Get A Life
Making a Life in the Community of the Church
Our active sharing in the life of the Christian community is essential for shaping our lives as authentic human beings and as faithful disciples of Jesus. As I just said, we depend on the sacramental life of the Church—united with Christ in baptism, empowered by his Spirit in confirmation, nurtured by his Body and Blood, forgiven and renewed through penance and reconciliation. It is in the Church that we come to know Jesus, his example and his teaching, as he shows us what is truly valuable and what kind of people we should aspire to be.
The official teachers in the Church guide us to know the truth Jesus teaches and even how it applies in the circumstances of our lives. And it is in our engagement in the living body of Christ that we encounter the saints and the brothers and sisters around us who provide the indispensable example, support, and prayers we all need to grow into the mature and authentic Christians we are called to be.
The central importance of the Church in our graced effort to make our lives good and worthy becomes even clearer when we consider the tragic reality that there are also bad habits, abiding tendencies to choose evil. We call them “vices,” and they are habits like dishonesty, impatience, intemperance, and cowardice. We build these up too, like virtues, with our own effort over time by failing to overcome temptations. Gradually, we find easier to do bad than good.
Sadly, this means we can “make a life” that is contrary to what is truly good, and maybe even contrary to what we truly value. And although we can find great good in the society in which we live, authentic values are often obscured, and at times things not worthy of us as human beings are passed off as values.
Making an authentically good human and Christian life around values and virtues in our ordinary lives in the midst of our society involves many essential ingredients. Unavoidably, we must work. As Christians, we must look to Jesus and to his Church to learn what is truly valuable and worthy of our effort and sacrifice. Each day, we must make one good decision after another, confronting temptation and refusing to give up on ourselves or on God’s mercy and help. We must overcome our vices, which after many years, may be no small challenge.
But we are not alone. God’s grace is always available to us, especially in prayer and in the sacramental life of the Church; and it is in the Christian community that we are supported and nurtured to “make our lives around virtues and values.” Yet in the end, perhaps it is more accurate to say that God can make a life for us around values and virtues—with our cooperation and with the help of others.