Friday, April 28,
2017
I haven’t posted since Tuesday
because I’ve been a bit under the weather. On Tuesday I wrote about the gifted
religious experiences that many of us have, moments when it seems as if the
veil between heaven and earth is rent, times when we are overwhelmed and
overjoyed by beauty, by the experience of love, or by a strong sense of the
presence of God or of the risen Christ.
I also mentioned that after
receiving gifts, life tends to go on as usual, while the experience we have had
remain pleasant memories but don’t necessarily cause any significant changes in
our lives. How can this be? For an answer, I turn to Saint Augustine of Hippo,
who writes about such things in his Commentary
of Psalm 41.
He reminds us that God is so far
beyond us that in order to attain to God, we have to reach beyond the usual
horizons of our souls. “If my soul were to remain within itself it would not
see anything but itself and, within itself, it would not see its God. . . . It
is there, in fact, above my soul, that the dwelling of my God is. That is where
he dwells, from there he sees me, from there he created me . . . from there he
raises me up and calls me, from there he guides me and steers me into harbor.”
But we cannot remain beyond
ourselves for too long because, as Augustine puts it: “Our body that is doomed
to corruption weighs our souls down and our spirit is troubled by many
thoughts. . . . Since we are weighed down by our heaviness we soon fall back
into our habitual ways. We let ourselves be dragged back to our usual way of
living. And just as when we drew near to God we found joy, so when we fall back
to earth we have reason to groan.” Read Psalm 41 (42 in modern numbering) to
see an expression of this groaning:
Why are you cast down, O my soul and why are
you disquieted within me. Hope in God; for I shall again praise him, my help
and my God.
The psalm supplies a remedy for
this sad state of affairs: it is hope. We are given to experience times
of great sweetness, but then we are cast back down upon ourselves and we are
threatened and tempted by our own inordinate desires. Saint Augustine expresses
the remedy eloquently:
While awaiting heaven find your God here below in hope. . . . why hope?
Because I shall witness to him. What witness will you give? That he is my God,
the health of my countenance. My health cannot come to me from myself. I will
proclaim it, I will bear witness to it: My God is the health of my countenance.”
And there is an important lesson
to be learned here: Our health cannot come to us from ourselves. It must come
from outside us, and above us, and through the merciful ministrations of a God
who loves us more than we can sometimes love ourselves. Let this be a guide to
your ongoing prayer.
God bless you! Have a nice
weekend!
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