Recently I saw this article entitled, “Why we must struggle in the Spiritual Life” by Father Nnamdi Nomeme, OMV. Here are some excerpts from it.

“We have a profound experience of God’s love in the Sacrament of Confession. We leave the confessional and walk right into an occasion of temptation and we may even fall into the very same sins that we had just confessed in the sacrament and resolved never to commit again. We resolve that we are not going to allow the toxic character of someone close to us to spoil our moods or kill our good attitude. We are faithful for some time and then, in a moment of poor vigilance, we give in and allow the unsavory character of another person(s) to influence us negatively.

We are not strangers to scenarios like this. We have them all the time. We may be thinking, “When am I going to get final victory over these sins and weaknesses in my life?” Or we ask, “When am I going to avoid or triumph over the negative influences of evil in the world?” We come so close to becoming discouraged because of this unrelenting struggle.

We can easily relate with the servants in the parable of the weeds and the wheat who cry out to their master when they see the toxic weeds mixed in with the good wheat, “Do you want us to go and uproot the weeds?” We can just sense their desire to get this struggle over with as soon as possible.

But Jesus’ two responses teach us something about our spiritual struggles. He first says, “No, if you pull up the weeds you might uproot the wheat along with them.” Jesus’ desire that this wheat grow is so intense that He would not risk anything that might endanger them. He would not even risk a premature separation of the wheat from the weeds if this will risk the growth of the wheat.

Then He adds, “Let them grow together until the harvest.” Jesus wills that the wheat struggle with the weeds for nourishment and space till the time of the harvest. Jesus’ words show a certain trust that He has that the life in this seed will eventually triumph over all adversities.

In short, Jesus desires that the wheat grow and that they grow, not through complete separation from the toxic weed, not through isolation from all adversities, but through the unceasing struggle with the weeds that the enemy has planted.

Applying this to our own lives, Jesus wills that His life in us too should grow through our struggle with sin within us and evil in the world. Sacred scripture confirms His confidence that His life in us will surely ultimately prevail over all darkness, “The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.”(John 1:5)

But we must also embrace the struggle involved to the very end because, as the saying goes, “Dead bodies do not struggle; they just float down the river.” We who are alive with the very life of God in us must also struggle that that divine life grow within us and spread out to others.
But Jesus does not just plant His life in us in holy baptism and then let us struggle with sin and evil in the world. On the contrary, He is giving us all that we need to struggle faithfully against sin and all evil till the end of time.

First, He is offering us His gift of the Spirit so that we too pray and live just like He did in fidelity to the Father’s will, “The Spirit comes to the aid of our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we ought...The Spirit intercedes for the holy ones according to God’s will.” Our spiritual struggle begins with our unceasing struggle to pray well and to grow in our prayer. The Catechism speaks of prayer as a battle because it is “both a gift of grace and a determined response on our part. It always presupposes effort.” (CCC 2725) It is in prayer that we cultivate that spiritual discernment we need to be vigilant and discern rightly the good seed from God that must be accepted and the poisonous weed from the devil to be rejected.

Secondly, Jesus is offering us the gift of His mercy because He knows that, despite our good resolutions, we will often fail in fidelity, “Your mastery over all things makes you lenient to all... But though you are master of might, you judge with clemency.” (Wisdom 12:16,18) The same powerful God who governs all things and permits evils in our lives and in the world also “permits repentance for our sins.” The Sacrament of Reconciliation is the greatest expression and avenue for this divine power to bend over and alleviate human misery today.

Thirdly, Jesus is offering us the gift of time. Just as both the weed and the wheat are given time to grow through struggle, Jesus allows us time too to repent of our sins and failings, mature in the goodness that He has planted in us, and communicate this goodness to others in our world today. Time is also a gift of divine mercy that we cannot take for granted.

Fourthly, He is offering us the gift of His own Mother Mary to help us in this struggle. By virtue of the Immaculate Conception, Mama Mary had no internal struggle with sin whatsoever. But as a lily among thorns, she experienced that tension of being the only sinless human person in a fallen world. When Jesus gave her to us at the cross to be our mother too in Jn 19:27, He gave us a spiritual fortress in whom we can find sure refuge from the assaults of the enemy and all the graces and examples that we need for our spiritual struggles.”