Can we really live a supernatural life?

THIS is a question many people ask when told that we are meant to live a supernatural life. And we have to start explaining. First, that we are meant to live a supernatural life is based on the fact that we are created by God in His image and likeness. We are meant to be His children, to share in the nature and life of God, as St. Peter himself said in his second letter:

“His (God’s) divine power has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of Him who called us to His own glory and excellence, and by which He has granted His precious and very great promises, that through these you may escape the corruption that is in the world because of passion, and become partakers of the divine nature.” (1,3-4)

Our life is always a shared life with God because we cannot be without Him who gives and keeps our existence. We are endowed with the capacity to know and to love, have a very intimate character in our coming from Him and belonging to Him.

But before doing our part in developing a supernatural life, we are told that God has already given us everything so that we can share in His divine nature and supernatural life. He gave us His grace, which comes to us in many ways.

We have the sacraments, especially the Holy Eucharist. We have His living word in the gospel and other instrumentalities that spread this. We have the living witnesses of holy men and women, starting with our Blessed Mother, etc. We must settle down with this truth that our life is meant to be supernatural with God. God has adapted Himself to our own condition, wounded as it is by sin, by becoming man and going all the way to assuming all our sins even without committing sin just to save us.

 In any situation we find ourselves in — either big or big or small, ordinary or extraordinary, good or bad — is where we always find Christ, who is willing to save us, put us to the right path, and lead us to our eternal destination.

We should disabuse ourselves from the idea that supernatural life in this world is a life of wine and roses, all bliss, and extraordinarily beautiful, … marked only by special experiences like ecstasies, levitations, bilocations, stigmatas, glossolalia, and others.

The cross can be considered a genuine sign that one is living a supernatural life. We must be guided by faith, rallying all our powers — intelligence, will, emotions and passions, memory and imagination, etc.

Let’s remember we are only on some kind of pilgrimage in this earthly life now, meant for eternity — with God in heaven — our definitive life. But we must see to it that our earthly life is also supernatural, because if our life is not supernatural, then it is just animal life and is completely inhuman.