Perseverance

From Fr. John Trigilio’s homily for Monday:

It’s so easy to be overwhelmed by the situation, to say, “Oh, well, we made a good try.” But no! Don’t quit. Don’t give up. As Blessed Teresa of Calcutta often told us, we’re not here to be successful; we’re here to be faithful. Faithfulness doesn’t mean perfection. Faithfulness doesn’t mean that you never fall. It means you never quit. You never give up.

This is especially true in the spiritual life, because how many times you and I are making a little progress, we’re doing well, we’ve just gone on retreat or we’re in Advent or Lent or whatever, but all of a sudden we fall. We give in to temptation. The devil is laughing, “Ha, I’ve got them now.” And it’s easy to stay down! And to hear the count, “One, two, three,” like you’ve been knocked out in the boxing ring. Well you’ve got to get up! Stand up again. So what if you fall down another time, and another time, and another time? The point is to keep getting up, to keep fighting the good fight, as St. Paul says.

The spiritual warfare is real, but we need to never quit, to never give up, to persevere. And remember, the important thing is the spiritual health. Not that our physical health isn’t important, but we need to pray for spiritual health more than ever, especially in this Year of Faith.