Christian Faith and courage in life - Pope John Paul II

Christian Faith and courage in life

We have to make a conscious decision that we mean to be professing Christians, and we must have the courage to be different, if need be, from other members of our social group. Our decision to bear Christian witness presupposes that we perceive and understand the faith as a precious opportunity in life, transcending the views and manners of our environment. We must take every opportunity to experience how the Faith can enrich our existence, make us genuinely steadfast in the struggle for life, strengthen our hope against attacks of every kind of pessimism and despair, and prompt us to avoid all extremism and to commit ourselves thoughtfully to furthering justice and peace in the world; lastly, the Faith can console and cheer us in sorrow. And so it is our task and opportunity in this diaspora situation to experience more consciously how the Faith can helps us to live more fully and more deeply.

The first thing i want to offer you is an invitation to optimism, hope and trust. Certainly, the human race is going through a difficult patch, and we often have a painful impression that the forces of evil, in many manifestations of social life, have got the upper hand. All too often honesty, justice and respect for human dignity have to mark time or seem to be on their last legs. And yet, we are called to overcome the world by our faith (cf John 5:4), since we belong to him who by his death and resurrection obtained for every one of us the victory over sin and death, and so has made us able to affirm humbly, serenely but certainly, that good will triumph over evil.

We belong to Christ and it is he who conquers in us. We must believe this deeply; we must live this certainty. If we do not, through the problems which are constantly arising those insidious beasts called discouragement at, tolerance of , and supine adaptation to the arrogance of evil will worm their way into our souls.

The subtlest temptation afflicting Christians today, and especially young people, is precisely that of giving up hope in Christ's affirmation of victory. The author of all guile, the Evil One, has long been fiercely committed to dowsing the light of this hope in each individual heart. It is no easy path - that of the Christian soldier. But we must follow it, knowing that we possess an inner strength for transformation, communicated to us with the divine life that we have been given in Christ the Lord. BY your witness, you will make others understand that the highest of human values are taken up in a Christianity lived consistently, and that the Gospel faith not only offers a new vision of humanity and the world, but more important still, makes it possible to bring this renewal about.