The term “the divided life” isn’t one you hear used ever in the secular world. For most people, we have just one life. However, the divided life is real, and even though all Christians live a divided life, we are called to struggle against our nature, work hard, and intentionally lead lives of integrity and holiness.
The divided life is when we separate our faith from our day-to-day lives. The opposite is an integrated life of integrity, where faith informs and guides all aspects of life.
Unfortunately, it’s extremely easy to live a divided life since we were born into a secular world. We have experienced and learned how to navigate it daily since our earliest years, mostly to get along with others. Here is a fable to illustrate.
Imagine, if you will, a baby named Jim who was born, and his parents baptized him. At the time of that baptism, he received a passport of his citizenship into the body of Christ. The cover says he is Catholic, while the inside contains all the rights and responsibilities of a Catholic citizen. Possession of this passport meant he had been welcomed — adopted, in fact — into the body of Christ, the Catholic Church.
Everything is great after that. Jim goes to Mass every Sunday with his family. When he gets older, he receives the sacraments: reconciliation, communion, and confirmation. Each of those sacraments are stamped inside his passport.
Then, as Jim gets older, he starts to make friends and feels pressure to get along with them to keep them as friends. To do that, he sometimes skips Mass to hang out with them instead. Jim forged his first fake passport, and he got away with it. It is a win-win for Jim because the fake passport still looks the same on the outside (Catholic), but on the inside, he added a clause that excuses him from Mass “from time to time” because his friends are important too.
Things progress as Jim works his way through elementary school into middle school. He keeps forging more passports to get out of tight spots; there was the one for cheating on tests (because he never had the time to study and his parents would “kill” him if he got bad grades), stealing stuff from a store (just small stuff), lying to his parents for this and that (just white lies). There was also the one time his parents forged a passport for him! It excused the entire family from Mass when on vacation! Jim keeps that one for his college years. Come on! We are not saints here!
Moving on to high school, even more, fake passports are required for heavy partying, being unchaste in thoughts and deeds, lying, and cheating (who knew one could buy exams and term papers?). After graduation, Jim goes off to college. And let’s say, college is high school without the limits imposed by “overbearing” parents, so those years required quite a few more forged passports.
Finally, the big day comes, and Jim graduates from college and starts his career and adult life. He forged the infamous “What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas” passport, and one is for misdeeds at work and extra-marital affairs.
Jim has it covered! He is living in two worlds simultaneously — or so he thinks. To the outside world, he’s Catholic; he goes to Mass most of the time and even goes to confession every once in a long while, which makes him and others think he is a Catholic in good standing. He never once thought that perhaps he needed to get rid of those old passports — to stop living a divided life and start living a life of integrity.
Then, unfortunately, Jim dies. When he arrives at the pearly gates, St. Peter asks him for his passport to verify his identity. St. Peter gives Jim a wink, knowing that he has dozens of passports with him. St. Peter gives Jim one chance to pick the original one without peeking on the inside. It’s likely that Jim won’t pick the right one, and he doesn’t.
Crestfallen, Jim stares at St. Peter, looking at him right in the eyes, looking for mercy. St. Peter offers it, and Jim gladly accepts the offer. He sends Jim to Purgatory, the place of purgation, the process of purification or cleansing one’s soul from sin.
While Jim was not deserving of hell, assuming he had no unforgiven mortal sins, he was certainly not a saint, nor was he working during his life to become one during his life. Still, he needs to undergo purification to achieve a state of holiness necessary to enter the joy of heaven.
Let’s conclude this fable naturally. Jim will spend Purgatory reviewing and suffering the pain upon reflection of each of his sins on earth and the damage he inflicted on others due to his deeds using his fake passports. Through purgation, he can finally start to shred those fake passports until he has only the original given to him at baptism.