By: Ricardo Valle Andrés (seminarist)

The life of a consecrated person must be like any other Christian’s life, devoted to God in every sense. Sometimes we get lost, and we think that being consecrated make us less human, that it makes us move further away from mankind and gets us closer to God; huge mistake, pure arrogance. So let us ask: How to be a human and spiritual consecrated person at the same time?

The greatest sin in the world nowadays is that men have lost the sense of sin. Today, the sin matter has been totally overcome, or it is posed in a total different way from that used in the traditional theological reflection. The thought that we offend God with our sins has come to a second place before the consideration that we commit injustice with our fellow men and society.

God’s mercy is infinite, we can be sure of that, we should not abuse of His mercy and must recover Fear of God. Fear of God is to be afraid of offending Him, knowing that when we commit a sin we are denying Him, turning our back on Him and moving away from grace.

Nowadays we do not think that a personal sin is important, “it is not that bad”, “He forgives me”, “this cannot be a sin”, etc. But it is important for us to offend our fellow men, what people say and some other things imposed by society without thinking about the divine aspect.

A spiritual person, as every Christian should be, is aware of good and bad, nevertheless temptations are present, sometimes that person falls, but he normally does not. Why not? Because his/her spirituality is his/her power to fight against sin, and prayer is his/her most powerful weapon. In this way he/she does not become a slave of sin.

Spirituality does not save us from temptations, quite the opposite; evil goes strongly against this person. It knows that temping a person who is in great communion with God represents a great victory, that is why it shows no mercy with those people who try, through testimony and example, to be faithful to their faith.

A consecrated person is a target of evil; his/her human weakness must be reinforced with prayer and contemplation. He/she must never forget how small and weak he is, nor tempt God saying “I am strong, I can do it”. He/she must never take risks, he/she should be careful, but above all be a person of strong convictions and intense prayers.

His/her human weakness does not go against his/her spirituality, quite the opposite, such weakness is reinforced and it helps to strengthen his/her spirituality. If one falls into temptation, one must get up quickly and never be self-compassionate or feel guilty; trusting in Divine Mercy, helps to keep going.

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