Everything can be an occasion

FOR anything, that is. Since we are intelligent and free beings, we can turn everything in our life into an occasion for good or evil. But if we have the proper understanding of the purpose of our life here on earth, we should realize that everything can be and should be an occasion to know, love and serve God, or to pursue holiness.

Thus, whether in the twists and turns of our life we can be considered as heroes or villains, winners or losers, successful or failing, we have to always remember that we are all called to become saints.

And the nice thing about this is that all the events and conditions in our life, in all their vast variety, can precisely be turned into occasions to attain a degree of sanctity. Everything is relatable to God. It’s a matter of how to react to them—whether we react with faith and trust in God or we simply react in a purely human way, reliant only on our human powers.

We need to understand that all our human conditions, whether good or bad, big or small, extraordinary or ordinary, etc., have already been covered by Christ’s redemptive life and do have the potential to lead us to him. Even our mistakes and failures can lead us to God.

If our status is considered as humanly good, then let’s be thankful to God, remain humble and focus on sharing as widely as possible whatever good we have. If our status is otherwise, then let’s turn to God just the same, perhaps asking for mercy, for more blessing, and just try to be patient in going through unavoidable inconveniences of the condition.

We have to learn to see the hand of God behind every event and circumstance of our life. We have to learn to discern his will and the directions he is showing us through them. There’s always a reason for everything in our life. And God knows how to make use of it.

We should not be distracted from doing what is truly essential in life, irrespective of the circumstances. This is the only thing necessary in our life. All the others are the peripherals, the instruments and the occasions to achieve this one thing necessary.

Let’s remember that God is always around, his providence is abiding, his interventions in our life are actually constant. We just have to be more aware of this truth of our faith and correspond to it as fully as possible.

God can always derive something good even from our mistakes. What is impossible to us is always possible to him. He can write straight with crooked lines.

Thus, St. Paul tells us: “Whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God.” (1 Cor 10,31) This is what we have to learn to do always. Especially now when our world is getting increasingly complicated, generating a lot of problems, differences and conflicts among ourselves, this frame of mind is getting more and more relevant.

The good thing about all this is that we can remain calm and more focused on what we are supposed to be doing. We will always find meaning in everything, whether we are up or down in our earthly condition.