Today, the Gospel highlights the difficulties and contradictions that Christians will have to endure for the sake of Christ and His Gospel, and how they must resist and persevere until the end. Jesus promised us: "I am with you always, until the end of the age" (Mt 28:20); but He did not promise His followers an easy path. On the contrary, He said: "You will be hated by all because of my name" (Mt 10:22).

The Church and the world are two realities of “difficult” coexistence. The world, which the Church must convert to Jesus Christ, is not a neutral reality, as if it were virgin wax waiting for a seal to give it shape. This would have been the case only if there had been no history of sin between the creation of man and his redemption. The world, as a structure apart from God, obeys another master, whom the Gospel of John refers to as “the prince of this world,” the enemy of the soul, to whom the Christian made a vow of disobedience on the day of their baptism, to stand up against him, and to belong solely to the Lord and the Mother Church who gave birth to him in Jesus Christ.

Still, we continue to live in this world and not another; nor do we deny our honest contribution to sustain and improve it —the duties of civic citizenship are also Christian duties; paying taxes is a duty of justice for Christians. Thus, Jesus said that His followers are in the world, but not of the world (cf. Jn 17:14-15). We do not belong to the world unconditionally; we belong entirely to Jesus Christ and to the Church, our true spiritual homeland, which transcends the barrier of space and time and leads us to our final homeland in heaven.

This dual citizenship inevitably clashes with the forces of sin and dominion that move worldly mechanisms. Perhaps this is why, reflecting on the history of the Church, Newman said that "persecution is the mark of the Church and perhaps the most enduring of all."