Have you ever thought about the end of your life? The last moment of your life and what your words would be? What would be the final words you would say to those around you when you die? I hope mine are, as Saint Paul says today, “I have fought the good fight. I have finished the race. I have kept the faith. I have fought the good fight. I have finished the race. I have kept the faith.” I’d like to talk about these three in the context of today’s feast of Saints Peter and Paul.
First of all, what does it mean to fight the good fight in the spiritual life? I want to start off by asking, has anyone actually been in a physical fight? Raise their hands if you have. Wow, we got a lot more people at this mass. I better be careful. Has anyone ever boxed, raise your hands? We got one. All right, Terry. A question for you. What are the two ways you can lose in boxing or win in boxing before the end of the complete round? Get knocked down. So, if you get knocked down, but how many times? Three times. If you get knocked down three times in boxing, it’s called a technical knockout. And then the other one is when you get knocked out completely. Those are the two times where the fight is over. If there are three times you get knocked down or one time you get knocked out completely.
I want to talk about that in regard to the spiritual life. I think many of us forget that this is a battle while we live on earth. And we may or may not realize that Satan is fighting against you. Satan wants to take you out. He wants to knock you out. He also wants to knock your children out and your grandchildren and your friends and your family. Has anybody experienced their loved ones being knocked out of the faith? It’s real. We have to be aware of this because we do have to fight Satan. There are two ways that we can fight. One way is to dodge the punches that are coming at us, you know, and to avoid the wiles of Satan, as it’s called. The other way is just to go at him directly. And in the church, we see this as the Sacramentals. Sacramentals are a way for us to overcome Satan.
I want to talk about that in the context of sin as well. In our faith. I’m sure many of the older people that were around pre-Vatican II knew the catechism better, but there are two types of sin. Does anyone know what the two types of sin are? Mortal and venial. Okay, so there is venial sin, which are any sins that are less than mortal. Then there’s mortal sin, and there are three conditions to be required of a mortal sin. When we sin mortally, Satan knocks us out, and there are three conditions for us to sin mortally. One is that there is grave sin and that we know what the grave sin is. I think one of the gravest sins that a lot forget about today is to miss Sunday Mass for any reason other than illness. Second is that we know it’s a grave sin. And third is that we willingly choose to do it. So those three things happen. We know it’s a grave sin, it is a grave sin, and we freely choose to do it. We just got knocked down three times. Technical knockout. Anytime we commit mortal sin in our lives, Satan knocks us out.
But the good news is we can get back up. And we have this in the sacraments, especially confession, but also when Jesus carried the cross and he was at his weakest moment in life, he would fall. He got knocked down how many times? Three times, but each time he would get back up again. That’s what it means to fight the good fight. For us it means getting back up again. So, dodging those sins in our lives that we can, and when we fall into sin, rising back up again, getting back up. We’re fighting the fight all of our lives. We’re fighting the good fight.
The second is that we are called to finish the race. All we have to do is finish the race. It doesn’t matter if we come limping in or walking in, to finish the race by the time that we die. Now how about runners? Do we have any runners here? Raise your hand. We’ve got more fighters than runners in this parish. How many have run a marathon? Raise your hand 1-2-3. You are in the 1% of the population that have run the marathon. That’s amazing. I’ve never run a marathon and the most I ever ran was a 5K. I was never a runner growing up, but when I was a priest there were all these school fundraisers that were 5K’s. I thought in one of my first couple of years that I would try running a 5K, 3.3 miles, somewhere around there. I’d never really run. So, I started every day, and I would try to run for three minutes. Then the next time, I went out to run I would try to run for 5 minutes, like really slow at the beginning. Then the next time I would run for 10 minutes, and then 15 minutes, until I got into the habit of running at least 1/2 an hour every day.
When race time came around, it was the first 5K fundraiser that our parish school had. I entered the race, and my goal was to not walk. I wanted to run the entire 3 miles. To my surprise, when I crossed the finish line, I got first place, in my age group, and there was only one in my age group. But we had to finish the race. What this means as Catholics is that we’re constantly training, we are constantly taking every opportunity to grow in our faith. It might be small at first. It might be these baby steps, maybe just praying 3 minutes a day, then it grows to 5 minutes a day, and then 15 minutes a day as our Bishop has invited all of us to do.
The great saints prayed a holy hour every day. This could mean praying at home, but also coming and praying in our Adoration Chapel when we have times available. Think about signing up for Holy Hour once a week with your family. You can do that once a month. But realize that we’re running a race and part of that running, too, is running to those who are away from the faith, it’s running to those who are poor, it’s running to those who are impoverished. But it is, in the end, running to cross that finish line into eternal life. We are called the finish the race.
Finally, the third is I have kept the faith. Think about that too, if that could be your dying words. No matter what I went through in life, no matter how difficult life was for me, no matter how much I sinned, no matter how much I struggled, no matter how much I feel like I failed, I have kept the faith. Wouldn’t it be wonderful to die with those last words in your mouth?
As we all come here together, I think that if we just had a weekly goal: We’re receiving the Eucharist today. We’re receiving all the strength that we need. We’re receiving Jesus into us. All we have to do is fight until next week. All we have to do is run until next week. All we have to do is keep the faith until next Sunday, when we can once more receive the Eucharist and be restored. I hope that desire is there for you as well, that with your loved ones and your family, you could say the same thing: “I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith.”
