Having a “balanced life” is central to all Christians. In addition to balancing all three aspects of ourselves, body, mind, and soul, it is crucial that we also strive to strike a balance in our spiritual life. For some sisters and brothers, they may have preferences for certain areas of spiritual life or habits, which in turn causes them to favour the development of those areas of their spiritual life and neglect the need for balancing all the areas. For example: some Catholics’ prayer life may only focus on reciting prayers; though reciting prayers is highly beneficial, this form of prayer lacks the element of “listening”. If we become too “obsessed” or even “addicted”, our prayer life will become too formulaic; thus we are only reciting the formulated words of the prayers mindlessly, but that is not what prayer is about. Another example: some Catholics choose to focus on liturgies and rituals, and spend all their devotional time participating in all kinds of liturgical celebrations and rites. However, their spiritual life lacks interactions with other people, like participation in faith communities or bible study groups, and other faith-based activities. Yet, other Catholics are so passionate about learning that they seek out all kinds of faith-related talks and courses, or enthusiastically research and consume all kinds of religious materials online; they are unwilling to miss a single learning opportunity. Their passion for learning is admirable; however, if their motivation is to simply expand their knowledge, they may be guilty of “accumulation of knowledge” and may fail to apply what they learn in their daily lives. This is less than helpful to nurturing their spiritual growth.

There are those who are full of enthusiasm for service; they participate in many parish groups or ministries, especially those focusing on services. Their schedule is bursting at the seams with all kinds of service; they are physically and spiritually exhausted, and become “overexerted” under tremendous pressure. All these have an impact on their other needs in life as well as their relationship with others, especially their families. If the situation continues, in extreme cases, these Catholics may eventually become unwilling to offer help and participate in any services, and in the worst case, they may even leave the Church for good. This is a problem that cannot be ignored by us individually, and by the parish, faith communities, and the entire Church.

In truth, “burnout” doesn’t only happen in the workplace, it is also very common in the Church. The reason is that the number of people who are willing to serve the Church is scarce, therefore, anyone who offers himself/herself to the service of the Church is often asked to do more, resulting in serious “burnout”. However, why does this happen?

Dynamic Catholic Institute, an American Catholic organization, had surveyed some American Catholics. The results reveal that in most Catholic parishes, some parishioners are very active and highly engaged in all sorts of activities while others are disengaged and even distance themselves from the parish. The most surprising result of the survey is that the most driven and actively engaged parishioners only account for 6% to 7% of the parish registered population, but they are contributing to over 80% of the voluntary services and donations supporting the parish!   The survey result is quite a shocking discovery for the organization, therefore, they wanted to find out what causes this staggering phenomenon.

According to their further research, the highly engaged parishioners share four common traits –  their deliberate efforts made on balancing the development of four areas of their lives:  prayer, study, generosity and evangelization.

This research has given us some very important insights. Individually, if we want to become a genuine Christian whose life has “order”, we need to balance the different areas of our life as well as the four aspects of our spiritual life previously mentioned; putting appropriate amounts of time and sufficient energy into each, allowing all to grow steadily and equally. On the community or the Church’s level, if we hope our Church can develop continuously and to be effective in evangelization, we, as active and engaged Christians, should encourage the faithful in our parish and community to have balanced development in the four areas.

Since we are the mystical body of Christ, a part of the Church, we have the duty of offering ourselves for the benefits of the entire Church but cannot only concern ourselves. The growth of the mystical body of Christ and the fulfilment and presence of God’s kingdom among us are dependent on each Christian’s willingness to shoulder the responsibility to be “generous” and the mission of “evangelization”.

The above analysis reveals that the development of a balanced spiritual life of each individual Christian is intricately connected to the development of the entire Church. Our spiritual growth is bound to the growth of the entire Church community. Therefore, we can’t say that faith is a personal matter and is unrelated to others. Our spiritual health and growth is intimately connected to that of the mystical body of Christ.

From achieving “order” as an individual, to achieving “order” as a Christian, extending to “order” in the entire community and the Church, such is the vision for a new generation of Christians. It is a historical mission that the Father has bestowed on each Christian!  Let us take our role and responsibilities as a 21st-century Christian seriously!

Reflection

In your spiritual life, do you focus on certain “preferences” that may have caused you to neglect other areas?

In the four areas of prayer, study, generosity, and evangelization, which area(s) do you think you have neglected? What are the reasons?

Do you feel that your goal of achieving “order” in your faith and spiritual life is a purely personal matter? What inspirations have you drawn from this reflection in this regard?

Today’s Prayer

Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit. As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end. Amen.