After the grieving

 

Luke 22

Then took they him, and led him, and brought him into the high priest's house. And Peter followed afar off.

55 And when they had kindled a fire in the midst of the hall, and were set down together, Peter sat down among them.

56 But a certain maid beheld him as he sat by the fire, and earnestly looked upon him, and said, This man was also with him.

57 And he denied him, saying, Woman, I know him not.

58 And after a little while another saw him, and said, Thou art also of them. And Peter said, Man, I am not.

59 And about the space of one hour after another confidently affirmed, saying, Of a truth this fellow also was with him: for he is a Galilaean.

60 And Peter said, Man, I know not what thou sayest. And immediately, while he yet spake, the cock crew.

61 And the Lord turned, and looked upon Peter. And Peter remembered the word of the Lord, how he had said unto him, Before the cock crow, thou shalt deny me thrice.

62 And Peter went out, and wept bitterly.

Peter remembered what the Lord had said to him. How crushed he must have felt, how low and unworthy and just terribly horrible. He might have been a place as dark as the place Judas found himself, faced with his own weakness and the shame, and all the while knowing that his Lord whom he truly did love was captured and suffering and who knew what was going to happen. Peter wept bitterly. Bitterly...  when he remembered what the Lord said to him.

But the time came, after the sharpest edge of bitterness left him, when he remembered again. And as his mind fumbled over that time when the Lord spoke those fateful words, it dawned on him that that isn’t all that the Lord had said. And he remembered...

“Simon, Simon, behold, Satan hath desired to have you, that he may sift you as wheat:

But I have prayed for thee, that thy faith fail not: and when thou art converted, strengthen thy brethren.”

Sometimes the pain and the shame block the remembrance of the promises the Lord has made to us. After the grieving, there is always hope.

Part of the Agony

Came across this old journal entry - thought I'd just go ahead and share it as is.

The sorrowful mysteries begin with the Agony in the Garden. He went a little ways and fell on his face. He fell on his face. I am imagining that peculiar collapse of the legs that occurs when we are completely emotionally overwhelmed, as though everything but our consciousness faints. I see that now, not earlier. (Sometimes I fear I will use up all the useful and beautiful thoughts of meditation way too soon, and have nothing further to (God forgive me, pique my interest)… Nothing further to ‘successfully’ meditate on. No doubt my mind is in need of mortification. How hollow and fearful that thought makes me feel. Abandoned, even.

But He fell on his face. There was grass and dirt and stones and sticks there, with smells and crunchings and grittiness. And perhaps he wished the earth would just there open up and let him hide, swallow him and preserve him from the terrible prayer he had to pray next, knowing, as he must have known, that there was no other way but the Cup. Tim Keller calls the cup the Cup of justice, reminding us that He took upon Himself the full, unmitigated weight of the punishment for the sins of the world. And perhaps He pressed his gentle face to the earth, allowing its solidness to bear the weight of his body, for just a few minutes, before He would stand and walk and carry himself all the way to Golgotha.

He fell on his face, and He prayed, “If possible, let this cup pass from me.” In our translations, the words, “Nevertheless, not my will but thine be done,” follow immediately. But who knows how long his own words rang in his ear, how long he strained to hear something from the Father that would give him hope that there WAS some other way, that there was a ram caught in the thicket nearby… but no, He was the ram. And so He suffered anew the crushing reality that it truly was the will of His beloved Father that he should experience the wrath of God, suffering in so many ways, and die a long, slow, painful death, completely exposed to the gaze of his enemies, abandoned in some terrible real way by His very own Father.

The second mystery, the Scourging.

At this point, I find myself filled with delight at my own writing. And it feels wrong. I want to show this to Don and hear his affirmation and praise. And that would be a cheap ending to what is not cheap. And yet I can’t imagine that I will be able to resist the temptation to show him. Isn’t that sad; God give me strength. I want my meditations to be pleasing to you; the meditations of my heart. I don’t know what to do with this, Lord, you must guide me.

What sorrow and pain must have engulfed his heart as he watched his loved ones choose Barabbas over himself.  He knew these people; many, many of their faces were not strange to him. He had memories of being with them, loving them, comforting them, teaching them. Healing them, forgiving them, enjoying them, feeding them. He had seen love on their faces, he had seen their desire for him to BE King. He had received promises of fidelity from some of them. All gone like the flower of the grass of the field. Was it even real? Did Jesus feel some sense of failure, then, as a man would in that situation? If there could have been a question in his mind about the Cup, then could there not also have been a question, however small, about the efficacy of his own public ministry? How many thoughts did he have to chase away, but not before he felt the sting of their barb?

