Where you are weakest, there is God

“You know, Father, my life is going along pretty well. I’m trying to lead a virtuous life and in almost every area, thank God, I’m succeeding. But there is this one thing. A weakness I have. I’m tempted so often to give in to it, and sometimes, I must confess, I do, and then immediately hate myself afterwards. And it’s then that I feel so far from God and feel that He might actually give up on me. I try so hard, but I just can’t overcome it.”

How would you answer him?

I’ll tell you what I had to say: “You’re talking about the weakest part of your life, the most negative thing you have going on, this one thing that overtakes everything else and makes you feel  not worthy of God any more. But don’t you see? It is at that particular point—at that one area where you are most helpless and most weak, that God comes to be with you and shower you with his love and compassion. That is what he does for you, for me, for all of us.”

And I say to you: Don’t be afraid of those dark and weak parts of your life. Don’t think you have to get rid of them or get them fixed in order for God to love you. God accepts everything---every single aspect of our being, the negative as well as the positive, and where we are weakest, that is where his grace (and by grace I mean love and compassion and forgiveness) is strongest.

And do you know what else? In some way that will one day be clear to you, God will use everything in your life for His own good purposes. That’s right. Everything. Just think of King David, the inspired poet who gave us the Psalms, many of which are love poems to God. At the weakest point in his life he was guilty of adultery and murder. And he finally admitted his guilt (see the reflection a while back about Psalm 51), and he was punished for it, but God did not give  up on him. And he will not give up on your or me, either.

By the way, I’m reading a wonderful book called Things Hidden: scripture as spirituality by Richard Rohr. That book inspired today’s reflection, and I suspect you’ll be hearing more about it as time goes by. But if you’re looking for some good spiritual reading for Lent, this might be just what you’re looking for.

God bless you. In your strength and in your weakness.

Feeling far from God?

I continue with Psalm 51, vv 12-13.

Cast me not away from your presence.

A friend once gave me a bumper sticker that said “Do you feel far from God? Well, who moved?” Since I don’t have a car of my own, I stuck it to the wall of my office. Not many benefitted from reading it, though, because it was in Hungarian. But some students used to ask me about it, and that ushered in nice teaching moment.

In the Psalm, David prays, Cast me not away from your presence,  and I’ve been thinking about that. God is in all things, and God’s love is within all of us, “in whom we live and move and have our being.” If that is the case, then could it really be possible that God would cast me out of his sight? If he were to do that, we would immediately turn to dust.

Rather, I would like to suggest that we cast Him from our presence. and by this I mean that we push him out of our consciousness and fail to consider that He is always with us, watching us and guiding us, and that when we move away He suffers just as Jesus suffered when the apostles fled when he was arrested.

But there are some times in our lives when we wish He would look somewhere else and not at us, especially when we are about to give into a temptation.

This is an important notion. So important, in fact, that Saint Benedict makes it the first step on the ladder of humility:

The first step of humility, then, is that a man keeps the fear of God always before his eyes (Psalm 36:2) and never forgets it. . . . . let him recall that he is always seen by God in heaven, that his actions everywhere are in God’s sight and are reported by angels at every hour. (Rule of St.Benedict, chapter 7, verses 1o and 12)

Lord Jesus Christ, Son of the living God, have mercy on me, a sinner.

(And I thank the Lord for giving me this inspiration today, because I was pressed for time and only had half an hour to come up with something. I really felt like I was taking dictation rather than writing something on my own. But creativity is often like that at times, and this was one of them.)

God bless you.

No matter how low you may have fallen . . .

We continue with Psalm 51:12

               

Create in me a clean heart, O God,

and renew within me a steadfast spirit.

Remember that David was chosen by God, a fearless warrior, a great and powerful king and a virtuous one at that. His prayer was sublime and eloquent. He was the composer of most of the 150 psalms we have; in fact, this particular psalm was his psalm of repentance when he realized what wrong he had done.

And the great and almighty are fallen. David reached the heights of human perfection, but was brought down low by temptation to the point where he was guilty of adultery and indirect murder. (See II Samuel 11 and 12.)

If such a thing could happen to David, what might happen to us. Every single day, it is God’s grace that keeps us from falling into decadence and depravity, and we must always remember that, especially when we are tempted to judge people who have fallen prey to what is the worst in human nature. “There but for the grace of God go I” must be our constant prayer.

