All or Nothing

I’m currently reading a book called, Sr. Clare Crockett: Alone with Christ Alone.  To sum it up in a few words, the story is of a young sister who experiences a deep transformation in her life and comes to solely desire the love of Christ.  Looking through the profound statements and passages that have stood out to me so far, there is a line I highlighted that says, “‘We have to be saints!  It’s all or nothing!  We can’t remain in mediocrity.  We have to fight with all our strength against the obstacles that impede us from growing.’”  What’s stopping us from holiness and working towards sainthood?  At my Bible study last week, someone brought up a podcast episode from Father Mike Schmitz in which he discusses that we are given everything we need to become saints and if we don’t, it’s because we don’t want to.  Those words cut like a knife but it’s only because they are true.

Do you ever have moments of intense spiritual dryness?  These may be times where you’re unmotivated, apathetic, and experiencing difficulty in praying and in your faith in general.  It can feel like you’re just going through the motions or like prioritizing your relationship with Jesus is the last thing you want to do.  It’s easy for me to tell myself that Christ is my number one focus in my life.  Oftentimes, that is a lie and Jesus  being above all is a good and nice thought, but it’s not my reality.  It seems like too much effort and then I realize I often choose other things first.  It is in these times that we must cling to our faith and continue to draw nearer to God through prayer, scripture, and the sacraments.  We are given all the graces we need to get to heaven.  Do we really want it?  Real faith is continuing to show up, pray, and love Christ even when our spiritual lives seem stagnant.

No matter how strong our faith is, we will all experience these times; times when we feel like it’s us alone against the whole world, times when we feel like Satan is working harder, times when we feel like something is wrong with us.  It’s not a matter of whether or not we will experience these moments in our lives, but it is how we respond to them that matters. 

The path of holiness and the road to sainthood never stops.  It is a daily journey we must walk, even in those times where we may be experiencing dryness or struggle in the spiritual life .  God has given us other people to help us along the way- a community of people to pray for us and who we can draw inspiration from.  We can turn to these family members, friends, and other parishioners when our faith lives are weak and mediocre and when we need accountability and to be challenged.  We must spend extra time in prayer and immerse ourselves more fully into scripture.  We need to go to the sacraments and spend time before Jesus in adoration.
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It’s all or nothing.  If we desire Christ, we will fight against the obstacles that come our way.  We will keep walking the path to holiness and continue choosing to grow through the dryness, difficulty, and mediocrity.  Are you all in?