IC 16

The one goal that everyone without exception is expected to achieve in life is self-mastery. That this is also the most difficult accomplishment possible can’t be denied. Fallen human nature has such wayward tendencies, some of them very powerful, that constant vigilance is required to redirect them and to train oneself to acquire virtue, to become a morally good person. The precept of “self-denial” in this gospel is not some spiritual extravagance meant only for the perfection of the devout: it’s a prescription for the preservation of the very inner life of everyone–in our Lord’s words today, for ‘saving one’s life’, saving it, that is, in the only sense that will ultimately matter, saving it for eternity.

This universal experience (that one has a tendency to evil)–disturbing as it is in itself–has a providence, a divine purpose, a potential for good. By exercising its contrary movements, one can make real moral progress in self-correction so that, in the end, he may become a virtuous man, which is to say, he may attain moral perfection. But, while making one’s way towards that end–while ‘in progress’–one comes to know that not everything can be achieved. In fact, one soon learns that not every defect can be eradicated, neither in himself nor in others. It’s not that evil itself is invincible, but it’s that some evils that are often elusive, beyond one’s easy grasp, evils that require humble acceptance of their presence and that require the abandonment of oneself to God. This is not ‘throwing in the towel’ nor a loophole in the moral life, but it’s the honest and humble recognition that one has limitations, even in the matter of trying to conquer himself.

Self-conquest would be an easier game were it not for the inevitable conflicts that arise among people. Living a solitary life, as a hermit, for example, must have its own temptation and testings; but it’s living in the society of other people that gives most of us our challenges to exercise patience and to develop self-control. Thus the Imitation of Christ advises that whatever one can’t correct in himself or in others, he should “bear patiently”. Forbearance of faults and moral frailties of another takes a lot of moral muscle. We recognize that sometimes we can’t do a thing to help another person’s failures. We know so well that often we can’t amend even our own conduct as much as we would like. Limitations! Patient endurance! Tolerance!

With our innate thirst for justice, we’re often glad, even secretly, when one who is deserving gets a reprimand, but we’re not so eager to accept correction when it’s administered to ourselves. We would agree that it’s a good thing to restrict someone else in some matter, but we are not much disposed to deny anything to ourselves. Somehow, rules just seem to apply more to others than to oneself. In effect, we employ two standards: our neighbor is not considered in the same light as ourselves. That very bias is itself an indicator of our fallen condition.

As I hinted already, not all bad things need necessarily need be all-bad, in the sense that one can use unavoidable evils as means of making moral improvements. If everyone were perfect and there were no struggle against evil, there would also not be anything to bear in our neighbor for the sake of Christ, nor would we be able to gain any merits for eternal reward on account of attaining virtue.

No one is without his faults (as we say). But we don’t always appreciate that everyone therefore has his own inner burdens to carry. The beauty of belonging to the Catholic Church is that we are members of a mystical body in which we can bear the burdens of others, the stronger ones assisting the weaker, the weaker humbly leaning upon the stronger. And this divinely established support-system is a real comfort and help.

Saint Paul urged the Roman Christians not to be conformed to the present age, but to be transformed, to become good and pleasing and perfect. Being here in the presence of Almighty God, we should beg of Him the grace that this holy Mass and the devout reception of Holy Communion will be a kind of spiritual medicine that will help strengthen the many moral frailties we have in ourselves and in all our dear brethren in Christ’s Holy Catholic Church who, like we are engaged in the greatest of contests: mastery of self.

I suppose I should say a word about the outcome of the case involving Father Félicien. I will address this topic in writing for next week. For the moment let me only say that although I’m certainly glad that Father has been acquitted and thus free from the frightening prospect of a long imprisonment, we all are saddened at the great deal of suffering that has been borne on all sides of this horrible matter: and that you too have inevitably been made to bear your own share of this burden. My prayers are with all those involved and I continue to commend this mater to your prayers.