20th Sunday in Ordinary Time

While I was in Boston for my studies a couple of years ago I took the opportunity to go and watch the famous Boston Marathon. Luckily for me, the marathon route passed by only a couple of streets up from the Jesuit community where I was staying. I had also discovered that you could simply go on the internet and track the lead runners in the marathon to see approximately when they would be passing by your neighbourhood. Our neighbourhood lay roughly at the halfway mark of the marathon, just after a grueling 1-mile uphill climb, aptly named “Heartbreak hill.” But when I arrived to see the lead runners pass by, having just summited Heartbreak Hill and already run 20km, they were hardly breaking a sweat. It was quite a sight to seek these lean, sleek athletes in the prime of their physique cruise past us making this feat of physical exertion look like simple stroll in the park. Having watched a fair number of these fleet-footed athletes pass by, I returned to my community to carry on with my assignments. Later that day at our evening social, a fellow Jesuit convinced me that I had in fact missed the best part of the marathon. He had waited till long after the sleek athletes had run past and had instead gone along to see the stragglers. He derived great inspiration from watching the sheer effort and grit determination of these stragglers who were engaged in a titanic battle of mind over matter. What made this experience all the more moving for my Jesuit friend was the cheering crowd amassed along the sidelines cheering these runners on. The cheering crowd was given an opportunity to participate in the race by giving the exhausted runners a second wind through their encouragement. If left all to themselves, these exhausted runners may well have been tempted to give up, but thanks to the crowds urging them on all the way, they were able to find the will power necessary to make their aching muscles carry on pumping and achieve their goal of completing the race.

The author of the letter to the Hebrews is employing this exact same the metaphor of a crowd cheering on runners in his words of encouragement to the Hebrew Christians as they went through a time of particularly bitter persecution. Like the stragglers in the marathon who had just crested Heartbreak Hill, but who still had another 20km of running before them, the Hebrew Christians might have been tempted to throw in the towel and renounce their faith in the face of persecution. So the author reminds them that they are “surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses” who are urging them on to the finish line. This crowd of witnesses is the “Church triumphant,” the saints in heaven who are supporting them with their prayers and their witness of holy lives lived in the service of God. Whenever we are discouraged in our Christian journey, it is helpful to remember that we are not alone in this journey and that we are supported by the prayers of multitudes of brothers and sisters in heaven who now cheer us on.

The author ends today’s reading with stark words: “in your struggle against sin, you have not yet resisted to the point of shedding blood.” At a time when many Christians were being martyred for their faith under intense persecution, this was not a mere metaphor. What can it mean for us today who do not live at a time where to be a Christian meant risking your life on a daily basis? Perhaps the contemporary equivalent of this verse can be found in a quote from the American psychologist, William James, who once said “most people don’t run far enough on their first wind to realize that they’ve got a second.” Applied to the context of the spiritual life, this quote talks to how we often give in too easily to temptation. In our battle with temptation and sin, it can be helpful to remember our second wind can come from the encouragement we receive from others, just like it did for those stragglers in the Boston Marathon.

In adopting the metaphor of a race, we must be careful not to make the Christian journey seem like a Pelagian pursuit of personal perfection. We run the risk of becoming depressed with our performance because we more resemble the stragglers than the fleet-footed professional athletes. We must be on our guard against being enticed by illusory notions of progress in the spiritual life. We can think that the path of spiritual progress is delineated in an ascending straight line towards the goal of moral perfection. We can get disheartened by our own failures and setbacks, our own constant struggles with our sinfulness and mediocrity. Instead of running a race, we perceive ourselves as simply marking time, jogging on the same spot or even going backwards. When we feel this way, it is helpful to remember the following points:

1. The measure of our spiritual progress is not directly correlated with our acquisition of personal virtue. Rather what is of primary importance is our service of God and of neighbour, our ability to recognize and aid the in-breaking of the Kingdom into our world.
2. In the final analysis, God alone knows the measure of our spiritual progress, we are often not best placed to gauge our spiritual progress – and just as well – for this should prevent us from either getting an ego about our spiritual prowess, or getting depressed at our perceived lack thereof.

For these two reasons, it is good that we take the advice of second reading today and keep our eyes fixed on Christ. The encouragement we receive from the great cloud of witnesses is wonderful, but it would be a poor runner who would take her eyes of the finish line to gaze and wave appreciatively at her fan club. Our gaze must always be fixed on Christ and his cross, as this is our finish line. Every time we manage to unite our own sufferings and struggles to those Christ endured on his cross, we participate in our own redemption and that of the world.

Questions for reflection

1. Do I take the time to acquaint myself the lives of the saints in order to gain encouragement and inspiration for my own spiritual journey?
2. Do I get disheartened at my own perceived lack of spiritual progress? How might I combat this?
3. What are the things that might help me to find a second wind in my spiritual race?