God is our alpha and omega

THIS was expressly articulated in the Book of Revelation. “I am the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end.” (22,13)

If God is where we come from and where we belong to, and if as his creature we have been made in his image and likeness, we can reasonably conclude that everything in our life—from our thoughts, words to our deeds and big projects—should also start with him and end with him. This can be considered the basic pattern of our life and everything in it.

That could be the reason many of our prayers express that sentiment: “May every prayer and work of ours begin from You, and by You be duly ended.” A similar sentiment is expressed in St. Paul’s Letter to the Colossians: “Whatever you do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus…” (3,17)

We need to train ourselves to acquire this attitude and the relevant skills and virtues to make this truth a living reality in our life. It definitely is a lifetime project, but we should begin as early as possible to attain this outlook in life and its corresponding lifestyle.

For this, nothing less than faith is needed. Our senses and intelligence, while indispensable, should serve what our faith tells us about how we ought to live, how we ought to think, speak, and behave.

Faith is a spiritual and supernatural gift to which we have to correspond as fully as possible. It should be the main principle of our life, together with hope and charity. Our natural faculties should only be its servants, not its masters.

We have to allow the spiritual and supernatural dimensions of our life to rule over our natural and human powers, not the other way around. This is not going to be easy, of course, but neither is it impossible.

What we can do as an immediate step is to make many acts of faith until we can feel that this spiritual and supernatural faith is leading and guiding us, and is the one animating our senses, feelings and reasoning.

We just have to invoke the name of God whenever we start to do anything. That initial step can already open for us the possibility of doing things always together with God. Thus, the practice of making a morning offering to God as we wake up is highly recommendable, since it gives the proper tone to all our activities of the day.

And everytime we do something, we should try to first make some kind of prayer at the beginning. In that way, whatever we do will always assume a spiritual and supernatural character, and not just totally dominated by worldly values, no matter how legitimate and necessary they are.

To be sure, doing these practices would not obstruct the performance of whatever task we have at hand. Rather, they would foster and enhance it, since we would be doing them with rectitude of intention, and with the clear idea that all is done out of love of God and neighbor, even if at the end we can still commit mistakes. At least, those mistakes would be done in good faith.

Offering things to God at the beginning, and especially if renewed often during the performance of an activity, would give us more motives to do them as best as we can, not only in terms of quality but also in quantity.

With God always in our consciousness when we do things, we can manage to find peace and meaning when things get rough, or when we suffer some setbacks. And when things go well, when we enjoy successes and victories, we can manage always to be thankful and sober, our feet on the ground, and avoid the pitfalls of vanity and pride.

Making God the alpha and omega of our life and everything in it would make us more human, even as we are made also more spiritual and supernatural. Without him, there’s no other way but to deteriorate into the level of animals and other worse sub-human conditions.

We just have to reassure ourselves that this is what is actually proper to us. Obviously, we have to exert effort to overcome the initial awkwardness, like a baby learning to walk, because we need to learn to do this practice. We also have to learn how to do it with naturalness, without doing strange things that would unduly attract the attention of others.

Let’s hope that we create a culture that whatever we do,

we offer it to God, making him the alpha and omega of everything.