Templar Edification

Arnold Schwarzenegger recently shared a piece of advice that, at first glance, sounds almost too simple: stop using motivation as your only fuel. He’s right. Motivation feels incredible when it’s there. It gives you that surge of energy at the beginning of a new year, a new diet, a new project, a new commitment. But motivation is short-term fuel. It burns hot, then it burns out. That is why so many people begin strong and never finish. They weren’t lazy. They just built everything on a fuel source that was never meant to last. Routine is different. Routine is what carries you when the excitement is gone. It is what gets you moving on the days when you do not feel inspired, optimistic, or emotionally ready. A routine is built by showing up repeatedly, especially when you do not want to. You drag yourself through enough low-motivation days, and eventually the thing becomes part of your life rather than a dramatic decision you keep having to remake. Where I think this conversation often g...

In the early centuries of the Church, Christianity tended to be rather selective regarding whom we would or would not Baptize. It wasn’t a matter of proving one’s worth; the grace of Christ is freely given to sinners, superabundantly, profligately. But people had to know what they were getting into. Jesus promises His followers a cross, after all, and for nearly 300 years Christians had been persecuted by the Roman Empire. The baptismal symbolism of death and resurrection—joined to Christ’s own death, already died for us, that we need never fear death again, and to Christ’s own eternal life already begun—would have been far more than mere sentiment in those days. Christians courted death simply by professing our faith in Christ. Indeed, many were killed while awaiting their Baptism, thus held to have been “baptized in their blood.” In ancient Rome, catechumens could expect a three-year period of preparation, prayer, and formal instruction for at least an hour a week. Jerusalem sped thi...