Trying

“No man knows how bad he is until he has tried very hard to be good.” (C.S. Lewis).

Saint Bernadette Soubirous

My second son really tries to be a good boy. He has the very best of intentions, aiming to do the right thing and make us feel proud of him through our pride in his behaviour and choices. I am very grateful that when he is at school, he is generally a very well-behaved child who is hardly ever in any sort of trouble with his teachers or friends. However, sometimes, when he comes home in the afternoon, all that effort in trying to be good wears him down and he sometimes gives up and instead of trying to be a good little boy, just stops for a while.

This does not mean that he is not a good boy, or that he does not have good intentions. Rather, it means that he demonstrates how difficult it is to be good when we have such a fallen human nature. The Christian writer, C. S. Lewis wrote, “No man knows how bad he is until he has tried very hard to be good.” And upon reflection, he is right – not just about men, but about women and children too…

You see, I too wake up in the morning and aim to be a good person. I aim to do everything well and apply myself as a good Christian to all the souls I encounter that ever lived. And yet, usually within the first twenty minutes or so, I have usually become irritated by something or upset about another thing, or angry about a third thing, that I cannot even dream about going on and instead, I tend to give up on trying to be good and fall over in a sinful heap.

And I have been thinking about exactly how far I have to go before I shall ever be worthy of Heaven. You see, the Saints tried constantly to master their own free will. They worked constantly during their lives to surrender themselves and their souls to God for His purposes. And that surrender – that abandonment to the Holy Will of God – resulted in the Saints being about to take possession of their own souls in such a way that they were able to GIVE their souls to God.

In other words, the Saints were able to take possession of their souls through trying to be good and in that way they were able to surrender their souls to God, abandoning their souls to God’s purpose and Holy Will.

Saint Bernadette Soubirous said, “Jesus came to earth to be my model. I want to follow Him and walk generously in His footsteps.”

And I have been thinking about that today, because if I am able to try to be good and achieve even a little goodness in my life, I shall be worthy of Heaven – and imagine if I could ever attain that!

For with prayer, I stand on Holy Ground where everything is clear. Here. At the Foot of the Cross.