Only a little while now, a very little while, and the One that is coming will have come. Jesus is coming down to earth to pardon and save us. What man of you, having a hundred sheep, if he has lost one of them, does not leave the ninety-nine in the wilderness, and go after the one which is lost, until he finds it? The Good Shepherd is coming to seek what had been lost. Once again he is returning with infinite love and patience to sanctity us and confirm us in our Christian vocation.
How often we have separated ourselves from God! How often we have failed to hear his voice – the voice of the one who heals the broken-hearted and binds up their wounds. He determines the number of the stars, he gives to all of them their names.
God is determined that we should be holy and is intent on seeking us out. He hastens in search of the hundredth sheep, St Bernard tells us, the one that has been lost … What wonderful condescension on God's part to seek men in this way. How great the dignity of man whom God seeks out in such a manner. We too must hasten to meet him, ready to start again and to respond to his never-failing Love. A day of salvation has arrived for us. Once again we can hear the whistling of the divine shepherd, his affectionate call: I have called you by name. Like our mother, he calls us by our name, even by our affectionate family nickname. There in the very depths of our soul he calls, and we must answer: Here I am, for you called me. Here I am, determined on this occasion not to let time pass like water over the rocks, without leaving a trace.
We need to decide to respond faithfully to the grace for interior renewal. St Josemaria tells us that what we have to try to do is to get to heaven. If we don't, nothing is worthwhile. To reach heaven, faithfulness to Christ's teaching is absolutely essential. And to be faithful, we must strive doggedly against whatever blocks our way to eternal happiness.
I know that the moment we talk about fighting we recall our weakness and we foresee falls and mistakes. God takes this into account. As we walk along, we will inevitably raise dust on our way; we are creatures and full of defects. I would say that they need to be there: they are the shadow which, in our soul, helps to highlight, by contrast, God's grace and our resolve to respond to God's kindness. And this contrast of light and darkness will make us human, humble, understanding and generous.
Let's not deceive ourselves: in our life we will encounter excitement and victory along with deprivation and defeat. Such has always been the earthly pilgrimage of Christians, even of those we venerate on the altars. Don't you remember Peter, Augustine, Francis? I have never liked biographies of saints which naively – but also with a lack of sound doctrine – present their deeds as if they had been confirmed in grace from birth. No. The true life stories of Christian heroes resemble our own experience: they fought and won; they fought and lost. And then, repentant, they returned to the fray.
To find Jesus, we have to keep starting over and over again. We need to be continually engaged in a struggle to improve. To stand still is to fall back. I am still running, says St Augustine, I am still advancing. I am still walking. I am still on the way. I am still exerting myself. I have not yet arrived. In the same way, if you are walking, if you are exerting yourself, if you are thinking of the future, then forget the past, do not glance back, or you may remain at the spot where you turned to look back. If you say, "Enough," you are lost.
We can always advance. We can always improve: in our contemplative life, in our spirit of sacrifice, in the way we work, in our concern for souls, in our apostolate. And not in some vague way, but in quite definite points, namely those suggested in spiritual direction. Making our struggle definite in this way helps our prayer of petition, and means that we avoid adopting a "passive" approach to the spiritual life. Without becoming impatient or nervous, our aim should be, with God's grace, to speed up our progress by working away at the same points of struggle and not allowing ourselves to become discouraged.
We don't wait for the New Year to make resolutions. Every day is a good day for good decisions. Those who wait for the New Year before they start again are defeatists. Our constant starting again constitutes a true ascetical struggle, which has to be undertaken and continued each day with optimism and enthusiasm. We need supernatural enthusiasm, which does not always show externally, since it is compatible with weariness and sorrow. This kind of enthusiasm is forged from our good intentions, from our fortitude, and from the knowledge that God loves us and seeks us out.
We should keep starting again joyfully, in spite of our weakness, and even because of it. Placing our trust in God, we will say, along with the Apostle: When I am weak, then I am strong. We stumble because we are weak, but when we recognize it for what it is, this very weakness attracts God's strength. He who is Lord of the armies directs the battle. St Gregory points out that an officer on the battlefield has more respect for the soldier who, after having fled, returns and attacks the enemy courageously, than for the soldier who has never turned his back, but who has never performed an act of bravery. It is not the person who never falls who becomes a saint, for no such person exists; it is the one who always gets up after falling. The danger is not in having defects, but rather in becoming content to live with them and not fighting against them.
