Any military army is only as good as the soldiers enlisted in it. So too with the Church Militant. The culture war (and the fight against Satan’s action within the world) will never have any success if we do not first look at ourselves.
We need to remember that all of us, whether we are a priest, religious, father, mother, married, or single, have an impact on the world and are apart of the great Story of Salvation. We all have a role to play and we must do our best to discern God’s will in our life to know what part we have been given.
In a very real sense we are all meant to be “Super Heroes” in the world. It is a false belief that all we need to do is call a small group of superheroes who will save the day and rescue our culture from the brink of destruction. That makes it seem that we don’t need to do anything and that we can rely on other people to do our job. In reality, we all have a specific role to play and everyone in the world is counting on us to fulfill that role.
Similar to an army, each soldier has a specific duty that is vital to winning the battle at hand. The failure of one individual soldier to fulfill his job can have drastic consequences on the entire war.
“No Man is an Island”
What we do with our lives does not just concern ourselves, but impacts everyone we meet. Benedict XVI put it this way:
“We should recall that no man is an island, entire of itself. Our lives are involved with one another, through innumerable interactions they are linked together. No one lives alone. No one sins alone. No one is saved alone. The lives of others continually spill over into mine: in what I think, say, do, and achieve. And conversely, my life spills over into that of others: for better and for worse.” (Spe Salvi, emphasis added)
Our lives are all connected and so what we do with our lives has eternal consequences for the rest of the world. That is why it is so important to start small and to always start with ourselves. What use is it if we vote for Pro-Life politicians and at the same time work so much that we neglect our own children?
We must remember this simple principle:
Families shape neighborhoods. Neighborhoods shape cities. Cities shape states. States shape countries. Countries shape the world.
The entire world is built upon the foundation of the family. If we do not first start with our own family, how can we ever think that we can change the world?
Think of it this way. Every politician comes from a family. They take with them the life lessons they learned as a child. They will enact laws that reflect their upbringing. What does that mean for the state of our world today?
Since the family has disintegrated over the past 100 years, politicians are growing up in broken homes that do not have a firm foundation and are enacting legislation that is contrary to the natural flourishing of the family. We should not be surprised.
It all starts somewhere, and it must first start in our own life and the life of our families.
Before we can engage the darkness in our world today, we must first fight the good fight in our day-to-day life.
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