At some point in a competition, exhaustion starts to become an internal competition between the body and the will.
The same can be said for the continual struggle to be a good Catholic in this world. I know, I know ... there are millions of Catholics who are not SSPX or even Traditional who are "good Catholics". The key difference is how much they care about what has happened over the last hundred years.
Yes, you read that correctly. The fight for the soul of Catholicity started well before the Second Vatican Council. That was when the closeted Modernists came out of their respective closets.
Since then, for those aware of the conflict, it has been a continual battle against the World, Flesh and Devil.
The problem is that, if you just pour yourself into the battle without a strong protected supply chain (see list) then you will run out of energy for the fight, become discouraged and eventually exhaustipated.
Catholic Combat Supply Chain
- Active Spiritual life: Spiritual reading, contemplation, meditation, prayer.
- Ever deepening knowledge of the Catholic Faith: Pre-Counciliar Encyclicals, Dogmas, Moral Theology.
- Regular participation in the Sacraments: Mass, Communion, Confession.
At the point of exhaustipation, you become too tired to give a poop. In short, you give up. This is a dangerous place, because, even if you pull yourself up and take a few more steps, each time you will sink lower and lower. Until you give up and make excuses for why you did. I'm thinking of Steve Skojec right now.
So don't allow yourself to become exhaustipated, you'll probably make some really bad mistakes - such as giving up the Faith and who knows what else.
Acknowledge the past, deal with the present and move on towards the future. I'll say it a different way.
It is important to realise that until we die we are on a fast moving conveyor belt in which we need to:
- Take responsibility for our past decisions, learn from them and stop living in the past. Anyone else's bad decisions were theirs, not yours. Likewise, their good decisions were theirs not yours.
- Make good decisions in the present moment and own them. They are ours after all, so we need to follow good principles to make good ones.
- Move towards the future by making it our present. As long as we are alive we are irresistibly and continually pulled into the future that we call the present. We need to make prudent decisions in each moment to shape our future.
Obviously, I'm thinking about our main occupation - one that separates us from the plants and animals. We make decisions - hopefully rational ones.
So - pace yourself, life isn't a race, it's a marathon and please, try to not be a cautionary tale for others.
P^3
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