Duc in Altum—Launch into the Deep

The Resurrection of Jesus challenges us to cleanse out the old leaven (1 Cor 5:7) of comfortable, beige Catholicism—that caricature of Catholic religion where we identify and act as Catholics only when it is convenient, or worse, when we feel like it.

We all want to be saints, but find that we do not always want to do what it takes to be saints. We remember times we skipped saying the Rosary because it required a lot of effort, it was late and we were tired. Surely God would understand. But then we found it easy to scroll through TikTok for an hour or more afterward. The brain-science checks out. It is easier to watch TikToks than to kneel and pray after a long day.

Sometimes we skip Sunday Mass because we just don’t feel like going, or we slept late doing other things; we fail to take advantage of daily Mass not because our schedules don’t allow it, but because we do not want to demand more of ourselves or wake up earlier; we refuse to go to Confession because it would be challenging to tell our sins; we fail to stand up for our faith because that would get us in trouble with our friends.

But Christianity is not a religion of shallowness, comfort and ease. When Jesus called His first disciples, He commanded them to “go out to the deep” (Lk 5:4) if they were to make a catch. He makes it clear that the foxes and birds will be, at times at least, more comfortable than they will be on the mission (Lk 9:58). St Paul says, “seek the things that are above, where Christ is” (Col 3:2). We cannot be true Catholics, going after the things above, while at the same time settling for less, and putting a premium on comfort, convenience and safe spaces.

We can’t keep being safe-space, self-preoccupied, conformist Catholics with their own agenda and false idea of holiness when Someone went through hell—literally—to offer us a chance at something newer, something infinitely better. It is true we are often let down by our weaknesses; our strength does not always match our hope. Nor can we deny, however, that many times it is our laziness and lukewarmness that keeps us from doing more for Christ, from following Him more intently and faithfully along the Way of the Cross.

We are comfortable, we think it is enough to just post pictures of Jesus and the occasional nice quotes, to move around with the Rosary hanging round our necks, or even to just show up at Church on Sunday and important days. To be sure, there is nothing wrong with these things. But Love demands more of us than just bear minimums. In the words of Pope Benedict XVI, we were made for greatness, not comfort.

We won’t achieve greatness by staying at the margins. No! We must go all the way in. Even as Jesus did not hesitate to enter the very depths of our godforsakenness, we should not hesitate to set out deeper still, into the mystery of what His love demands from us.

When the Church is investigating if someone is in heaven, that the person lived a life of virtue to a heroic degree is indispensable. The keyword here is heroic. Everyone can do nice things occasionally. Only saints live lives of heroic virtue. To be clear, this does not entail doing grand or great things. We know from saints like St Thérèse of Lisieux and St Dominic Savio that there is great opportunity to exercise heroic virtue in hidden and simple ways. Nevertheless, our lives must be about one thing; we must live out our Faith to the best of our ability. And we must be sincere, true and constant in the practice of our Faith (cf. 1 Cor 5:8).

Perhaps we finally need to go to Confession; perhaps we need to revise our schedule so we can attend Mass more frequently; perhaps we need give up some people we call friends; perhaps we need to pray a little more; perhaps we need to be more serious and more dedicated to our prayers or our work; perhaps we need to revise our screen time, uninstall some apps, delete certain files, set some timers; perhaps we need to clean our language; perhaps we need to seek help from a professional.

Perhaps there’s some concrete decision we need to make that will radically change our lives, and maybe that scares us. We must make that decision! The good news is we aren’t alone: we are never alone! Jesus, who rose from the dead, proves that He can give us the grace to overcome our lukewarmness and pusillanimity, our weakness and hypocrisy. He takes our desire for conversion very seriously, but we mustn’t stop at just knowing and wanting to be great saints: we must reach out and courageously take hold of the object of this noble desire, regardless of the great pains that we must endure to achieve it.

Easter is a good time to think seriously about our Faith, and make the decision to take it more seriously. If we remain lukewarm, pretentious, nominal Catholics, God will spew us out (Rv 3:16). “You cannot be half a saint. You must be a whole saint or no saint at all” (St Thérèse of Lisieux).

The world offers you comfort. But you were not made for comfort. You were made for greatness. -Pope Benedict XVI

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