In today’s First Reading, this section from Numbers struck me, starting with 13:31.
31 Then the men who had gone up with him said, “We are not able to go up against the people, for they are stronger than we are.” 32 So they brought to the people of Israel a bad report of the land that they had spied out, saying, “The land, through which we have gone to spy it out, is a land that devours its inhabitants, and all the people that we saw in it are of great height.
Especially, that they intentionally delivered a bad report. Initially, what I considered was people who talk as if the Catholic faith is too stringent. It is difficult to live the virtues required daily. That this call for perfection is an ideal, but not something to live out. The call to perfection in Jesus’ High Priestly Prayer is just hyperbole and not an actual goal. They deliver a false report since they believe that resisting such temptations is not possible and that they are just too strong to overcome. Taking such advice would also make it difficult for us to enter the Promised Land. Those that present this false report, it seems to me, would see this as acting pastoral according to their lived experience.
“The Christian ideal has not been tried and found wanting. It has been found difficult; and left untried.” —G.K. Chesterton, “What’s Wrong with the World”
There is a clear lack of faith in God’s ability to enter our lives and change us, despite how slowly it seems on our timescale. While true, we will often fail in pursuing a life of holiness, the saints show us that this is not unobtainable. We need to be encouraged and not presented with false reports exaggerating the danger.
The second aspect I thought about is just how often I also exaggerate the difficulty and present myself with a false report. Pursuing what seems to be more pleasurable over seeking union with God. All those shortcuts instead of seeking God first. Those disappointments in myself that I think I will overcome. The truth is that I will never overcome them by my own will.
And I am sure of this, that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ. (Php 1:6)
