I have been attempting in this article to provide some ideas about what it means to be a Vibrant Christian Community. I have suggested that it means that the majority of the people in the community understand that God has called us to holiness and are committed to doing all in their power to achieve a greater degree of holiness. This call to holiness is also a call to make a spiritual journey. The spiritual journey we are called to make is, like the journey of life, not without challenges and struggles. The Church and the spiritual community we are a part of joins us on this journey as a support and help. The Church shares the insights that Jesus put forth in His teaching and conveyed to us through the New Testament and the Church (the Church is the maintainer of Tradition which is the early Church’s understanding of Jesus’ teachings and expressed through her worship and practices). The spiritual community provides us with the initial opportunities to develop unconditional love for all other human beings.

Jesus taught about this spiritual journey. He told a parable about a king whose enemy was marching against him. He counted his troops to see whether he had a chance of defeating the enemy. Only after he clearly knew his resources and had weighed his chances of winning could he decide whether it was better to march out to meet the enemy or to try to make peace before fighting.

We have to identify clearly the obstacles of our spiritual journey and the resources we have to meet them before we can decide whether to wrestle with them without giving an inch, to bend a bit, or to acknowledge that by ourselves we are powerless against them. The first step in our struggle is to come to grips with our limits.

The most significant obstacles on the spiritual journey come from within: weaknesses, bad habits, negative feelings and attitudes that we have formed and chosen over the years. We carry these obstacles to growth with us and often do not recognize them when they are at work.

Sometimes we live in the past and let unhealed wounds and disappointments color the present. Unhealed wounds can give rise to feelings of failure, guilt, bitterness, low self-esteem and anger. These can create roadblocks to the openness required for healthy relationships. The struggle may well be to leave the past behind and accept the inner healing offered by Jesus.

It seems to be a propensity of humans to carry around the burden of past disappointments. These we must let go!