[3] Bear your share of hardship along with me like a good soldier of Christ Jesus. [4] To satisfy the one who recruited him, a soldier does not become entangled in the business affairs of life. [5] Similarly, an athlete cannot receive the winner's crown except by competing according to the rules. [6] The hardworking farmer ought to have the first share of the crop.
(CCC 1435) Conversion is accomplished in daily life by gestures of reconciliation, concern for the poor, the exercise and defense of justice and right (Cf. Am 5:24; Isa 1:17), by the admission of faults to one's brethren, fraternal correction, revision of life, examination of conscience, spiritual direction, acceptance of suffering, endurance of persecution for the sake of righteousness. Taking up one's cross each day and following Jesus is the surest way of penance (Cf. Lk 9:23). (CCC 1264) Yet certain temporal consequences of sin remain in the baptized, such as suffering, illness, death, and such frailties inherent in life as weaknesses of character, and so on, as well as an inclination to sin that Tradition calls concupiscence, or metaphorically, "the tinder for sin" (fomes peccati); since concupiscence "is left for us to wrestle with, it cannot harm those who do not consent but manfully resist it by the grace of Jesus Christ" (Council of Trent (1546): DS 1515). Indeed, "an athlete is not crowned unless he competes according to the rules" (2 Tim 2:5). (CCC 2015) The way of perfection passes by way of the Cross. There is no holiness without renunciation and spiritual battle (Cf. 2 Tim 4). Spiritual progress entails the ascesis and mortification that gradually lead to living in the peace and joy of the Beatitudes: He who climbs never stops going from beginning to beginning, through beginnings that have no end. He never stops desiring what he already knows (St. Gregory of Nyssa, Hom. in Cant. 8: PG 44, 941C).
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