Winston Churchill once said, “Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts.” This great leader learned much about failures and underwent a lot of trials as he led his nation and worked with the Allied Forces to overcome the fascist evil that enveloped Europe and many parts of the world. He did not win every battle and faced many oppositions, as well as his personal struggles to discern the right course of action in the midst of many (personal and professional) doubts and questions. In the midst of many compelling goods and doubts, he had to learn to be courageous and committed to the cause of good and to diminish the existing evil.
Courage is an important virtue, because, without courage, we cannot properly put into practice any other virtues. Without courage, we cannot become who we are called to be because we are too afraid of trying to please everybody and be everything else except our true selves. This virtue helps us fix our eyes on the ultimate goal in the midst of our daily struggles and trials. However, courage will become dangerous without love and self-control. It can be destructive if we do not know how to control and be prudent with our actions. In order for courage to be life-giving, we need to know the reason why we need to be courageous, as well as who and what courage is needed for. Courage keeps us grounded and keeps on doing what is right when there seems to be no apparent incentive, too many doubts around us, and life gets darker and more challenging at times.
Furthermore, as Christians, our courage is fixated on the love of Christ and our evangelical mission to preach the Gospel. Sometimes that journey of faith is easy and encouraging, while hard and challenging at other times; but no matter what, we keep on trying and choosing to embrace all blessings and challenges out of our love for Him who first loves us. We are called to bear all things, especially our hardships and trials, with the strength that comes from God.
Too many have lost the strength, willingness, and perseverance to walk the journey of faith. Many have given up when things get hard or abandon the Creator when He does not give us what we want, or when faith becomes an inconvenience. Sadly, Christianity has become a religion of comfort, convenience, or benefits for many. Too few believe that their faith can move mountains and seas! Perhaps many just think that God is supposed to move mountains and seas for us, granting us our heart’s desires and to give us what we want, but we do not believe that faith gives us the courage to be faithful to the Gospel and that our faith can move much more than innate objects or natural elements.
Our faith does not simply move seas or mountains, which are only natural matters, it also moves the hearts of people! Our very own faith or our lack of faith dictates our society. The decision can make our society more God-centered in the truth or self-serving with shallow objectification of people . The lack of courage and faith cause us to be unhappy in the endless search for temporary satisfaction, happiness, or successes. Perhaps too many of us have forgotten that we are servants of God and have made ourselves little gods who are in control. Perhaps we have forgotten that we are called to preach the Gospel that frees us from the enslavement to sin as to live as sons and daughters of God. We have chosen to preach our own humanistic ideologies, agendas, and politics. Let us be honest, it is very easy to manipulate, get attention, suppress, and silent others to get what we want — even the Almighty Himself — but that only leaves us with ourselves in its self-centered pities, envy, jealousy, and cowardice because we never have taken the time to grow, mature, deepen, and love as He wants of us.
Lourdes, Fatima, and other Marian apparitions always remind us to trust in God‘s faithfulness by reminding us of our need for prayer and conversion — and not just for ourselves but also for the world at large. Without returning to Him with our whole heart through a genuine and personal conversion, we will continue to go our own separate ways. Without a heartfelt prayerful and spiritual life, we cannot listen to what He has to say to us as to seek and discern His will for our faith journey. Hence, it takes much commitment, perseverance, and courage to seek what is right and to put into action what God wills of us. Our faith teaches us that, even if destruction or trial is around us, He will not abandon us. The Almighty will get us through the storms as He did for His people time and time, over and over, again. Even though our trials might lead us to new shores or we might be discouraged at times to climb the mountains of trial and hardship, He will always give us the necessary strength to overcome.
Too many people in our world have given up too easily in their battles! We have lost the understanding of what it means to mature and grow through faithfulness, perseverance, and courage. It has been too easy to walk away and give up instead of choosing to stay in the storm and to grow in the hurt, especially to choose to will the good of others, to love, sacrifice, and make reparation when there are not any obvious incentives to do so. As a matter of fact, true love is not of passing matters, beneficial exchanges, political advantages, or the ability to do whatever is good, appealing, or as we think we are free or like to do. It takes much perseverance, prudence, courage, and faithfulness, as well as supernatural grace, to stay, love and will the good of others, keep on growing and loving when it seems to be more humanly advantageous to abandon and choose other appealing choices.
We are not perfect and we will fail at times, but we should never stop trying! We should never be ashamed of who we are as Christians, especially our true belief and genuine freedom in the Gospel. We are not perfect but we should never let our will dictates the will of God! In our commitment and simplicity of faith, we give testimony to what His grace had and will continue to do in our lives because we try to love and choose to love in good times and in bad, successes and failures, blessings and challenges of life. We preach Christ Jesus and His love for us expressed on the Cross and in our daily journey. Therefore, let us take courage, not lose heart, and keep on loving Him who loves us! May our mouths keep praising Him now and forever.
Let us not forget but remember that, “Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts.” (Winston Churchill)