Rebels and radicals

IN our spiritual life, there’s no other way but for us to be genuine rebels and radicals. We need to fight not only from time to time, but actually all the time.

And we need to go to the roots, the “radices,” of our problems and weaknesses. If we are serious with our spiritual life, then there’s no escaping having to go deeper into the causes of our struggles. We cannot remain on the superficial level.

Our life is actually a warfare. Our heart is the battle ground between the forces of good and evil, between God and the devil. The struggle admits of no let-up, though it’s also true that we have to wage it with as exquisite a naturalness as possible.

In fact, waging our spiritual war with naturalness, even with poise and elegance, is the capping touch of the struggle. It can be the most demanding part, since it can be the most difficult requirement of charity, with which our struggles should be pursued.

This is because we are a precious object of desire, so to speak. We are nothing less that images and likenesses of God, children of his, meant to participate in the very life of God. In fact, we are meant to live the “fullness of God.”

For God, he’ll do everything to bring us to him. For the devil, he’ll also do everything to take us away from him. We, with our intelligence and free will, are at the middle to decide with side to take.

The choice can be difficult, precisely because we can tend, with our freedom, to complicate our life. This happens when we enter into compromises with sin and evil, when we are not clear about what’s right and wrong, when we make ourselves, rather than God, as the final point of reference in our decisions.

The struggle can take very subtle forms. The frontlines and the terms of engagement are always changing. As they say, all is fair in war as in love. We can never sit pretty and think we are already quite ok with any given “acceptable” situation.

New challenges will always come. If it’s not the physical aspect, then it can be the emotional, the psychological, then the social, professional, whatever. The permutations among these aspects can be endless.

If it’s not a matter of the flesh, then it can be a matter of our spirit. This happens when our intelligence and will refuse to gear to God as their proper object. The flesh will always find a way to dominate over the spirit. Just give it a little opening, and it surely will wedge its way to create a big fissure.

As to the spiritual enemies of our soul, they are the most treacherous since they can appear as angels of light, morphing themselves into attractive images to seduce us and drag us to their dominion.

We need to sharpen our skills and techniques for this spiritual warfare. We have to concretize our strategies, with clear goals, arms and means, and even a time frame. We have to descend from the level of generalities to that of specific details.

We have to be ready to go off-road and to cruise uncharted waters in these battles.

In this we have to carry St. Paul’s attitude. He once said: “I run not as at uncertainty. I fight not as one beating the air.” (1 Cor 9,26) We need to see to it that we leave no stone unturned in securing our victory in the struggle.

But in all this rigor of war, we have to realize always that the fight is a war of love and peace. When we are always with God, there’s always that interior peace that will accompany us, a peace that the world cannot give. No bitter zeal is involved. This is the most revolutionary aspect of this warfare.

Not only peace is enjoyed. In spite of our human limitations, with God we would know how to face all dangers. Again St. Paul’s words give us an idea:

“Who then shall separate us from the love of Christ? Tribulation, or distress, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or persecution, or the sword?...But in all these things we overcome, because of him that has loved us.” (Rom 8,35-37)

We have to listen to Christ’s reassuring words: “Don’t be afraid of those that kill the body, and are not able to kill the soul. Rather fear him that can destroy both soul and body in hell.” (Mt 10,28)