“The grace of God cleaves a man
in two.” Theophan the Recluse in The Art of Prayer, p. 141
According to Theophan, when
grace is poured into our hearts and souls, it automatically creates a division
in us between the way we are, and the new direction towards which
grace impels us.
There are several ways we can
experience the division in ourselves if we take an honest look at those parts
of ourselves which we would prefer to be hidden from God (which, of course, is
impossible).
Consider, for example, our habits,
our ways of thinking, our reluctance to forgive a certain person, the trivial
pleasures and treasures we hang on to, passions which dominate us, impurity, a tendency
towards any of the seven deadly sins. Theophan calls all of these things unnatural,
while the grace within us is gently (or sometimes forcibly, as it did with
Saint Paul) leading us to what is natural; that is, to what is pleasing
to God, to what gives us true lasting pleasure and joy, to what adds depth to
our character and to the attitudes, our outlook on life and our aspirations. He
sees the ungoing work of grace in our lives as a struggle between what is
natural and what is unnatural.
Grace doesn’t simply drive the “unnatural”
away as if by magic. This is how he describes the struggle:
All the other parts (i.e., the
unnatural) are still help prisoner and do
not want and cannot be obedient to the demands of the new life: the mind as a
whole does not yet know how to think in a new way but thinks as before; the
will does not yet know how to desire in the new way, but desires as before; the
heart doesn ot know how to feel in the new way, but feels as before.
The same is true of the life of
the senses, of purity and impurity and of behavior that belong to the “old way”
which still cling to us so closely that oftentimes we are unable to recognize
them for what they are.
I mentioned St. Paul because the
story of his conversion is one of the readings at Mass today. He, of course,
was knocked off his horse by a bolt of lightning. For us, the process is
usually a bit more subtle.
It seems to us, however, that
Paul’s conversion is complete in a flash of light. But that is not necessarily
true. Yes, he came to understand a lot about Jesus, and he became a fervent
preacher right from the beginning, but I suggest that if you read the letters
of Paul in light of what Theophan said above, you might actually discover that
certain character flaws remained with Paul throughout the years of his ministry—and
Paul would be the first to admit it.
So don’t give up on yourself.
Pray that you might see how grace is leading you to life, pray that you may see
what in your life is resistant or “unnatural,”
and always beg for the grace to respond to the graces that God sends you
on a daily basis.
God bless you.
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