Our lifelong warfare

With Lent in our midst, we should be reminded of our duty to hone up our skills in spiritual warfare. We should not let this Lenten season pass without doing anything to improve ourselves in this particular department.

Christ already hinted this much when he said: "From the days of John the Baptist until now, the kingdom of heaven suffers violence, and the violent bear it away." (Mt 11,12)

We have to understand though that to be violent in this sense does not mean to be destructive but rather constructive, driven by love and the desire to be united with God and with the others in a way proper to us as children of God and brothers and sisters among ourselves.

Our life here on earth cannot but be in some form of struggle. Aside from our innate urge to grow and develop that requires some effort, we also have to contend with enemies whose sole intent is precisely to bring us down, to divert us from our proper path toward holiness.

We are not simply ranged against natural difficulties, challenges and trials in life, but rather with very powerful and subtle nemeses. The natural enemies alone are already formidable. St. John describes them this way:

"For all that is in the world is the concupiscence of the flesh, and the concupiscence of the eyes, and the pride of life, which is not of the Father, but is of the world." (1 Jn 2,16) That's why we can talk easily about envy, jealousy, vanity, lust, greed, sloth, etc.

For this type of enemies alone, we need an extensive spiritual pharmacopeia and moral regimen to cleanse us of their affliction. That's why we are encouraged, especially during Lent, to intensify our fasting and abstinence, and other forms of mortification. We should not take this indication lightly. They are very necessary.

Yes, we need to pray a lot and grow in the different virtues so we can be strong, optimistic and cheerful, prudent and capable of handling these challenges. We have to learn how to deal with our weaknesses and the usual temptations that come from the flesh and the world.

But we still have enemies tougher than these. As St. Paul said, "Our wrestling is not against flesh and blood, but against principalities and power, against the rulers of the world of darkness, against the spirits of wickedness in the high places." (Eph 6,12)

This type of enemies affects us more deeply. They corrupt not only the body, but also our very spirit that is supposed to be our immediate and direct conduit with God. They bring our warfare from the arena of the natural to that of the spiritual and supernatural.

With these enemies, our intelligence and will, our thoughts and desires would then operate outside the context of God's will. Our thoughts and desires would then be at the mercy of evil spirits that can only be handled properly if we also use spiritual and supernatural means, and not just some natural power.

When we fail to deliberately offer everything we think, say and do to God, as told to us in the gospel, then we open ourselves to the coming of another spirit that will offer us, at first, a lot of attraction and allurement, until we are so enslaved by it that it would be very difficult for us to detach ourselves from it.

That's why today we have such phenomena as atheism, agnosticism, materialism, and other forms of ungodliness, with their corresponding manifestations such as the legalization of abortion, the spreading culture of death, all forms of corruption, etc.

This big and open hostility against God and also against our nature always starts in a small, unobtrusive way, cleverly spiced and glibly packaged to grab our attention. We have to be most wary of these little openings to sin by making our conscience more refined and sensitive, and by growing in the virtues.

We have to understand that at every point of our life is always a choice between God and ourselves, between God and the devil, between God and the world. We have to be humble enough to choose God always.

The humility involved here would lead us to feel the need to continue asking for the grace of God, since without him, we can accomplish nothing that would bring us to our eternal life.

The humility involved here would lead us also to trust in God, especially when we see our own weaknesses, mistakes, failures. With such trust, we simply begin and begin again in our struggles.