “wise as serpents yet
simple as doves.” (cfr. Mt 10,16) We should not be naïve, we should
not be afraid to get dirty. We have to be tough and learn how not to
be scandalized by anything in this life.
If we truly are good and
saintly, we would not be scandalized by any evil that can hound us.
It’s not that we are not affected by evil. Like anybody else, we
are. At least, we would be annoyed and can get angry. We can even
try to seek justice and retribution to anyone who might have done us
wrong. But we would not respond evil with another evil.
Like Christ, we would know
how to bear evil patiently. And more than that, like Christ we would
be aroused to correct evil with charity, and even to love those who
cause us evil. We would try to correct them with charity and seek
their conversion. That is what is most important to carry out.
And even with those who
have no more hope of conversion, like the evil spirits who already
have made their definite choice to go against God and everything
that comes from God, like Christ we would refuse to fall into hatred
or any form of evil. We may have to defend ourselves against them,
as we should, but we would not be baited to fall into lack of
charity.
As Christ said, we have to
love even our enemies. (cfr. Mt 5,44) So we have to be most careful
when in our pursuit for goodness and holiness, we end up hating
those who are not good and holy and who give us trouble.
That kind of goodness and
holiness is not the goodness and holiness of God. They would be
fake, and are based simply on our own gratuitous and unjustified
ideas of goodness and holiness. It would be the goodness and
holiness of the prude persons, the puritans, the self-righteous and
hypocrites, etc.
We really need to learn
how to suffer. The massive problem we have now is precisely that
many of us do not know how to suffer. We complain and cry even at
the slightest touch of suffering. We become sad and fall into a hard
case of depression. Self-pity and idle passivity can dominate us,
sinking us into a spiral of problems and predicaments.
Learning how to suffer is
an art and skill that is available if we only care to notice. It’s
all there as clear as noonday, its cause and meaning precisely
defined, its antidote and vaccine abundantly provided. Our Christian
faith sheds tremendous light on this mystery of our life. Christ is
showing us the way, and is actually empowering us.
The most important thing
to always keep in mind is do everything to bring souls back to God.
We should not shy away from this mission, because God himself will
do it with us if we would just care to cooperate with him.