Seeking After Gratitude

Now I crash again against the beachhead, a wave of compassion washing ashore. The dash to Mass was one that had me come up short so many days of the past weeks. I recall one day, especially, where I didn't hear the Gospel that day, but I did experience it. I grew bitter and uncharitable, all of it bitter fruit and without much mental or spiritual acuity. Again this happened today. The interesting truth about this?

God works with even that brokenness and lack of self worth and hardness of heart in the moment. He allows the hardness so that He can break our stony hearts and expand them for a greater capacity to love.

I knew once I came tumbling into the church one weekday evening, that, in spite of these setbacks of getting to Mass, I had made the right decision to press on. I recall those sonorous words of Fr. Trahan on 1 John 4:19. God does not love us for some sort of response. He loves us because we are lovable, and we should do the same.

I'm still working on this... but it makes each day worth living.

"The saints do not contemplate to know, but to love. They do not love for the sake of loving but for the love of Him whom they love. It is for the love of their first beloved, God, that they aspire to that very union with God that love demands whilst they love themselves only for Him. For them, the end of ends is not to bring exultation to their intellect and nature and thus stop at themselves. It is to do the will of Another, to contribute to the good of the Good. They do not seek their own soul. They lose it; they no longer possess it. If in entering into the mystery of Divine filiation and becoming something of God, they gain a transcendent personality, an independence and a liberty which nothing in the world approaches, it is by forgetting all else so that they do not live, but the Beloved lives in them."

— Jacques Maritain

The Question of Suffering & The Joy of Life

We ought to realize in the everyday the profound reality that we are faced with a choice of perspective and framing of mind: either God is keeping something from us, or else He is intending something else to transpire before the gift of the secondary comes. Both still must lead to Him in the telos of the endeavor, but we shouldn't discount the real possibility our desires do not have the fullness of His love in mind (thereby missing the mark) or lack the order found in Him who orders all things (timing).

We, especially in Western society, think of it as a zero-sum game. We either get what we desire or we don't. We lose sight of the value of prayer and of certitude with the end game. We try our damnedest to get what we want this moment, in a race of instant gratification, without realizing good things are good not because they are quick but, rather, because they are abiding. The good invariably comes in sequences. We can try to "game" the system, but virtue isn't a magical game. It requires hard work and dedication.

Dedication often takes doing things that aren't natural to our sensibilities or to our patience levels, but then how would virtue grow if not with a bit of resistance? Certainly the satisfaction of something doesn't come from its consumption, for it would mean we would wish to consume nothing more. No, satisfaction comes from the growth of spirit through the tedium and the lengthening of time between desire and its consummation. The larger fire isn't necessarily a flash explosion but a growing fire that burns but doesn't consume. Love, in its purest forms, does purify through this growing fire and not from the scorching explosion of a exploding blast, burning away the impurities but not pushing away the greatest richness found within. This nugget being refined within is the virtue and good works we seek and, in its deepest forms, the insatiable desire for love and to be in communion with the Other.

So it is, timing must come from the understanding that gratification and gift isn't predicated on our readiness of receipt but our willingness to give of ourselves in the service to the Good. Who is the greatest good but Him who made all things and did so in all knowledge of the good works He called us to labor in, under, and in response to His grace?

It is His grace that leads us on, whether it be in outward suffering or in joy contemplated. No matter, joy mustn't remain inward, self-effacing. Joy is always the outward expression of the inward ponderings of a God so great as to give us His Son for expiation of our sins... and for the fulfillment of our deepest longings for Him as One. It is the joy of being filled with His grace.

Ave Maria, gratia plena...

The Little Way: Joy as a State of Mind

Joy is most certainly a state of mind... It is not a feeling of happiness. If everything is gift and one is not happy because some pleasure or other gift is taken away for whatever reason, how are we to respond but to look to the Giver Himself? If we get locked in on His gifts and not Him, how would you respond if you gave and gave and gave without even the slightest response let alone sight of gratitude? It rains on both the good and the bad, and He gives to both. We should too, not simply the looks of frustration we are oft to give when "enduring" a taxing moment on our senses, but we should also give like the Father gives, sacrifice like the Son has shown us, and be present like the Holy Spirit is in our lives always.

Everything we have is pure gift; our free will is the exercise of that profound gift. We shouldn't feel surprised or discouraged when the Lord trusts us enough to ask for some of those gifts in a specific way that prompts us to say "yes" to Him and not simply His gifts. We shouldn't fear what we cannot change or those things great and small He calls us to be present to throughout our day, whether monumental or minor, because all of it matters. We get the blessed choice to live in the moment spent doing good and forgiving not only one another but ourselves in the little accidents of life that turn into labors of love for the Lord. Choose the joy He wants to give and ignore every temptation to despair that love He gives so freely. Life isn't perfect until we rest in Him.

Lord, forgive our unbelief!