A Sunday Thought About Conquering Death By Conquering Ourselves

Last Sunday we spoke of hope. Easter brings us the great hope for eternal life. Our Lord conquered death when He rose from the dead. We now follow in his footsteps during this Easter Season.

But to conquer requires effort on our part. That effort consists in a constant fight against our fallen human nature. Each of us fights his or her own battle, depending on individual circumstances. 

Fr. Jacques Michel addresses all of this. We'll follow his teaching today and the next few Sundays. We'll learn why we cannot conquer without fighting. And there's no fighting without suffering.

We who have lived for any length of time in this Vale of Tears likely know this all too well. 

So for the rest of these Easter Sundays, in the midst of our joy and celebration, we'll spend some time digging deeper into what can at times seem a daunting reality. As we do, we should find that there's nothing to fear. If we accept our suffering and continue our fight we will conquer death.

We Cannot Conquer Without Fighting, 

And There is No Fighting Without Suffering (Part 1 of 4)
Fr. Jacques Michel, S.J. (1712-?)

“The arguments that show the necessity for Christian hope are readily admitted; but the devil endeavors, by his artful suggestions, to make the despondent soul find pretexts for not applying them to herself. Indolence or aversion to everything that gives trouble is common to all men. When we have devoted ourselves to God’s service, we would like to enjoy the happiness of our condition without its costing us much, forgetting the words of our Savior: ‘The Kingdom of heaven suffereth violence, and the violent bear it away.’ Let us ever remember that Christ did not enter into His glory until after He had suffered, and that He has admitted His saints to share it only after crosses and combats and sacrifices; the renouncing of their passions and their self-will. Heaven is a reward; and we can earn it only by preferring God and His holy will before all other things, and being ready to sacrifice whatever is dearest to us whenever He requires it. This, then, is certain, and St. Paul declares it: ‘He also that striveth for the mastery is not crowned except he strive lawfully.’ To aspire to the crown of justice without fighting is a contradiction to the truths of faith – to expect to fight and yet not to suffer is contrary to common sense. But it is often from the very knowledge we have of what God requires of us, that the devil uses his arguments for discouraging us, making use of our sloth to intimidate us from undertaking the necessary labor. It costs us nothing to follow our natural inclinations; it costs us much to repress them, and the enemy of our souls never loses sight of that, to make us prefer the former. Therefore does he set before our eyes a lively representation of the difficulties we shall undergo in the service of God, and that our life will be a constant torture and a constant battle. But, on the other hand, he carefully conceals the peace of heart which we shall find in obeying God, the solid consolations we shall receive in our trials, the hope of our eternal reward. No, the devil will show us our weakness to its fullest extent, will remind us of our repeated relapses; but the mercy of God, and the support of that all-powerful arm which so often upheld us, he will try to make us forget.”

The devil doesn't like hope. He works to destroy it in us. Without it we become despondent and lose the edge of our spiritual discipline. 

If you've ever tended even a simply garden, you know that you must stay on top ot things or nature will have its way. Our fallen human nature will have its way with us if we don't stay on top of our spiritual discipline.

We all encounter difficulties both in life in general and also in our spiritual life. If we allow not only the reality of these, but, worse, the mere thought of how many difficulties we now face or may face in the future to get the better of us, the devil has his chance, worse, his way with us.

Our Easter Season comes with abundant graces to help us overcome all this. Just as we kept a special Lenten discipline, so too we can keep an Easter "discipline" - one that opens the door to hope, to joy, and with that, a lack of worry or anxiety about all that does or might go wrong, or prove difficult in our lives.

Easter calls us to total trust in Our Lord Jesus Christ, who suffered and died and rose from the dead to free us from sin and all that would drag us away from Him.

Happy Easter!