THE GREATEST SURVIVAL CHALLENGE

MAY17, 2008

One of today’s more popular TV entertainments seems to be what are called reality programs. Instead of offering us fictional characters set in a fictional plot, these programs simply document real, ordinary persons, with no celebrity credentials, thrown together in situations in which they are challenged to overcome obstacles posed by the environment, the competition of other players, or a series of feats requiring physical strength, speed, stamina, courage, or any a combination of these, and all in order to emerge victorious. The goal at each step is simply to survive the challenge of the moment and not be eliminated.

These programs could be fairly described as shows in which nothing is ever won or lost except, perhaps, some prize money. Their popularity may in some way be due to their ability to relate to countless people who feel themselves caught up, in one way or another, in their own day-to-day struggle to survive.

Sustaining our lives does, in fact, entail effort. For instance, at a most fundamental level, in order to survive the elements of nature, we must make provision for adequate food and shelter. We must find work or hold on to the jobs we have in order to survive economically. To survive as a people, we must be vigilant these days against terrorist threats. To survive many forms of illness or disease, we must submit to treatment or take our prescription medicine. As students, we must study to survive academically, and so on.

What most threatens our survival today as individuals, families, and communities, however, is not the covert plans of terrorists, nor their threat of weapons of mass destruction, nor a so-called clash between Christian and Muslim civilizations, nor global warming and environmental degradation, nor a new strains of influenza, nor a loss of non-renewable sources of energy, nor another new, perverse ideology, nor genetic research run amok, nor economic nor political crises, nationally, regionally, or globally.

What most threatens our survival today is a pretty poison we ourselves have concocted. It is a poison that ensues when we forget that without truth, there is no true freedom or happiness.

 As a smart and affluent people we have transformed our nation into a Mecca that provides every imaginable entertainment and diversion. We have simultaneously evolved a culture that encourages us to forget our mortality, commercializes instant gratification and makes readily available an unending cascade of distractions and delights. In the name of freedoms and rights, today’s culture has invited us to moral license, with the false promise that making up our own rules and commandments, and wantonly indulging our appetites, passions, and impulses will lead us to self-realization and happiness.

This is not so. We are not just the highest animal species at the top of the food chain. We are not just nucleic acid processes. We possess souls, and whenever we do not attend our souls’ need for God, we begin to lose our humanity.

The greatest survival challenge we face today, I say, is for the survival of our souls. Let me explain.

Our soul is – without the theological precision or heavy jargon -- the deepest core of our individual identity, that which makes us uniquely who we are. Our Christian faith assures us that our soul is immortal and comes from God, who forms each of us in his own image and likeness. To lose our soul is to lose our self, our true God-given identity. It is to become a false person, an interiorly empty person, a stranger to ourselves and others, a person in whom the living presence of God has not survived.

In slightly different terms, meeting the challenge of our soul’s survival is about staying human.

The loss of one’s soul is not like a bodily loss, which always announces itself in obvious ways, as for example in the loss of health, a job, or a game. The loss of soul is like someone falling asleep in the freezing snow, but who feels no pain. Or, it’s like Sampson losing his strength when his hair was cut, but not realizing it.

What are the telltale signs of this loss? In short, the domination of any one of the seven capital sins over our lives is an indicator: anger, jealousy, lust, sloth, gluttony, greed, or pride. These can manifest themselves in many ways: Self-absorption, indifference to the suffering and needs of others, especially the poor and afflicted, a disengagement from forms of service to others, a dependency on alcohol or drugs, broken relationships, a difficulty controlling emotions, words, and actions, an inner darkness, a nameless, faceless pain inside, a lax conscience, and the trivialization or disdain for God and the things of God – all these are symptomatic of a loss of soul.

There is no way of insuring the survival of our souls and staying human without God, who alone can sustain us in our being and satisfy our souls’ needs.

God is love, and it is his love in us that makes us really human. When we do not allow him to feed the fire of his love in us, it flickers, flames out, and dies. That is what the loss of soul is about. To stay human is to stay in love, and to stay in love is to stay close to God.

+Bishop Raymundo J. Peña

last updated 05-Jun-2008 9:48 sitemap