Dear Brothers and Sisters,
We live in a world that so often demands success and productivity. As a result, when something doesn’t live up to its expectation, it’s seen as a failure, which in the moment, seems like the worst thing ever.
Failure, in its simplest form means “to lack success” or “to stumble”. Thus, the end goal is what determines whether or not something is a failure or not. If your end goal is to be perfect, you will never reach it. It’s not possible for a human to be perfect. The only perfect being is God.
We aren’t called to BE perfect, we’re called to strive for perfection. What does this look like? It is doing everything, Ad Majorem Ad Gloriam, which in Latin means, “for the greater glory of God.” That doesn’t mean you will never fail in the literal sense. Rather, it gives us the ability to see nothing as a failure.
When our end goal is to grow closer to God at all times, nothing can be a failure. Everything and every moment is an opportunity to grow in knowledge of God, self, and others. We can always learn from the good, but especially the bad. Think about it like this. . . when you write a paper and get it corrected, you don’t give up when you realize what mistakes you made. You see what to fix, and you fix it. It’s the same with sin. If we fall into sin, we now know that we have to do things differently.
The seemingly greatest “failure” of all time was the death of Jesus on the cross. All hope seemed lost for many of His followers. Yet, in His resurrection, God took the worst sin and greatest “failure”, and turned it into the greatest victory and success ever. “Oh happy fault!” Is proclaimed at the Easter mass, summarizing this idea. Let us remember that amid the storms of life, the Lord will bring good out of them!
Every challenge is an opportunity to lean on God all the more. When we abandon ourselves to the will of the Father, we start to see how good He is to us, because He uses everything to draw us closer to Him. I challenge you to start seeing your challenges and struggles as opportunities to trust in the Father rather than despair of hope.
‘Indeed someone may say, “You have faith and I have works.” Demonstrate your faith to me without works, and I will demonstrate my faith to you from my works.’ James 2:18 (NABRE) St. James provides us with an example of such trust. It is a call to do our best and leave the rest to God!
To end, I want to share one of my favorite quotes: “Pray as if everything depends on God, and work as if everything depends on you.”(St. Ignatius of Loyola) In other words, do everything you can to the best of your ability, and God will take care of the rest.
Ad Majorem Dei Gloriam,
Jesse Iamarino
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Citation:
New American Bible, Revised Edition. http://www.usccb.org/bible/.
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