If we look to what’s happening in our world, we will see all the signs: trouble is coming. The question is, what are we called to do in these troubled times?

Power, love and self-control

Should a follower of Christ increase one’s self-reliance, or reliance on God’s generosity?

Which one brings happiness?

Paradoxically, the latter choice–relying on God’s loving provision using our powers of intellect and reason–gives the Christian greater power, love and self-control.

St. Paul wrote in his epistle to his protégé, Timothy, to bear the hardships instead of being ashamed of Christ as His witness, “relying on the power of God” (2 Tim 1:8).

“For all things serve you” (Ps 119:91)

In order to rely on God one must come to know Him.

To come to know Him one must take time out of his busy day to sit with Him.

God gives knowledge and instructs those little (humble) enough to listen. To know is to listen, to listen is to serve.

In other words, listening to God prompts the Christian to know what actions to take every day. As the earth and all the creatures fulfill their rightful end, the end for which they were made, the Christian will also be rightly ordered, and able to become who he is meant to be.

How do we become who we were meant to be?

By power, love, and self-control. When God infuses His love (only with our permission and humble acquiescence), He gives His followers the ability to be faithful, even in the midst of great difficulties.

Wrongful evil committed against the Christian becomes an opportunity for him to be faithful to God, even when it hurts.

God permits great growth in the midst of pain and adversity, and it is only then the Christian acquires power, love and self-control, because it is in the struggle he learns to rely on the power of God.

A spirit of timidity or boldness?

Pope St. Gregory the Great (540-604 AD) said boldness means to “… oppose the wicked enemy out of love for what’s right.”

Source: Divine Office Breviary, Liturgy of the Hours, October 2, 2022, https://www.universalis.com/usa/20221002/readings.htm.

As St. Paul told Timothy, Christians who have a “spirit of timidity” (2 Tim 1:7) “fear losing the favor of men” (St. Gregory the Great).

Therefore, possessing power and self-control means functioning without being possessed by one’s passions–and having the power to rebuke evil in one’s own life, remaining steadfast until the end.

St. Francis of Assisi (1181-1226), pray for us.