Holiness Is the True Ambition

September 30, 2024

The Oxford Dictionary defines ambition as “a strong desire to do or to achieve something, typically requiring determination and hard work.”
The second definition in the dictionary, or definition B, is “a desire and determination to achieve success.”
This brings up the all-important question: what is it that we are trying to achieve in life?
The Gospels are a reminder that in our life, we should be primarily focused on the first definition, particularly in regard to our spiritual life, rather than the second definition, which is usually relevant in our personal life. We should desire to be saints and accept that this will require hard work and determination. In the Gospel of Mark, chapter 9, the apostles are guilty of focusing on the second definition. After listening to Jesus talk about His impending Passion, they are discussing who is the greatest among them, in other words, who is most successful.
Due to concupiscence (the inherent tendency towards sin) we all share this human flaw that makes us seek the things of the world rather than those of heaven. This is also what St. James warns us about, what he refers to as our passions, the things we desire in this world, what Bishop Barron, echoing St. Thomas Aquinas, always describes as honor, power, money, and pleasure. In other words, the things the world tells us will make us successful if we pursue and acquire them.
Jesus, on the other hand, warns us that the kind of achievement we should be seeking does not necessarily include any of the worldly definitions of success. We are to be as children, trusting in God even if the road seems to be difficult.
This is also the message of a passage from the book of Wisdom, chapter 2. It describes the world’s response to anyone who chooses to reject the things of this world and strives to do the right thing no matter what. It also foreshadows the response Jesus receives when he, the true just one, challenges the status quo. And, the reading warns us, the world will try our patience.
But this is what each one of us is called to accept. That we should live a life of trying to do the right thing in a world moving farther and farther away from the moral compass the Church has always provided and which we used to consider normal. The challenge for us is to stand up for the truth even if we are fully aware that this will not make us popular and may even cause us problems with our family or friends.
As Catholic Christians striving to be saints (which is the only worthwhile ambition we should seek), we are required to hold fast to the truth and not waver from it. We should seek to defend the truth with kindness and charity but always willing to acknowledge the truth about the problems in our world: the evils of abortion and euthanasia, the scourge of gender dysphoria, the problems with cohabitation, the need for a just and fair immigration policy, etc., etc., etc., and above all, we must affirm the reality of God’s presence in this world and the need for us to live our lives accordingly. And the world will try our patience.
Moses, in the Book of Deuteronomy puts it this way (30:19-20): “I have set before you life and death, the blessing and the curse. Choose life, then, that you and your descendants may live, by loving the LORD, your God, obeying his voice, and holding fast to him.”
We are challenged by Scripture to examine our lives and see where it is we seek to find success, where our ambitions are directed. Do we strive to be successful in the ways of the world, or do we seek to be like children, trusting in God our Father and working hard, with determination to become saints? Scripture reminds us that the choice of what to seek in life is simple but not easy. There will be hardships, no doubt. But nothing worthwhile ever is easy. And may we always cling to the assurance we hear in the book of Wisdom: “For if the just one be the son of God, God will defend him and deliver him from the hand of his foes.” And by the grace of God, we are always the sons and daughters of our heavenly Father. Jesus, I trust in You!