Another Sunday Thought About Fighting
Again, we note that the
Easter Season brings much joy and celebration. But we do not forget or
forego our daily struggle for sanctity and all that entails. Indeed, the
special graces that flow during this holy season can do much to
strengthen us, to hone our spiritual life to endure all that this Vale
of Tears inevitably will serve up.
With these graces providing us with strength and endurance, we continue to dig deeper into what can at times seem a daunting reality. As we do, we should find that there's nothing to fear. We simply continue our fight. If we do, we will conquer ourselves, and, following the example of Our Risen Lord, death itself.
Yet again, our installment gets into great detail. Don't skim it. We note especially:
"Sufficient for the day is the evil thereof." We will see just how important it is for us to allow this profound truth to penetrate deep into our hearts and minds.
Today's teaching ends with an example from a monastery. Most of us may not be monks, but the example can easily be translated to those regular items that in aggregate can seem to overwhelm us. Take each day one at a time; and within each day, one moment at a time. There's not time or reason to think beyond this when it comes to the ongoing challenges we face.
Let's take our time reading this and see if we can learn something more about why we need to always be ready to fight.
And There is No Fighting Without Suffering (Part 3 of 4)
Fr. Jacques Michel, S.J. (1712-?)
“I am quite aware that could we foresee all the difficulties and trials that must be encountered in the service of God, taken collectively for the space of a long life, we might well feel appalled. But is this the way in which we are called upon to encounter the trials of a Christian life? Our temptations and trials generally meet us separately; today we have one enemy to combat, tomorrow another, according to the occasion. If there are some that again and again have to be met and overcome, there are others that return but seldom. Against the former we must guard ourselves in an especial manner; against the latter we must prepare ourselves by frequent exercise of the love of God. It would surely evince great pusillanimity to be afraid to resist an enemy that opposes us singly, and grows strong only in proportion as we show ourselves to be weak. Tremble at his approach and you are overcome; but resist him, invoking God’s assistance, and you are sure to conquer. Never consider collectively what is to be presented to you separately. We have only to answer for the present, and therefore to torment one’s self about the uncertain future is folly. Such conduct is really going in advance of temptation, or, in other words, seeking it; it is laying snares for one’s own destruction. Why should we suffer in imagination that which we may never have to suffer in reality? ‘Sufficient for the day is the evil thereof.’ To expose one’s self to temptation is contrary alike to religion and to Christian prudence. If, then, a person does violence to himself for the love of God, and in the hope of reward – if, at any trial to which he is exposed, he occupies himself exclusively with it, and thinks only how he will derive from it the greatest benefit – he will easily undergo them all successively, by the grace of our Lord, and with great merit to himself.
“A person in religious life feels a repugnance for the yoke and restraint of obedience and regularity. Suppose, instead of overcoming himself on each occasion, he begins to consider the difficulty of a whole life passed in such constraint; his courage sinks at the prospect and he is ready to despair. But let him only look at it as the restraint of a day, or half a day, or only in connection with the present duty; half the difficulty vanishes, and he finds his strength is fully equal to it. And, indeed, it is frequently but a momentary trial, and the trouble ceases when the determination is firmly taken.”
Happy Easter!
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