Every time I pray the Stations of the Cross, I linger at the seventh one, “Jesus Falls the Second Time.” Not one of the more dramatic moments on the cruel path up to Calvary, this second fall, nevertheless, is a crucial point in the unfolding of salvation history.
Jesus has none of the little energy He may have possessed at the beginning of His carrying of the cross, but He is only halfway up the hill when He falls again.
His perseverance to the saving mission compels Him to rise, pick up the cross again, and keep going, to the very end of the Via Crucis, and to the very beginning of the Resurrection.
At the Seventh Station, I ponder how difficult life can be in the middle — the middle of a school year, a project, a marriage, February, a life.
Psychologists have their reasons for naming “mid-life” crisis, that existential point of decision that many people experience in their middle years.
Anyone can begin anything, and when the finish line is in sight, we can muster that final boost of energy to complete the task at hand.
But the middle is where we can go sideways in our mission, becoming discouraged or confused, but it is also in the middle where the battle is won or lost.
The perseverance of the early Church
As we celebrate the glory of the Easter season, we see clearly in the Acts of the Apostles the perseverance of the early Church.
Once anointed in the power of the Holy Spirit, those first followers of Jesus went forth to proclaim the Gospel, to preach the kerygma, to invite all people into a loving, saving relationship with Jesus Christ through the Church.
These evangelizing efforts encounter tremendous opposition.
The Sanhedrin call in John and Peter after their healing of the lame man in the Temple, arrest them, and threaten them with severe punishments if they do not stop their preaching.
Paul endures imprisonments, beatings, riots, shipwrecks, poverty, calumny, and ultimately martyrdom in his preaching of the Gospel.
King Herod beheads St. James, who becomes the first of the Twelve to give his life for Christ.
None of this opposition, persecution, suffering, struggle, or even death quell the spirits of the first Christians.
They persevere in their practice and proclamation of the Faith because they encountered the risen Christ; they have received the power of the Holy Spirit; they know that Christ has already gained the victory and they believe in the glory of the Kingdom of heaven which awaits them if they remain radically faithful in this life to the Lord.
These convictions compel them to persevere in the task at hand, not letting any opposition or seeming defeat deter them from continuing.
We see that same persevering spirit in the lives of the saints. Once touched by the Holy Spirit, once having tasted the extraordinary love of the Lord, nothing could deter them from fulfilling their earthly mission.
When you read the lives of the saints, most of them suffered more from other people within the Church than from external enemies, but their charity and joy remained as a pulsating force of inspiration, evangelization, and power.
Think of Francis of Assisi, Joan of Arc, Teresa of Calcutta, or John Paul II.
Facing difficulties
We face tremendous difficulties, challenges, and problems today, in the Church, the country, and the world.
We could easily give up, throw up our hands in despair, hide away somewhere, and simply resign ourselves to a grim endurance, in the face of such seemingly intractable obstacles.
God seeks a very different response from us.
He wants us to persevere in the task of living and proclaiming our faith, to place our hope in Him, to not lose confidence or energy, to simply keep going.
Pundits say that half of the key to success is simply showing up.
I would add that the other half consists of a gritty determination to persevere. We can do so when we are fed on the Eucharist, nourished on prayer, energized by the Scriptures, pondering the promise of eternal life with Christ, remembering the brevity of this life, and realizing the importance of our particular vocation.
We may need to lay down and rest at times. We may be driven to tears by the people around us.
We can be tempted to quit the Christian race because the path is long, lonely, and rocky.
Hundreds of reasons urge us to settle for a life of comfort and complacency. But we can never quit.
There is one reason, or more to it, One Person, who fires us up to keep going.
Jesus Christ, who carried His cross to the end, won salvation for us and now lives within the mysterious beauty of the Church and in our souls, urges us on, in the dark nights of our Gethsemanes, in the many times we fall on the way up Calvary, and in the bitter moments of suffering, to joyfully persevere.
He has already won the victory and has promised to be with us always until the end of time.
That is an infallible promise which we can stake our very life on!