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To till it and keep it

 (Gn 2:15)

            To our brothers and sisters in the CFC community in Jakarta: May the peace of Christ be with you all! It has been a few months since we left Jakarta and we miss all of you. We miss our daughter, Joyce, and son-in-law, Mickey, and our two grandchildren, Miko and Mita. We miss Fr. Van and the CFC and SFC Voices of Praise. If not for the certainty of our belief that it is God’s will that we should stay and serve here in Manila, we would probably be planning again to return to Jakarta and rejoin the CFC community there.

            For a short while we were in the household of Bro Tony Meloto but since a couple of weeks ago, we have been placed in the household of Bro Frank Padilla. We do not have any specific service yet, but I have so far given a talk (Who is Jesus Christ?) in a corporate CLP led by Bro Ruben Sumo. I also gave a talk in a forum organized by St. Thomas More and Associates (STMA), a CFC ministry for socio-political renewal. Jean has also been asked to help in the work of the CFC Angkop Foundation, a special ministry for the poor.

            My work as a member of the President’s Cabinet has kept me very busy. It is only through God’s special grace that we have been able to make time to attend the activities of Couples for Christ, pray our daily family rosary, hold our monthly family celebration of the Lord’s Day, and fulfill our covenant of daily prayer and Scripture reading. But it has been a difficult struggle. Indeed at one point, we asked God to reassure us that this is really his will for us. But the Lord answered us clearly: Yes, this is my will for you.

            The Lord answered us through a book of Blessed Josemaria Escriva that I had been reading and the various verses in the Book of Genesis, the Gospel of Matthew, and the Letters of St. Paul.

     My brothers and sisters, we want to share with you God’s message in the hope that you too may have a clearer understanding of God’s will for you.

     I believe that many of you are more familiar with the following verses in the Book of Genesis 3:17-19: And to the man he said, “Because you have listened to the voice of your wife and have eaten of the tree about which I commanded you, ‘You shall not eat of it,’ cursed is the ground because of you; in toil you shall eat of it all the days of your life; thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you; and you shall eat the plants of the field. By the sweat of your face you shall eat bread until you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken; you are dust, and to dust you shall return.

            Some misinterpret this passage as saying that the need to work is a consequence of sin, that because man sinned, then God punished man by obliging him to work. But this is not the case. Notice that in these verses, man is not cursed. It is the earth that is cursed because of the man’s misdeed (“cursed is the ground because of you”). Consequently, thorns and thistles grow on the ground making cultivation more difficult. Accordingly, man has to endure a hard life till he returns to dust where he came from.

            Fewer people are familiar with the following verse from Genesis 2:15: The Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to till it and keep it. This verse tells us that from the beginning of creation, even while man was still in the Garden of Eden, God had intended for him to work – to cultivate the garden and take care of it. Even before the fall of man, even before sin entered the world, God made Adam from the clay of the earth and placed him in the Garden of Eden – not just to enjoy it – but to till it and keep it.

            The Blessed Josemaria Escriva, in Friends of God, states it very clearly: “We must be convinced, therefore, that work is a magnificent reality, and that it has been imposed on us as an inexorable law which, one way or the other, binds everyone, even though some may seek exemption from it. Make no mistake about it. Man’s duty to work is not a consequence of original sin, nor is it just a discovery of modern times. It is an indispensable means that God has entrusted to us here on this earth. It is meant to fill our days and make us sharers in God’s creative power. It enables us to earn our living and, at the same time, to reap the fruits of eternal life.”

            God has intended work as our means to participate in His creative power. We are to be workers in this world with clear responsibilities and objectives. Our obligation cannot be confined to the performance of a few pious acts, going to church, saying our evening prayers, or fasting on some occasions. In the Gospel of Matthew 5:14-16, Jesus tells us what we ought to be: You are the light of the world. A city built on a hill cannot be hid. No one after lighting a lamp puts it under the bushel basket, but on the lampstand, and it gives light to all in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father in heaven. Jesus wants us to be “light to all,” not just to our brothers and sisters in the CFC community, but to all. We must become lamps to enlighten our colleagues in our workplace. We must be seen at all times, particularly in our places of work, as God’s children “tilling and keeping the garden that God has placed us in.”

            Let us listen once more to Blessed Josemaria Excriva: “We must learn to turn our work into prayer. Our work must become a real conversation with our Father in heaven. If we seek sanctity in and through our work, we will necessarily have to strive to turn it into personal prayer. If we do this, we become united to God at every moment. We will be living in our Lord by means of our continual hard work, which we will have learned to turn into prayer, because we will have started it and finished it in the presence of God the Father, of God the Son, and of God the Holy Spirit.”

    Finally, we should listen to the words of St. Paul: Keep alert, stand firm in your faith, be courageous, be strong. Let all that you do be done in love (1 Cor 16:13-14). Whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him (Col 3:17). Therefore, my beloved, be steadfast, immovable, always excelling in the work of the Lord, because you know that in the Lord your labor is not in vain (1 Cor 15:58).

    My brothers and sisters, after reading and reflecting on all these, I have come to realize that if we offer our busy work schedule to God, if we view our work as a participation in God’s creative power, if we do our work in obedience to His command “to till and keep the Garden of Eden,” then our work will become a prayer offering to the Father, a means to praise and glorify God, and our path to holiness.

            With this realization, I have called all the members of Couples for Christ in the Department of Science and Technology to assemble for worship and to plan the first corporate Christian Life Program for DOST to start immediately after the Holy Week. I have also asked Jean to invite the servant-leaders of CFC Angkop Foundation to meet with DOST officials to discuss how DOST can assist with its technologies to provide livelihood projects for the poor. I have also given instruction to all agencies under me to expand all their technology and livelihood programs for the poor, the disabled, the disadvantaged, and the cultural minorities.

            My brothers and sisters, let us make our work a prayer offering to God. Let us make it our means to converse with the Father in heaven. Let us seek sanctity in and through our work by doing everything in the spirit of charity. If we “till it and keep it,” we may yet become worthy, through God’s grace, to enter the Garden of eternal life.

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