In this adventure of love we should not be depressed by our falls, not even by serious falls, if we go to God in the sacrament of Penance contrite and resolved to improve. A Christian is not a neurotic collector of good behaviour reports. Jesus Christ our Lord was moved as much by Peter's repentance after his fall as by John's innocence and faithfulness. Jesus understands our weakness and draws us to himself on an upward slope. He wants us to make an effort to climb a little each day. He seeks us out, just as he did the disciples of Emmaus, whom he went out to meet. He sought Thomas, showed himself to him and made him touch with his fingers the open wounds in his hands and side. Jesus Christ is always waiting for us to return to him; he knows our weakness.
Let us acknowledge our faults, and humble ourselves before God. He is pleased when he sees us turn and ask for his forgiveness and help. God our Father, you loved the world so much that you gave your only Son to free us from the ancient power of sin and death. Help us who wait for his coming, and lead us to true freedom. We should pray, and learn to trust more in God and less in ourselves. Therein lies, in large part, the secret of sanctity.
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Ascetical Struggle – 2
I see in my members another law at war with the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin. All people, even the holiest, feel this law; all enter the world with original sin and suffer its consequences. These words of Scripture are addressed to all mankind: Turn back, you sinners, and do right before him; who knows if he will accept you and have mercy on you?
We cannot forget we have within us a source of opposition and resistance to grace. We carry the wounds of original sin, heightened perhaps by our personal sins. My child, your desires for sanctity will be opposed first by laziness, the first front on which you must fight; then by rebelliousness, the refusal to shoulder Christ's sweet yoke, a mad longing, not for true freedom, but for doing whatever you want to; then by sensuality; and, at all times (and more surreptitiously as the years go by), by pride. Finally there is a whole string of evil inclinations, because our weaknesses never come alone. The central aim of our interior struggle is to purify ourselves of this residue of our faults.
Our past faults give rise to both sorrow and hope, since we know that God, who has already forgiven us, will bring us to a safe harbour. But we should not forget that in the meantime, even the righteous man falls seven times. We still fail in deed or by omission; we are still beset by weakness and wretchedness. All this should lead us to be sorry and to try to make amends. Since your first conversion you have come quite a distance. And yet, isn't it true, St Josemaria asks, that there are still so many things, so many points of pride, so much unawareness of how feeble you really are? There are still corners of your soul that need cleaning. Perhaps you still allow yourself to harbour ideas or thoughts that are inappropriate for a Christian.
Sometimes we are superficial and careless in our examination of conscience, and we don't get into the recesses of the soul, or see our hidden sins. Nevertheless, those sins are there, and they hurt our Lord; often they are the hidden reason for our going astray. Now that we see them more clearly, let our sorrow be the sorrow that springs from love, not from sadness or discouragement.
The prophet Isaiah speaks of the promised Saviour coming to help us: Then shall come forth a shoot from the stump of Jesse, and a branch shall grow out of his roots. And the Spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him, the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and might, the spirit of knowledge and the fear of the Lord. And his delight shall be in the fear of the Lord. He shall not judge by what his eyes see, or decide by what his ears hear; but with righteousness he shall judge the poor, and decide with equity for the meek of the earth … In that day the root of Jesse shall stand as an ensign to the peoples; him shall the nations seek, and his dwellings shall be glorious.
Our Lord is coming to free us from our sins and to open up the gates of heaven. While we still await his coming, there is no weakness of ours that he cannot put right. Don't you hear Christ telling you, as he did St Paul, my grace is sufficient for you? But we have to admit, without making excuses, that we do often give in to comfort and laziness, bent on the easiest, most pleasurable way, any apparent shortcut, even if this involves infidelity to God. At other times we withdraw into ourselves; we forget about others, and become filled with vanity and pride. Let's not deceive ourselves, our Father warns, for this is the worst of all evils, the root of every false step. The fight against pride has to be a constant battle, to such an extent that someone once said that pride only disappears twenty-four hours after each of us has died.
Why do we not overcome mediocrity? The reason is often to be found in old habits, defects we've come to equate with our character or temperament, and, above all, that predominant fault of ours. But these things can be overcome with the all-powerful help of God's grace which flows from Christ's Sacrifice. No matter how fruitless our struggle may seem to have been so far, there is no reason for us to lose our confidence in God. Can God provide food for me and nourish me in the many evil hours of this life, which is an exile and a desert?
In reply to this question St Josemaria wrote: In the majestic silence of the Roman catacombs, I also seem to hear the manly voices of the early Christians, our predecessors, who give the right answer to their hesitant brothers.
