Lesson from Fr. Paulus | Spiritual Growth Is a Life-Long Process

My dear brothers and sisters in Christ, in this Sunday's reading, we get a glimpse of life in the first Christian community, or we can call them the life of the first "parish" - in Jerusalem, soon after the Resurrection of Christ.

Three characteristics stand out, which can help us reflect on our own Christian identity even today.

First, the community of believers is steadily growing. The Church is a living body of believers in Christ, and living things are meant to grow. If a community of Christians isn't growing, something is wrong; ours is a missionary religion. Christ sent his Apostles to preach his Word to all people; the Church is meant to spread into every corner of time and space.

Second, there is a clear structure of authority in the Church community. The Twelve Apostles are its leaders, as Jesus intended, and they solve the new problem that arises by ordaining the first Deacons.

Today as well, every Catholic community is organized with the same hierarchical structure. First there is the pope, the successor St Peter, leader of the Twelve Apostles. Then there is the local bishop, successor of those Apostles. Then there is the pastor of the parish, the bishop's representative for a specific area. None of them govern by their own authority. Rather, they receive their authority from Christ, through the sacrament of orders. By obeying them, in matters of faith and morals, Christians are obeying Christ himself.

Finally, even at the very beginning of the Church, we see that there are disagreements among believers. The Greek-speaking believers complain about being treated as second-class Christians. This is the point I would like to focus on today.

Our faith in Christ doesn't make us perfect right away, just as it didn't make the first Christians perfect right away. Spiritual growth is a life-long process. The first Christians had to work through conflicts and selfish tendencies; so, do we all.

Saints Who Failed and Struggled*

We often hear about the success-stories of the saints, but we don't often hear about their failures. But they did have their failures and hardships, as we all do, and yet, they are still saints.

The great English bishop St.Thomas Becket struggled for his entire life against the sin of pride and arrogance. Knowing his weakness in this area, he ordered several of his clergy to accuse him regularly of any faults they saw in his conduct. And they did, up until the day he died his martyr's death.

St Bogumilus was a conscientious bishop in twelfth-century Poland. But he wasn't very effective in reforming his corrupt clergy. In fact, he was so ineffective that he sought and obtained permission to resign.

The other example of the saint who failed and struggle is St Francis Borgia. St Francis had great worldly prestige as a duke and a member of the royal court in sixteenth-century Spain, but he set it all aside to become a Jesuit priest. He soon became known for his holiness and for his ability to help sinners come to repentance - but even he had his failures.

On one occasion, Francis heard of a young man, notorious for a sinful life, who was stricken with a fatal illness. The saint began by praying for the youth's conversion, and then hurried to his side. But the young man wanted nothing to do with religion. Francis prayed again, and then returned to the dying young man. He held up his crucifix and urged him to repent and to call upon God's mercy, but to no avail. The youth turned his face away and died in despair.

Earth is not heaven, and spiritual growth is a life-long process that includes troubles and failures as well as victories and successes.

*[These illustrations are adapted from Fr Joseph Esper's Saintly Solutions, Sophia Institute Press, www.sophiainstitute.com.]

The Value of Patience

Becoming a mature Christian is a life-long process, both for us as individuals, and for us as a Christian community. If we persevere in this process, never giving up and never falling into a dull routine, we will gradually but steadily grow in wisdom, courage, joy, and holiness. And that is what our hearts thirst for.

One key ingredient that will help us persevere is the virtue of patience. Patience is not a popular virtue in today's culture. Today's culture wants everything right away. Even we Christians are trained in this cultural impatience.

We want life to be like a movie, in which world champions are made in only two hours. We want life to be like UPS, which delivers whatever we want overnight. We want life to be like high-speed Internet, instant availability of everything from friends to financial updates.

But the spiritual life isn't like that. Becoming a mature Christian, and becoming a mature Christian community, takes constant effort over time. That's patience. God's grace is like sunlight and rain, and our souls are like gardens. Patience is the gardener who goes out every day, rain or shine, to pull out the weeds, fertilize the soil, mend the fences, and prune the plants.

How foolish that gardener would be to give up on his garden before the harvest season! To expect full-grown cherries just a week after the cherry tree blossoms! And how foolish we are when we give up on ourselves or on other people, saying that we can't change, long before the autumn of life!

Jesus never gives up on us, as he will prove once again by giving himself to us in this Mass. When he does, let's ask him to teach our hearts the precious virtue of patience, patience with ourselves, and patience with others.