A Sunday Thought to Start the Week Off Right
If your profession requires continuing education, join the club. And so recent Sundays have found me studying for a test coming up soon. I'd prefer not taking up my limited brain power thinking about my work on Sunday, but what I prefer doesn't always connect with what I must do. It's just the way of the world, which, as we Catholics would do well to remember, is, after all, a valley of tears. (If you're not sure about this, it's right there in the Salve Regina/Hail Holy Queen.)
Of course, the world wants none of this. Rather than face our obligations, endure suffering, or even deal with mere difficulties, we're urged to seek pleasure, or maybe some form of chemical comfort. Got an ache, take an Advil. Feeling down, take an anti-depressant. Of course, sometimes we're faced with a serious injury or illness that might in fact require treatment, medicine, etc. But, really, every little dust up doesn't demand instant relief!
Ideally, I'll remember all this while I'm going through all that material for some hours today - time I might have spent enjoying the respite from daily toil that Sundays always promise. Sigh!
Even better, maybe I'll spend a few minutes meditating on these wise words of Father Jean de Caussade. Written in the 18th century, they're as true now as then. They're also a good tonic to all the "feel good" nonsense that inundates our culture.
“So long as we live here below we cannot but find ourselves very imperfect and miserable. Now, would you like to have an efficacious remedy for all your evils? Here it is: Whilst detesting the sins which are the source of them, love, or at least accept, the consequences of your sins; that is to say, the feelings of abjection and self-contempt they excite in you: yet without trouble, without bitterness, without disquiet or discouragement. Remember that God, without willing sin, nevertheless employs it as a very useful instrument for keeping us in abasement. It is this knowledge of their nothingness, growing always clearer, which made the saints so profoundly humble. But the humility that is according to God is perpetually joyous and peaceful. You have a lively sense of your faults and imperfections. This can only be in proportion as God draws near to us, in proportion as we live and walk in His light. For the divine light, as it increases in brilliancy, enables us to see better into our interior and to discover there an abyss of misery and corruption. Hence such self-knowledge is one of the surest signs that we are making progress in the way of God.” (Father Jean de Caussade, S.J., †1751)
This isn't "negative"; it's not, as they say, "stinkin' thinkin'." The reality is, we're sinners. Sin is ugly, damaging to us and offensive to God. Let's not pretend otherwise. Saints understood this and acted accordingly. And, as our celebration of All Saints' Day recently reminded us, we're all called to be saints. So let's act as they did.
As for the obsession with self-esteem and feeling good all the time, well, give it up. It's not real. And we Catholic men need to be, at the very least, real. If you're willing to face reality, just remember that you're going to be made humble. The good news from Father de Caussade: the humility that is according to God is perpetually joyous and peaceful.
Let this be our ultimate comfort.
Happy Sunday!
Of course, the world wants none of this. Rather than face our obligations, endure suffering, or even deal with mere difficulties, we're urged to seek pleasure, or maybe some form of chemical comfort. Got an ache, take an Advil. Feeling down, take an anti-depressant. Of course, sometimes we're faced with a serious injury or illness that might in fact require treatment, medicine, etc. But, really, every little dust up doesn't demand instant relief!
Ideally, I'll remember all this while I'm going through all that material for some hours today - time I might have spent enjoying the respite from daily toil that Sundays always promise. Sigh!
Even better, maybe I'll spend a few minutes meditating on these wise words of Father Jean de Caussade. Written in the 18th century, they're as true now as then. They're also a good tonic to all the "feel good" nonsense that inundates our culture.
“So long as we live here below we cannot but find ourselves very imperfect and miserable. Now, would you like to have an efficacious remedy for all your evils? Here it is: Whilst detesting the sins which are the source of them, love, or at least accept, the consequences of your sins; that is to say, the feelings of abjection and self-contempt they excite in you: yet without trouble, without bitterness, without disquiet or discouragement. Remember that God, without willing sin, nevertheless employs it as a very useful instrument for keeping us in abasement. It is this knowledge of their nothingness, growing always clearer, which made the saints so profoundly humble. But the humility that is according to God is perpetually joyous and peaceful. You have a lively sense of your faults and imperfections. This can only be in proportion as God draws near to us, in proportion as we live and walk in His light. For the divine light, as it increases in brilliancy, enables us to see better into our interior and to discover there an abyss of misery and corruption. Hence such self-knowledge is one of the surest signs that we are making progress in the way of God.” (Father Jean de Caussade, S.J., †1751)
This isn't "negative"; it's not, as they say, "stinkin' thinkin'." The reality is, we're sinners. Sin is ugly, damaging to us and offensive to God. Let's not pretend otherwise. Saints understood this and acted accordingly. And, as our celebration of All Saints' Day recently reminded us, we're all called to be saints. So let's act as they did.
As for the obsession with self-esteem and feeling good all the time, well, give it up. It's not real. And we Catholic men need to be, at the very least, real. If you're willing to face reality, just remember that you're going to be made humble. The good news from Father de Caussade: the humility that is according to God is perpetually joyous and peaceful.
Let this be our ultimate comfort.
Happy Sunday!
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