Fr. Thomas M. Pastorius
March 22, 2015
Spiritual Ponderings
Spiritual Warriors

“Now the true soldiers of Christ must always be prepared to do battle for the truth, and must never, so far as lies with them, allow false convictions to creep in.” ~ Origen. Let us continue to look at what it means to be a soldier of Christ. For help with this reflection, I would like to turn the following article “10 Life Lessons from A Navy Seal. I will Always Remember #4” which was published in the Business Insider. The article will be in bold and my reflection will be in regular font.

Every day during training you were challenged with multiple physical events—long runs, long swims, obstacle courses, hours of calisthenics—something designed to test your mettle. Every event had standards—times you had to meet. If you failed to meet those standards your name was posted on a list and at the end of the day those on the list were invited to—a “circus.” A circus was two hours of additional calisthenics—designed to wear you down, to break your spirit, to force you to quit. No one wanted a circus. A circus meant that for that day you didn’t measure up. A circus meant more fatigue—and more fatigue meant that the following day would be more difficult—and more circuses were likely. But at some time during SEAL training, everyone—everyone—made the circus list. But an interesting thing happened to those who were constantly on the list. Over time those students-—who did two hours of extra calisthenics—got stronger and stronger. The pain of the circuses built inner strength-built physical resiliency. Life is filled with circuses. You will fail. You will likely fail often. It will be painful. It will be discouraging. At times it will test you to your very core. #5. But if you want to change the world, don’t be afraid of the circuses.

One of my biggest fears in life is to embarrass myself in front of others and because of this fear; I unfortunately miss out on a lot of things as I struggle to overcome this fear. Part of my prayer each day for the Church is that more and more Christians will get over the fear of being embarrassed and join a Bible Study, become a lector, share their faith story with someone, etc.

Spiritual Exercise: Try to be adventurous in your faith life this week by doing something new.

At least twice a week, the trainees were required to run the obstacle course. The obstacle course contained 25 obstacles including a 10-foot high wall, a 30-foot cargo net, and a barbed wire crawl to name a few. But the most challenging obstacle was the slide for life. It had a three level 30 foot tower at one end and a one level tower at the other. In between was a 200-foot long rope. You had to climb the three tiered tower and once at the top, you grabbed the rope, swung underneath the rope and pulled yourself hand over hand until you got to the other end. The record for the obstacle course had stood for years when my class began training in 1977. The record seemed unbeatable, until one day, a student decided to go down the slide for life—head first. Instead of swinging his body underneath the rope and inching his way down, he bravely mounted the TOP of the rope and thrust himself forward. It was a dangerous move—seemingly foolish, and fraught with risk. Failure could mean injury and being dropped from the training. Without hesitation—the student slid down the rope—perilously fast, instead of several minutes, it only took him half that time and by the end of the course he had broken the record. #6. If you want to change the world sometimes you have to slide down the obstacle head first.

A person can place a grasshopper in a jar with a lid on it and after a while the grasshopper will stop trying to get out. The grasshopper will feel so defeated that you can remove the lid and the grasshopper will not jump of the jar because he had become conditioned to think that he can jump no higher.

The truth of the matter is that just because we fail at something one time or over and over again, this does not mean that we are destined to never overcome the obstacle in front of us. We can grow and develop more skills and we can grow stronger and not to mention wiser with more experiences there is the possibility that we can overcome old obstacles. Even if we do not change, the environment and conditions around us may change and thus allow us to also overcome the obstacle. Simple speaking is that because we fail one time does not mean we are destined to fail again and again. It just means that we need to approach the obstacle from a different perspective.

Spiritual Exercise: Try something that you failed at again.

During the land warfare phase of training, the students are flown out to San Clemente Island which lies off the coast of San Diego. The waters off San Clemente are a breeding ground for the great white sharks. To pass SEAL training there are a series of long swims that must be completed. One—is the night swim. Before the swim the instructors joyfully brief the trainees on all the species of sharks that inhabit the waters off San Clemente. They assure you, however, that no student has ever been eaten by a shark—at least not recently. But, you are also taught that if a shark begins to circle your position—stand your ground. Do not swim away. Do not act afraid. And if the shark, hungry for a midnight snack, darts towards you—then summons up all your strength and punch him in the snout and he will turn and swim away. There are a lot of sharks in the world. If you hope to complete the swim you will have to deal with them. #7. So, if you want to change the world, don’t back down from the sharks.

Archbishop Fulton Sheen said “There are not a hundred people in America who hate the Catholic Church. There are millions of people who hate what they wrongly believe to be the Catholic Church, which is, of course, quite a different thing,” Instead of getting mad at the Church for what she teaches strive honestly to learn more about the Church’s teaching.

Spiritual Exercise: Read more about an issue in the Church that you are having trouble about.