Listen to it. It is the secret of their perseverance amid cruel and continuous external persecutions as well as inner trials permitted and even sent by the Holy Spirit: The Lord is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear? The Lord is the stronghold of my life; of whom shall I be afraid?
In particular, the awareness of our unworthiness will lead us to place our hope in Christ Jesus, who comes to help us, to redeem us. Filled with trust, let us repeat the praye: God of mercy and consolation, help us in our weakness and free us from sin. Hear our prayers that we may rejoice at the coming of your Son.
Struggle is part and parcel of our lives. You see within yourselves, on the one hand, pride, sensuality, tedium and selfishness; on the other, love, commitment, mercy, humility, sacrifice, joy. You have to choose. You have been called to a life of faith, hope and charity. You cannot seek lesser goals, condemning yourself to a life of mediocre isolation.
But there is another reason why we should take this struggle seriously. The redemption is still being accomplished, even at this moment And you and I are co-redeemers. Hope is not destroyed by the presence of evil, which we find, first of all, in ourselves. On the contrary, it makes us want to co-redeem, to identify ourselves with Christ and to share in his redeeming action, in his priesthood and his self-offering, in his Passion and Death, so that all may be saved. As St Paul writes: Now I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake, and in my flesh I complete what is lacking in Christ's afflictions for the sake of his body, that is, the Church. Knowing that we are co-redeemers is a powerful reason for us to take our ascetical struggle seriously
Christ's Redemption must be applied to each and every soul. He expects us to cooperate, in the first place by seeking our own sanctity so that his grace may be fully effective in our soul. And since we are members of the Church, we are also responsible for the holiness of the others. We have a duty to help them improve, not only out of love for them, but out of justice as well.
Our desire to co-redeem will flow out towards our relatives, friends and colleagues. It extends to every single person, because our concern is for all souls. We wish to see them all happy, both here on earth and forever in heaven.
It is worth risking our whole life and being willing to suffer, for love, in order to further the things of God and help him redeem the world, that is to say, to co-redeem. With this in mind, you and I should cry out in praise of God: My mouth will speak the praise of the Lord, and let all flesh bless his holy name.
Let us turn to Mary, Refuge of sinners, who co-redeems at the foot of the Cross, and ask her to fill us with sorrow for our sins, and with a serious resolution to give ourselves cheerfully, so that we can cooperate in the saving work of Jesus, her Son.
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God is the one who makes us holy.
One by one we have been called by God to share in the glory of his holiness as his adopted children. Out of justice, and because we are his children, we gladly accept the need to work in this world for many years, because Jesus has few friends here below. Let us not turn away from our duty to live our whole life – to the last drop – in the service of God and his Church.
Nevertheless, the road is long, like that of the Israelites in the desert, and we often find our strength disappearing and our path becoming steep and difficult. Sometimes, above all after a period of prolonged interior struggle, a feeling of weariness and indifference could come over us, and open the gates to the temptation to stop fighting. Then we have to react and seek help immediately, as the Church invites us to do: God of love, bring us back to you. Send your Spirit to make us strong in faith and active in good works.
Why do we sometimes feel such weariness and even discouragement? Perhaps without realizing it, we may have been trying to build up our holiness through our own efforts instead of relying on our Lord. Then he allows a state of interior loneliness and listlessness, in order to make us understand that holiness without God does not make sense. The prophet Jeremiah warns us of this danger: Cursed is the man who trusts in man, and makes flesh his arm, whose heart turns away from the Lord. He is like a shrub in the desert, and shall not see any good come. He shall dwell in the parched places of the wilderness, in an uninhabited salt land.
The prophet's words urge us to purify our intention once more, to make our faith more theological, and to have our hope firmly set on our Lord's loving help. Our Father encourages us: We have a clear guide, which we should not and cannot do without. We are loved by God, and we will let the Holy Spirit act in us and purify us, so that we can embrace the Son of God on the Cross, and rise with him, because the joy of the Resurrection is rooted in the Cross.
Are we still going to place our trust in ourselves, in our own worth, and in the strength of our own will? It is true that God has given us some talents. Yet if we try to use them in order to scale the heights of holiness by ourselves, we will only meet with difficulties; for we would be trying to attain a supernatural goal by human means.
Let us always turn to God our Lord for help. Let us ask him never to allow us to leave him; instead, may we always struggle with our hope set on his almighty power. This is a large part of the inner conversion which God, the Father of goodness, wants to effect in us.
