How to Endure and Persevere

By Fr. Roy Cimagala

THE secret, of course, is to go to Christ. That’s the main message of the readings of Tuesday of the 4^th Week in Ordinary Time. In the first reading, from the Letter to the Hebrews, we are told:

“Looking on Jesus, the author and finisher of faith, who having joy set before him, endured the cross, despising the shame, and now sitteth on the right hand of the throne of God. For think diligently upon him that endured such opposition from sinners against himself; that you be not wearied, fainting in your minds.” (12,2-3)

The same truth of our Christian faith is reiterated in the gospel reading of the day where two characters, Jairus, one of the synagogue leaders, and a woman under an issue of blood, went to Christ asking for help. (cfr. Mk 5,21-43)

We should see to it that our reaction to anything that bothers us is to immediately go to Christ without wasting time, allowing shame and fear to stop us from going to him. Christ always listens and gives in to our request, but in forms and ways that may not coincide with what we have in mind.

We cannot deny that in our life, we will always be hounded by all sorts of challenges and trials, temptations and other forms of evil that come from our usual enemies—our wounded flesh, the sinful allurements of the world, and the devil himself.

Especially when we think our suffering is self-inflicted because of our spiritual and moral weakness, we should not hesitate to go to Christ. What we have to remind ourselves always is that Christ has borne all our weaknesses and sins, and the suffering they bring, and converted them into a way of our salvation.

We should not stay long agonizing because of our weaknesses and sins. What helps, of course, is to unite our suffering due to our weaknesses and sins with the saving passion, death and resurrection of Christ. We should avoid suffering on our own. We should never keep our suffering from Christ.

That is why it is a good practice to regularly meditate on the passion, death and resurrection of Christ so we would know how to properly deal with our unavoidable weaknesses and sins. By so doing, we somehow would receive some strength to face and overcome them. In any event, by meditating on this culminating redemptive work of Christ, we would feel assured that victory would always be at hand.

We have to learn to be quick to go back to Christ who will always welcome us no matter how ugly our mistakes are. We should also learn to be quick to say sorry to God and to all the others who may be involved in our misdeeds, defects and predicaments.

We, obviously, need also to learn how to be tough with the toughness of Christ who knows how to blend it always with gentleness and patience. In short, we have to have the mind and attitude of Christ when developing and practicing both toughness and patience. Only then would these virtues acquire their true value and would play along the providence of God

Thus, for this blend to take place, we need to be vitally united with Christ. And for this purpose, we should continually ask for God’s grace. In fact, the first thing we should do when we need to be both tough and patient is to ask for God’s grace.

Email: roycimagala@gmail.com