At this point of Lent, I usually need a little (or a lot) of encouragement to keep faithful to my commitments in this holy season, and so I am thinking that a reflection on perseverance is opportune, maybe for all of us.
When we think of New Year’s resolutions, Lenten practices, desires to eat healthier, lose weight, or spend more time with family, we know how difficult it is to follow through on such good intentions.
We begin with great fervor, and then gradually our energy and drive to follow through wanes and peters out.
Think of even bigger responsibilities, such as marriage, parenthood, priesthood, or a long career.
These life-time commitments require a perseverance and tenacity to play the long game over the course of many years.
We live in a culture which fears commitment, fights responsibility, and exalts self-interest.
Such an environment eases and magnifies any inner tendency to give up doing difficult things, settle for comfort and mediocrity, and to quit long-term obligations.
In the spiritual life, we can begin with the best of intentions regarding prayer, virtue, and the sacraments, but only the steady discipline of consistent, well-ordered practice will transform our lives.
To be an excellent athlete, musician, or artist requires years of perfecting particular skills, building inner strength, and mastering techniques.
No one sets out to be a mediocre cellist, painter, or football player.
We want to be excellent at what we do, so the same should apply to our faith.
To be an excellent Catholic, we need to practice as well.
Praying, reading the Scriptures, going to Confession, participating in Mass, living our specific virtues are all things that a serious follower of Christ does over and over again, in order to grow into the “full stature of Christ”, as St. Paul puts it.
Strive, fail, and look to Him
The Latin etymology of both “disciple” and “discipline” is “learner”.
Even linguistics here points to the necessity for a follower of Christ to practice the faith with consistency and sacrifice.
Think of the term “practicing Catholic” in the same context.
Every time I pray the Stations of the Cross, I linger longer at the Seventh Station.
Not necessarily the most emotional or dramatic point on the way to Calvary, Jesus Falls the Second Time, nevertheless, points to the need for perseverance on the road to salvation.
At this Station, Jesus is half-way up the hill; He has none of the little energy He had at the beginning and yet still has a difficult and arduous climb ahead. He falls down, but musters the inner resolve to get up and to keep going.
Holy perseverance!
This station teaches me the need to do the same.
Anyone can start anything, and when the finish line is in sight, we can usually muster that final burst of energy to get to the end.
So, the battle is won or lost in the middle, for it is often in the middle of things when our commitments and practices go sideways and falter.
The middle of a school year, the middle of a marriage, the middle of a building project, or the middle of winter are all challenging moments where we can lose our direction and purpose.
The proverbial “mid-life crisis” is aptly named.
The first line of Dante’s Divine Comedy is “Midway upon the journey of our life I found myself within a forest dark, for the straightforward pathway had been lost.”
We have all found ourselves in such challenging places.
In its unique combination of prayer, fasting, and almsgiving, Lent both calls us to spiritual greatness but also reveals our fragile weakness.
This holy season stretches me to reach for the highest of Catholic ideals, but by that fact, I am always bound to fail in my Lenten resolutions, in big and small ways.
Both this striving and failing can help us on the path to God.
Aspiring to greater virtue, devotion, and holiness will always make me a better person, but getting thrown back on my weakness when I cannot perfectly live those ideals, compels me to rely on the Lord’s love and mercy to carry me.
We don’t do spiritual calisthenics to impress God, (we can’t impress Him), but we seek to practice our faith with greater zeal so that He has more space and freedom to act and grow within us.
We can not do it alone
In his spiritual autobiography, The Journal of a Soul, St. John XXIII correlates his experience of being carried as pope on a portable chair (the precursor of the popemobile) through the crowds in St. Peter’s Square to his ongoing sense of being carried by the Lord through the trials and challenges of life.
As in so many aspects, our Catholic faith presents us a paradox here.
On the one hand, we are to strive mightily to become saints, persevering through every difficulty and cross, and yet on the other hand, we know that we cannot do this unless we surrender to God’s power and grace.
In the Christian context, courage and fortitude match perfectly with docility and humility.
So, if you are discouraged, like I can be sometimes, by your weakness and sin, take heart!
Like the Lord, we simply need to pick up the cross where we dropped it when we have fallen, and to persevere with Jesus unto the glory of the Resurrection, knowing that He walks with us every step of the way.
After the wonder of the Transfiguration, Jesus goes back down the mountain with His disciples and sets His countenance towards Jerusalem, where He will persevere even unto death to fulfill the Father’s will.
We can strive to do the same because He is with us always, even to the end of time.
Keep going.