The sense of solidarity
We need to develop a good sense of solidarity. It is that awareness of our duty that we are meant to be with everybody else, and to be concerned for them and to care for them. We should not think only of our own selves, of our own interest, but rather always of the common good.
It’s when we have this good sense of solidarity that we would have our authentic fulfillment and not the fake one that we often feel when we think only of our own selves. We have to be quick to react when we are beguiled by the false charms of self-centeredness and self-indulgence.
This good sense of solidarity certainly behooves us to share whatever we have with others, and vice-versa, we partake of whatever others have. And not only in our joys, but also in our suffering. As much as possible we have to be together in good times and bad, helping each other in any way we can so we can attain our common good. We would know how to work as a team when we have a good sense of solidarity.
We need to widen and deepen our consciousness such that we are always aware of our duties toward others, and especially toward God, who is the ‘first Other,’ the principle and goal of our sense of solidarity.
We have to be wary of our tendency to be carried away and completely dominated and absorbed by the technicalities of the things that we do in our life. These technicalities are, of course, important and indispensable, but they should not be allowed to distract us from our sense of solidarity.
Everything that we do, no matter how technically absorbing, should be oriented first of all to God as an act of adoration, of giving glory and thanksgiving, and then to all others whom we have to love and serve.
Without this orientation, the technicalities of our work, no matter how brilliant, can only lead us to serve our own interests. They tend to blunt our sense of solidarity. We therefore have to find effective ways of how we can be conscious of God and others always while being immersed in the technicalities of our earthly affairs.
This good sense of solidarity is based on our nature itself and of our dignity as image and likeness of God, children of his. As a human person, endowed with the spiritual powers of intelligence and will, we are meant to know and love everyone as best as we can, and thus enter into communion with them.
As a child of God, created in God’s image and likeness, we are meant to enter into the very life of God, and to reflect the perpetual inter-Trinitarian relation among the three persons in the one God. In that Trinitarian life, there is constant knowing and loving, and that is the dynamic that should also occur in our life.
We are meant to endlessly know and love God and others more and better. We should never say enough nor set limits in this duty. There is always something new, something more and different in our duty to know and love others.
This is how a good sense of solidarity works. We would always be motivated and find ways to know and love God more and better. Yes, it might look like a very daunting duty, but if we allow ourselves to go along with God’s grace, things would be easy. What may be humanly hard or even impossible for us, would somehow be made easy and practicable with God’s grace.
We just have to learn how to be game in living out our sense of solidarity. We know, because of Christ’s assurance, that what may seem to be a loss for us due to this duty, would actually redound to our own gain many times over.
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