We all need to fight the tendency to despair

The last few weeks have been great for me in terms of my family life. Three of my five children are grown and no longer live at home. In fact, each of them is at least 13 hours driving from my house. All three of them were home around the Fourth of July. It was fantastic having everyone home. I miss having my whole family together. I mourn for what the family used to be, but that is not the real point of this article.
While my children were in town my whole schedule was completely disrupted. Don’t get me wrong, I loved it. But I found that my prayer life really suffered for a couple of weeks, and even then I found myself continuing to struggle to spend time with Christ. 
I notice that my enemy likes to define me by my failures. My God usually defines me by who I am. My enemy likes to present growth as too difficult. My God encourages me to take one step at a time. My enemy tries to convince me that I am too weak to win. My God agrees with him, but then my God gives me the grace and strength to victory.
My dear brothers and sisters, we all need to fight the tendency to despair. Our enemy wants us to give up the fight. He likes to point to our failures and the mountain that is standing in our way. Christ encourages us to take up our Crosses and follow Him. He knows that we are going to fall. He too fell beneath the weight of the Cross.
I find it helpful to focus on one concrete, spiritual step in the right direction when I realize that my spiritual life is slipping or waning. For example, I may resolve to make sure I make it to daily Mass a certain number of times each week. I may resolve to make sure I pray the Rosary daily. The Church offers us a rich patrimony of prayers. Choose something, anything, preferably something small and achievable, then grow from there. 
— Pat Arensberg is the Director of the Office for Evangelization and Family Life. Email him at [email protected] 
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