Notice in these verses that the first one speaks of the “heart” while the second one speaks of the “spirit.” These two words are used interchangeably in the scriptures. “Heart” generally refers to what is particular to the body while “spirit” refers to the supernatural part of our being. What David prays for in this verse, and we as well, one commentator says, is a “total renovation of his entire mental and moral nature, which he recognizes as corrupt and depraved.” (See www.biblehub.com/commentaries for excellent information about any passage of Scripture).

Do we sometimes perceive our natures as corrupt and depraved? If not, we still must recognize that no matter how “well-off” we think we may be in the spiritual life, it is possible for us to fall as David had fallen. And at that time, we need not lose hope, for God’s love is greatest for those who are most in need of his mercy. “Lord Jesus Christ, Son of the living God, have mercy on me, a sinner.” We can pray no more honest prayer than that. It also helps to consider Saint Peter, who also fell in a horrible way, but yet was restored by his Lord who asked him, despite everything, “Do you love me?”

One final observation: David prays for a “steadfast” spirit. The Hebrew word used here means “firm, constant or steadfast.” What David is praying for is a spirit so fixed and unmovable that it will not easily be shaken in time of even the most powerful temptations. Something for us to pray for as well, is it not?

God bless you.

You don't have to do it by yourself

From the Rule of Saint Benedict:

What is not possible to us by nature, let us ask the Lord to supply by the help of his grace. (Prologue:41)

I remember an old monk who often said, “All is grace, brothers, all is grace.”

Think of it: How have you gotten to where you are at this point in your life? Assuming that your own situation is good, and not lost in the mire of evil, we have to ask, “Did you do it with your own powers? Did it all depend on you alone? How about those times when God truly lifted you up and helped you to break through your own natural limitations to say or do or think something that you never would have dreamed you could say or do or think?”

In this passage, Benedict is consoling the monk who, having come to terms with what God is expecting of one who would be able to dwell with him “in his tent,” is tempted to turn away, knowing full well that what is asked of him is going to demand that he triumph over his own state in life, his natural tendencies, his weaknesses, his sinfulness, his resistance, his hesitation.

Think of the story of the young rich man who asked the Lord what he needed to do and the Lord told him to sell all his possessions and give to the poor and then come and follow him. Do you remember that the young man “turned away sadly” because he didn’t think himself capable of doing what the Lord asked of him? His richness, and his clinging to it, was a barrier that he didn’t think himself capable of surmounting. And he was right. By himself, he could not make the leap into a new life, and he didn’t seem to realize that he wouldn’t have to do it on his own. And so he turned away. (Matthew 19:16-22)  I guess he didn’t know the psalms well enough. Psalm 18:

You, O Lord, are my lamp,

my God who lightens my darkness.

With you I can break through any barrier,

with my God I can scale any wall. (Psalm 18:29-30)

(I love it when we pray those verses at Morning Prayer!)

What makes you or me turn away from what God is asking us? Why do we hesitate? What do we resist? If we could only realize that at all times God’s love and grace are within us and that we can turn within to claim the power he gives to us, a power that we don’t necessarily deserve! Never forget that: Grace is not something you earn: it is a freely given gift from God.

We forget this so easily, my friends. We simply forget. We try to do too much on our own.

Stop it. Claim the grace that is there for you, especially during any moment of challenge or trial. What is not yours by nature, let God help you with his grace.

God bless you!

God's experience

The second reading for today’s Mass, from Hebrews: For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who has similarly been tested in every way without sin.

Do you get how marvelous that is?!!!  There is no trial that you or I ever have to endure that we cannot find by looking at the crucifix and by studying the Gospels. I take the liberty of extending that passage to refer to suffering as well. The wonderful things about Christian truth is that we have a God who suffers with us, who knows about suffering not by means of his unbounded intellect, but in a far more important way: through personal experience.

They say that “a sorrow shared is half a sorrow.” Well then, always remember where you need to bring your sorrow. And your pain. And your weakness. And anything else you need to bring.

3 brief reflections

There will be no reflection on Saturday, October 17.

Jesus was tempted by Satan and ministered to by angels.

See that as an icon:  By going through life blissfully ignoring the fact that we are being lured by Satan, we also blot out the reality that we are being ministered to by angels.

Gratitude and awe can be strong defenses against insidious pride. Humble Gratitude recognizes that something has been given, not earned. Awe recognizes the greatness of both gift and Giver and puts a man in his proper place: “Who is man that thou should care for him?”

We don’t sing because we have beautiful voices we want to show off. We sing because the singing itself cleanses us and touches our own souls in ways that words cannot. We sing because we have grown tired of not singing, of standing idly by while others seem to be enjoying themselves.