From Super Flumina Babylonis
Life in community is hard. Whatever shape the community has—family, employment based or religious, it's a difficult task as we try to cooperate and live with others.
I have come to believe that the most stressful aspect of living with others is not so much the difficulties that they pose in their ordinary or extraordinary human failings, but rather in our own response to them. My reaction is oftentimes more offensive and unjust against myself than any injustice, perceived or real, perpetrated against me.
I have come to a greater awareness that I am the only individual responsible for my inability to grow in the spiritual life and it has been living with others that has put the problem of myself in stark relief.
I would say that I live in some rather difficult circumstances. They're not the worse but for my family the situation is very far from the ideal and it has taken a toll on us as a unit and as individuals. I am not perfect, I can be difficult to live with and am subject to the same failures borne of concupiscence as others. Recently I had what I feel was an unfounded and unjust accusation brought against me, from a source which I feel is acting hypocritically, operating along double standards. I was infuriated.
Why?
I was being wronged, I was being persecuted with injustice. I reacted, perhaps understandably, with anger. It was all about me and my response was designed to placate myself and my own sense of what I do or do not deserve.
But I can't find where it says in the Gospel that they are blessed who are persecuted or subject to injustice and react with anger or invective against their persecutor. Rather our Lord gives us a different method to follow: turn your cheek, pray for your enemies, bless those who persecute you and embrace the crosses the good God deigns to give you this day.
The injustice I bring on myself with my response in these situations is that I am selling myself short by trading in the currency of self-love rather than the love with which Jesus Christ has purchased me. And what have I gained in barter with my own currency? Sore heads, sore throats, sore hearts and sore relationships. I either lay the ground work for greater sin with a myriad of venial sins or worse—kill my neighbour in my heart and my own soul with them.
It is extremely frustrating to repeatedly find myself at the crossroad of choosing self or Christ and repeatedly and foolishly taking the wrong turn. On the left is the easier road: immediate gratification, wrongs set aright, the tables turned against the bully and the persecutor. Victory! or so it may appear. On the right road? There is a cross and a long, arduous climb up the mount, there are contradictions and calumnies, toil and suffering. But there is a reward beyond measure awaiting you at the end.
Yet nature recoils at the slightest sting!
I am left reeling after a few timid steps on the right road and find myself tumbling, almost by accident, down the left. This scenario, replayed multiple times a day, day after day, week after week, leaves me fatigued beyond words. I feel like a man camped on the border of sanctity who can't find his passport. Each time the choice arises, the choice of who will be king today, myself or Christ, I see clearly that I must set aside my own tin crown to gain the greater crown prepared for me by our Father in heaven. But this knowledge has not been sufficient. I am not sufficient.
And I don't have to be.
It will not be due to my own ability or merit that I am brought happily into the ways of sanctity and salvation. It will be God that accomplishes this work. As tired as I am right now, there is a quote given at the opening of Dom Marmion's Christ, the Life of the Soul, that gives me courage, hope and refreshment:
In Christ,
The injustice I bring on myself with my response in these situations is that I am selling myself short by trading in the currency of self-love rather than the love with which Jesus Christ has purchased me. And what have I gained in barter with my own currency? Sore heads, sore throats, sore hearts and sore relationships. I either lay the ground work for greater sin with a myriad of venial sins or worse—kill my neighbour in my heart and my own soul with them.
It is extremely frustrating to repeatedly find myself at the crossroad of choosing self or Christ and repeatedly and foolishly taking the wrong turn. On the left is the easier road: immediate gratification, wrongs set aright, the tables turned against the bully and the persecutor. Victory! or so it may appear. On the right road? There is a cross and a long, arduous climb up the mount, there are contradictions and calumnies, toil and suffering. But there is a reward beyond measure awaiting you at the end.
Yet nature recoils at the slightest sting!
I am left reeling after a few timid steps on the right road and find myself tumbling, almost by accident, down the left. This scenario, replayed multiple times a day, day after day, week after week, leaves me fatigued beyond words. I feel like a man camped on the border of sanctity who can't find his passport. Each time the choice arises, the choice of who will be king today, myself or Christ, I see clearly that I must set aside my own tin crown to gain the greater crown prepared for me by our Father in heaven. But this knowledge has not been sufficient. I am not sufficient.
And I don't have to be.
It will not be due to my own ability or merit that I am brought happily into the ways of sanctity and salvation. It will be God that accomplishes this work. As tired as I am right now, there is a quote given at the opening of Dom Marmion's Christ, the Life of the Soul, that gives me courage, hope and refreshment:
It is with Christ that we journey, and we walk with our steps in his footprints: he it is who is our guide and the burning flame which illumines our paths; pioneer of salvation, he it is who draws us towards heaven, towards the Father, and promises success to those who seek in faith. We shall one day be that which he is in glory, if by faithful imitation of his example, we become true Christians, other Christs.
(St. Cyprian, De idolorum vanitate, C. 15.)
In Christ,
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