Holiness does not depend on us alone. It depends primarily on God. It is the grace of God which sanctifies us, although it must be accompanied by our own good will and personal effort. We have to trust that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion, accomplishing in us both the will and the deed, as long as we do not turn away from his grace. As Sacred Scripture says: Blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord, whose trust is the Lord. He is like a tree planted by water, that sends out its roots by the stream, and does not fear when heat comes, for its leaves remain green, and is not anxious in the year of drought, for it does not cease to bear fruit.
I am not and never have been a pessimist, St Josemaria insists, for the faith teaches me that Christ has conquered once and for all He has given us, as a pledge of his victory, a command which is also a commitment: "Fight". We Christians have a commitment of love to the calling of divine grace, which we have freely accepted, an obligation which urges us to fight tenaciously. We know that we are as weak as other men, but we cannot forget that if we use the means available to us, we will become salt and light and leaven of the world; we will be the consolation of God.
People in love always keep their spirits young and lively. They never get tired of fighting, because their hope is what nourishes and drives them, and is the source of their happiness and fruitfulness. From now on, be in a hurry to fall in love. Love itself will prevent us from complaining and protesting. For we put up with setbacks often enough, but then we feel sorry for ourselves, so that not only do we waste God's grace, but we also tie his hands and make it harder for him to ask us for things in the future: God loves the cheerful giver, the person who gives with the spontaneity of a loving heart, without all the fuss and bother of one who gives himself as if he were doing God a favour.
Certainly there will always be difficulties. But our Lord invites us to lift our gaze towards the prize that awaits us. The Gospel reminds us of the poor man Lazarus who trusted in God till his death, and was carried by the angels to the bosom of Abraham. When the rich man from his place of torment begged for mercy, Abraham answered: Son, remember that you in your lifetime received your good things, and Lazarus in like manner evil things; but now he is comforted here, and you are in anguish. All the beggar's sufferings had disappeared in a moment, to be replaced by infinite, eternal happiness. St John Chrysostom comments: Therefore, when we are oppressed by great tribulations and sickness, let us remember Lazarus and accept the evil things in our lives with joy.
Let us always struggle, then, with our hope set on Almighty God and his great mercy. Let us trust fully in God and have a greater desire each day never to run away from him.
Today, as yesterday, heroism is expected of the Christian. A heroism in great struggles, if the need arises. Normally, however, heroism lies in the little skirmishes of the day. When you put up a continuous fight, with love, in apparently insignificant things, the Lord is always present at your side, as a loving shepherd
God takes our salvation even more seriously than we do. But since none of us will be saved against our will, because we are free, he wants us to desire what is good. We should desire to be holy. We must never lose sight of the fact that God requires our cooperation in building up our sanctity.
God loves us more than we love ourselves, and he gives us the means to achieve what is good for us. Yet it is also true that we need to make use of those means. We need to be ready to attack all the evil shoots we discover. Faith shows us that all our excuses are empty. Our determination to persevere in this resolution of Love is, moreover, an obligation of justice. This obligation, common to all Christians, implies a constant battle. The entire tradition of the Church has described Christians as soldiers of Christ. Soldiers who bring serenity to others while continually fighting against their own bad inclinations. Sometimes, because we are short on supernatural outlook, in effect short on faith, we do not want to hear any talk of life on earth as a kind of war. We maliciously insinuate that if we think of ourselves as soldiers of Christ, there is a danger that we might use the faith for earthly purposes, bringing pressure to bear, creating little isolated groups. This very naive line of thought is completely illogical and usually goes hand in hand with cowardice and love of comfort.
On the contrary, as children of God, we understand our struggle according to the Magisterium of the Church, as a war each of us makes on himself. It is a constantly renewed effort to love God better, to root out selfishness, to serve all men. Turning your back on this conflict, no matter what the excuse, means surrendering before you have begun to fight Anyone who does so is brought low, without faith, depressed in his heart, blown this way and that by miserable pleasures.
Our spiritual combat in the presence of God and of all our brothers in the faith is a necessary result of being a Christian. So if you do not fight, you are betraying Jesus Christ and the whole Church, his Mystical Body.
On the one hand, we have to struggle as if everything depended on us; and on the other, we must turn to God with the confidence that comes from knowing that our petition will be heard. Then our Lord will be pleased with our cheerful, confident struggle. Our trust in God, and our personal effort, are the two hinges which support our generous, heroic daily struggle. With our eyes fixed on Jesus and Mary, let us remember what St Josemaria says: If everything seems to be fading away, if your spiritual edifice totters, find your support in filial confidence in Jesus and Mary -the sure and steady rock on which you should have built from the beginning.
