Overflowing with “Glamour”
I think few times in my life have I liked a homily as much as the one I heard last Sunday at church. What I am about to say sounds a bit odd, but the priest talked to us about “glamour,” that famous word that so many people today dream of possessing (and do everything possible and impossible to achieve).
The priest said we must be very careful not to live thinking about the “glamour” the magazines sell us. That there are Christians who can be distracted from what is essential, from what they should be and do, because they live focused on achieving “glamour” through power, money, fame, having things and things and more things. “That makes us lose the true North our Christian life must have: to be good and to reach Heaven. That is what gives real ‘glamour.’”
When he said that, I imagined two scenes.
On the one hand, a famous star with the perfect figure, wearing the finest jewels and gowns anyone could dream of, parading down the red carpet, delighting the paparazzi with the “glamour” of this world. Sadly, we may later see that same star (or, if it is a man, that same actor) in the most scandalous news we ever imagined about them (infidelities, theft, brawls, alcohol, drugs and so on).
On the other hand, I thought of so many women and men who go through life hidden from the eyes of the paparazzi, because with their honest work they will never be able to afford the luxuries of movie stars or the “powerful” of this earth. I sincerely think those men and women aren’t even interested in that, because it isn’t their North, as the priest said. These flesh-and-blood people, whom we have all around us here in Venezuela, give off a different kind of “glamour,” a “glamour” our world today badly needs: the “glamour” of Dignity.
What matters to these people is something much more important: reaching Heaven. And on that road to Heaven, which is often steep and slippery, and above all narrow, as Jesus Christ Himself said, they overflow with the “glamour” of integrity, of honesty, of dignified work, of service to others, of detachment from material things, of exemplary values, of being people all of a piece…
These people, who we might say carry an aura of “glamour” (which, when all is said and done, is the grace of God), move others when they see that, in such a materialistic world, they are above all that, walking completely happy along the road God taught us. The road of salvation, the road contained in the Ten Commandments of God’s law.
That road that says Yes to love for everyone, to humility, to generosity, to patience, to temperance, to chastity, to faithfulness, to charity, to diligence, to truth, to justice… That road that says No to greed, to anger, to lust, to gluttony, to vanity, to sloth, to pride, to hypocrisy, to lies, to injustice…
As the priest said as he closed his homily, “with the consistency of our lives we can show others that true happiness is found only in God, in following the road He taught us.” Only in this way can we overflow with “glamour” of the great kind, a “glamour” like the one that radiated from Christ, our first example to follow.
A “glamour” that will move those around us, because people are hungry for good things, authentic things, things with integrity. In this way many will be able to see what it really means to be a Christian. And as Pope Francis says: “Christianity spreads by contagion when we give good example.”
It is time for us to overflow with the good kind of “glamour.” It is time to show others, with our words and our deeds, that it is worth loving God above all things and our neighbor as ourselves. That it is worth having God in our minds, our souls and our hearts. That it is not enough to say with our lips that we are Catholics; we must show by example that we are true Christians, everywhere and at all times.
Only in this way will we live fully happy in the midst of difficulties and make life happy for those around us. And, very importantly, we will give an example of values to those who live thinking that the world is too corrupt and that there is no solution.
Thank God, in our Venezuela there are plenty of people with the good kind of “glamour”!