“Easy come, easy go”

Monday of the Eleventh Week in Ordinary Time

I love the idiom “Easy come, easy go” which means that something that is achieved easily is also lost as easily. A lot of times, I heard complaints about why Catholicism is so strict and so hard and demanding. Why don't you just relax the laws like our protestants? Why don't we enjoy life? What would you answer for those challenges? I find it difficult to respond, too.

In today’s readings, we see the complaints are true. It is hard to follow our Lord’s commands. Jesus does not only ask to fulfill the laws of the Torah but also demands more from us to follow. It is difficult to be a Catholic, right? I think so.

I would respond to those challenges by three points. First, Catholicism is hard to follow because we teach truth, not opinion; it cannot bend where reality does not. Jesus said “Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it.” Second, That the Cross isn’t easy; Christ died on the cross was not an easy death. Third, it is hard, but it doesn’t mean few succeed. Our goal is salvation, a reward that is not cheap at all, but one that is redeemed by the blood of the lamb, offering us eternal joy and peace.

Obeying the moral law is a necessary minimum. But in order to live as members of God’s kingdom, we need to do more. True disciples need to not only obey laws but also cultivate the inner attitudes and dispositions that transform the heart and build up love, such as the kind of patience, meekness, purity, and mercy that Jesus teaches in the Sermon on the Mount. I know it is a challenge to do something beyond our human nature because I myself fail almost every day. But it is what our Christian life is all about. We try and try again every day. Jesus' demands may be beyond the capacity of our fallen human nature, but let’s remember that the gifts of the Spirit received through faith and the sacraments make it possible. Jesus summons us to a heavenly way of life; the saints show that it is possible to live this way on earth. Truly, the way of the cross is not easy, but it is the best way God has offered for us.