Assurance and caution
Christ's redemptive work that culminated in his passion, death, and resurrection should reassure us that there is really nothing to worry about our precarious earthly condition. As long as we unite ourselves with Christ, at least to some degree, everything will be taken care of.
Christ already assumed all our sins. With his death, he delivered death also to our sins. And with his resurrection, he conquered them. The sting of our sins, and especially of death itself, has been removed and changed into a balm of redemptive power.
This truth of our faith should leave us at peace and more focused on the things we ought to do. It's important that our earthly life be spent more in doing good rather than in worrying about the mistakes and sins that we commit. This is what true love is.
Just the same, we should neither forget that, human as we are, we can also get spoiled by this sense of security provided by Christ. We should be most guarded against this danger that will always be around.
To counter this potential danger, and if we truly identify ourselves with Christ, we should always feel the need for contrition, atonement, and reparation even if we can also rightly say that we have been behaving as we should in the eyes of God.
That is to say, that we have been guarding and defending ourselves against temptations and trying to lead a holy life. We should never think that our duty for contrition, atonement, and reparation is lightened because of our good behavior.
In fact, if we truly identify ourselves with Christ, we will never forget his words: "Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me." (Lk 9,23) We should do all to put these words into practice. No day should pass without having to live by these words.
If we have the mind of Christ, we should all the more feel the need for contrition, atonement, and reparation while we are progressing and improving in our spiritual life. Christ's love for us went and continues to go all the way. It is limitless, given without measure. Our love for him and for others should be patterned after that divine love.
So we have to learn how to blend a sense of confidence and assurance with the sense of caution by generously practicing penance and reparation. We should feel confident and secure, but not overconfident as to get blind to the need for continuing penance. A certain equilibrium between these two attitudes should be established.
It's important that the life of Christ, especially that part of his passion, death and resurrection, be always clearly borne in our mind. We need to realize more deeply that more than just following our own ideas, no matter how brilliant and smart, we always have to follow Christ's life and example.
This, of course, will require that we spend time meditating on Christ's life. Let's hope that this practice becomes a regular feature of our day. We have to overcome the thought that this practice is something optional or that it is just a luxury that we can afford to let go.
Let's never forget that we are meant to be patterned after Christ. We are meant to be 'alter Christus,' another Christ, if not 'ipse Christus,' Christ himself. That is truly our fundamental and indispensable identity!
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