240th Meditation
“Fight the good fight, trusting in me without limit” (Inner Word).
This exhortation brings to mind the words of St. Paul when he writes to Timothy: “I have fought the good fight to the end; I have run the race to the finish; I have kept the faith” (2 Tim 4:7).
We are called to a fight, which is explicitly defined as a “good fight”. Many people fight, but it is not necessarily a “good fight” that is pleasing to God.
The Apostle mentions two characteristics to describe the “good fight”:
“I have run the race to the finish” – this means that St. Paul accomplished his mission, and we know that he crowned it with martyrdom. To remain faithful to the vocation and mission entrusted to us, we have to fight a “good fight”, for we know well how much the Christian faith is under attack from various sides today. It is part of this “good fight” to confess the faith and to resist the temptation to adapt it to the spirit of this world and to the expectations of people.
Certainly the mission of the Apostle to the Gentiles had a particular character. But also the difficulties we are facing today with an increasingly anti-Christian mentality and a concrete situation of persecution are very serious and demand great determination on our part, together with unbounded trust in our Father.
So we must reach the finish line in the race with our eyes fixed on our Father. He will lead us by the hand through this time: “Though a thousand fall at your side, ten thousand at your right hand, you yourself will remain unscathed” (Ps 90:7).
“I have kept the faith” – This is a twofold faithfulness: faithfulness to the faith as such, in that we do not deviate one iota from our Catholic doctrine; and faithfulness to fulfil the task that derives from it.
Unlimited trust in the Lord is decisive, because then we will be given everything we need for this fight. Indeed, our struggle is not only against our disordered passions and the seductions of the world, but also “against the principalities and the ruling forces (…) and against the spirits of evil” (Eph 6:12).
It is all the more important to place our unreserved trust in the Father and in the help of the whole Church triumphant.