Navy SEALs Hell Week, 2011: After four days of brutal training – a continual physical and mental workout in freezing water, mud and mountains, on four hours’ sleep – Matt Ruschke found himself contemplating the “Drop-On-Request” bell. His instructors constantly reminded the recruits that if they weren't cut out for the SEALs, they could simply walk over, ring it and leave the program at any time.
The voices of his squad members shook him out of his trance: “C’mon, Matt, it’s put-up-or-shut-up time.” He looked up the muddy slope, then over at the other five soldiers of his team, each with his wrists and ankles tied to his neighbor’s. This was their fourth attempt; Matt had already fallen three times and forced the team to start from the bottom, and their patience – and his willpower – was on the brink. He narrowed his eyes and made his decision: “I can’t give up on these guys, not after all we've been through.”
In these kinds of situations it’s easy to push ourselves past our limits, not for ourselves, but for the ones around us. In the spiritual battle, we often do the opposite: my own difficulties bring me to authentic prayer, but when someone else is going through a hard time and asks for our prayers, we tend to brush off the request with a “sure, no problem, I’ll pray for you” and then forget, or just recite a quick Hail Mary and check that off our list of things to pray for. We need to open up and realize that we are the Church Militant: we are bound together, ankle-to-ankle and wrist-to-wrist, while we fight our way up the muddy hill toward Heaven.
By Colin Gore
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