The first thing we must do is declare war. We must embrace the idea that we are surrounding by enemies from within and from without. Our primary enemies lie within, in the working of our thoughts, feelings, desires. Our interior enemies will prevent us from attaining freedom and peace and they won’t stop until we are completely bound in fear, anxiety, lust, greed, gluttony, envy, wrath, sloth, and pride. Our base instincts wage war on our intellects and must be conquered. The voices of this world seek to derail us from our mission. Our age old enemy, the Devil, seeks to distract us from pursuing holiness. We must declare war on them.
Likewise, in every age the one, holy, Catholic , and apostolic Church is beset by heresies and divisions, on the left and on the right. Inwardly we must decide that our primary attitude towards this fallen world is fundamentally to declare war on everything that prevents people from attaining salvation through Jesus Christ.
It was this declaration of war which filled the early Church and the saints of every age with a hunger and thirst for righteousness (Matthew 5:5) and a zeal for souls. Every day we must hold before our gaze that souls are in danger of going to hell, the first soul that is most in danger is our own.
We must keep before our gaze that our primary objective is to wage war with the weapons of righteousness and use every possible means to organize our lives around this singular mission, the salvation of souls. Like any great military campaign, there will be setbacks and temporary defeats. Enemies will turn out to be friends and friends may turn out to enemies.
When we declare war, we soon discover who is our ally in this great fight. Inwardly, we see our habits and the circumstances of our lives not about how much money we want or which friendships bring us the most pleasure, but rather as resources and allies in forming a fighting unit which leads to victory.
Our parishes and apostolates also must join us in declaring war on this fallen world and the threefold enemies of the flesh, the world, and the devil. In this context, every part of the apostolate must be understood in the context of this most sublime of pursuits and every part of it must point back to the singular goal of leading souls to Christ.
The benefit of this Warrior mindset is that our apostolic endeavors will no longer seem like scattered, disorganized activities that lack direction and motivation. Everything from the parish picnic to religious education will have a foundation of principles that will guide secondary and tertiary decisions. This mindset will help eliminate unnecessary and wasteful uses of our resources because our apostolates will become like the Roman legion or the special forces in which every member of the unit will know their role in carrying out the mission.
We must declare war.