When we are trying hard to live the Christian life, it’s easy to lose focus.
It’s good to talk about building virtue and making plans for prayer. Both of those things require dedication, commitment and focus. They don’t happen if we don’t work at them.
It’s good to talk about fighting against a secular culture and defending the truth. Those things require fortitude and prudence, and if we aren’t fighting, we’re soon swept downstream.
It’s good to examine our consciences at the end of the day and think about what we can do to eradicate vice tomorrow. It’s good to understand that the Christian life is a battle – a battle worth fighting.
But sometimes we forget that it’s not just up to us and our friends to fight the battle. We can focus on our efforts and begin to only think about what we are doing, what we need to do, or what we are failing to do.
Guess what? We can’t do it alone. We need the Holy Spirit.
Sure, we can work really hard at becoming a saint. But no one is pulling themselves up to Heaven by their own bootstraps. That’s an age-old heresy that keeps coming back again and again. It hides within our desire to be better people – and thus we set out to create a self-help plan to work on our faults and grown in virtue. But we begin to lose sight of the fact that heaven isn’t something we earn or a prize achieved.
When was the last time you called upon the Holy Spirit? You received Him at Baptism and Confirmation, but are his gifts activated in you? Or have you put up roadblocks to his work: whether by stubbornness, sin, or pride?
There’s a spiritual battle going on for our souls and the world, yes. But sometimes we talk as if there are two equal sides waging war. The scales aren’t even.
We have a great Accuser who sets out to make us feel we’ve lost. The Devil accuses, condemns, and tries to drive us to despair.
Have we forgotten that we have an Advocate? A Paraclete whose job is to defend, equip, and comfort? An Advocate who is GOD?
Yes, we have to work to grow in virtue. We have to labor to eradicate sins and faults from our daily lives. We have to fight for our culture and our families. But we’re not doing this alone.
Call on the Holy Spirit. Ask him to descend once again on our families, our parishes, our country. It’s easy to get discouraged about a lot of things in this world. When was the last time we asked for help?
“As we give thanks for … precious past blessings, and look to the challenges of the future, let us implore from God the grace of a new Pentecost for the Church in America. May tongues of fire, combining burning love of God and neighbor with zeal for the spread of Christ’s Kingdom, descend on all present!”
Pope Benedict, April 19 2008
Image credit: Photo by Jack Sharp on Unsplash
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