IF OUR life is truly inspired by Christian faith, hope and love, we would know that our life would always involve some daily conquests, whether big or small, if only to make ourselves more and more like Christ. That’s actually the be-all and end-all of our life. Our life would never be in some static, idle mode. It would always be in a dynamic mode with the dynamism provided for by our Christian faith, hope and love.
We have to understand that our life here on earth is a training and testing ground for us to see if what God wants us to be is also what we would want ourselves to be. It is God who is actually shaping us to be another Christ, the pattern of our humanity and the savior of our damaged humanity. And we have to correspond as best that we can to God’s creative and redemptive work on us.
We should debunk the idea that we are just on our own, and that our life is what we alone make it out to be. That idea cannot explain many fundamental things about us, like how we came to be, why we have a yearning for a happiness without end when we know we cannot achieve it ever in this life, why we have intelligence and will that connect us to a spiritual world and would lead us to a supernatural reality, etc.
The correspondence that we need to do toward God’s continuing creative and redemptive work on us is what would give rise to the need also to have some daily conquests. That’s because we need to defend ourselves against everything that would undermine such correspondence. And this everything involves our own weaknesses and sins, the tempting and sinful allurements of the world, and the tricks of the devil.
Let’s remember that our life here on earth can be described also as a warfare. We have enemies to contend with. The Book of Job says it explicitly: “The life of man upon earth is a warfare…” (7, 1)
And the enemies we have are no mean ones. As St. Paul would put it, “We are not fighting against flesh and blood, but against evil rulers and authorities of the unseen world, against mighty powers in this dark world, and against evil spirits in the heavenly places.” (Eph 6, 12) I think that’s plain to see.
Besides, we need to make some progress in our pursuit of the goal God has made for us—that we be like Christ. Paraphrasing a Sound-of-Music song, there will always be mountains to climb, streams to ford, rainbows to follow. We have to grow in the virtues and in the consolidation of the means we need to reach our goal.
Thus, we need to see if we are growing in humility, obedience, fortitude, justice, prudence, purity, etc. We need to see if our life of prayer and sacrifice is getting stronger and is truly leading us to be like Christ more and more. We need to see if we are increasingly assuming Christ’s desires, intentions and passions. Do we have a burning desire for holiness that always goes with a growing apostolic zeal?
Our daily conquests should lead us to echo St. Paul’s words: “It is no longer I who live, but it is Christ who lives in me.” (Gal 2, 20) There should be an awareness that such phenomenon is taking place in our life!/PN
