Deacon John Writes:
Do you ever stop to try to work out how strong your faith is, how kind we are to those we encounter? In short, how do we rate in those things that make up a good Christian? Of course we won’t always get it right, but neither will we always get it wrong and if we realise this it will help stop us from getting over-confident when we succeed, and from getting too down-hearted when we fail.
Donald Attwater, in his Dictionary of Saints, says that when the Church declares someone to be a Saint: “It does not imply a blanket approval of all a saint’s words and deeds, their opinions, policies, and politics. Saints are not faultless; they do not always think and behave well and wisely. They are people whose personal daily lives were lived, not just well, but at an heroic level of Christian faithfulness and integrity.” They could say in the words of Saint Paul: “I live, yet not I, but Christ lives in me.”
Life really is a series of troughs and peaks and together with the description of a saint as someone who is not faultless should be very encouraging to all of us. This should remind us not to get too depressed or worry too much if we think we are not holy enough. No one is holy enough, but be assured being unholy from time to time is quite normal!
John Wesley gave us some useful pointers to help to get us on the right track so that we can follow the way of Jesus, when he said: “Do all the good you can, in all the ways you can, in all the places you can, at all the times you can, to all the people you can, as long as ever you can.”
Our lives will always be a mix of emotions and we have to find a way to cope with them, to get the balance right. I hope that this article will help.
With my love and prayers.