They chose Barabbas, and he was scourged. Thirty-nine lashes, marring him beyond recognition, and yet only the beginning of his sufferings. And as each lash fell, and as his flesh was torn and flung about, was he thinking of his flesh being broken and given to his people? Did he find comfort in knowing that this was, indeed, what he had come for? He must have caught the gazes of some of the people who looked on, some in horror, some in amusement. Did the pain of the lashes take his mind off of the embarrassment that had to be part of this experience?

The carrying of the cross came next, an extension of the scourging in a way. The public humiliation, the gazes following him as he went, the face changing, a mosaic of sorrow, glee, pain, indifference, disappointment, terror, horror and despair. And every gaze exceedingly painful to him, feeling with his own pain, the pain of his loved ones who are sorrowing beyond sorrow, watching him suffer so. The gaze of the mockers, painful as well as he is reminded that some never will believe and come to know the truth. It seems that nowhere could his eyes rest and find any comfort or even momentary relief from the abyss of emotional and spiritual pain that He was destined to experience.

St. Veronica – what a blessed refreshment she is for those of us who must walk the long road with Him in the Rosary and elsewhere. How many of us hope that we, too, would be brave and in love enough to move toward him with the intense desire to do something, any small thing that might bring him comfort… what a pang of bittersweet joy must have pierced His breast upon her loving approach, what painful burst of love and intense desire to do something, anything, himself in order to shield and protect her, to reassure her, to wipe the tears from her face.

Surely this love must have given him a burst of courage, as well, a sweet and timely reminder of the purpose, the goal of his suffering. Perhaps he was transported in that moment, to the time when He knew He would be wiping HER face clean of the marks of sorrow and pain. Perhaps Veronica was sent from the Father for the express purpose of offering His Son a glimpse of the eternal comfort. Bless Veronica for her obedience, born of love and compassion.

Defeating Sin in Our Lives is a Process...

June 15, 20--    (Happy Birthday RGS! Think of you every year...)

Perhaps defeating the sin in our lives is like dealing with certain weeds in our gardens and yards. We have loads and loads of wild raspberries in our yard, complete with thorns. I have been pulling what could be pulled up by the roots (not many) and clipping at ground level what won’t pull, for years, now. They grow profusely among the other wild plants that I would like to keep for their beauty...

When I first began this endeavor, I often had to deal with a discouraging, even mocking, inner voice that kept telling me I was wasting my time, they would just grow back. But I enjoyed watching them be gone, even for a little while, so I continued. It was satisfying and therapeutic to see the area after I clipped, free of the offensive brambles.

As I continued doing this, I began to think about what was going on with the plants, and applying my limited knowledge of plant biology. I understood that plants get their energy from the sun, which they use to make sugar for themselves, and they store some of this sugar in their roots and branches to use for later. And I came to the conclusion that they can’t continue to grow back if I continue to clip them down when they pop up, because they are using their stored energy to try and grow again, and they only have so much stored energy. Eventually they won’t be able to ‘try again’. And apparently, I came to the right conclusion, because now, after four seasons, very few and tiny raspberry plants come up in the areas where I consistently clip.

So, how much of the energy of the sin that hinders us is stored in its roots?  Perhaps what seems like a hopeless task, defeating the sin in our lives, is actually just a matter of persistently cutting it off when it appears, over and over until it loses strength? And how much of the effective ‘cutting’ is in the form of the sacrament of reconciliation?

This year I began a campaign against another unwanted weed in my yard – bracken ferns. The send up very stiff, tall (up to 3 feet) ‘arms’ with little fists on the end that uncurl into very large leaves that shade everything beneath them. They are easy to clip, being tall and obvious, and I thought they would be piece of cake to get rid of. But within a few days of clipping every one of them in a certain area, twice as many would shoot up. Maybe more than twice as many, but I don’t want to exaggerate!

So I went at it again. I am expecting that more will pop up, but I know they are growing up from roots that only have so much stored energy in them, so I am expecting that they will pop up smaller and smaller until they can’t pop up any more. And that next year they will come back with less vigor, and the next even less, until they come back no more!

The biggest thing I came away with from this for my own spiritual life was that I need to be patient with myself, and as persistent as I can clipping off my own sinful attitudes and practices. It helps to recognize that the sin that keeps coming up is rooted in something, and that while the Lord has already weakened it for us (indeed, he has essentially killed it already), I needn’t be surprised that it keeps popping up, drawing on some energy source that will be exhausted at some point, if I am as consistent as I can be clipping away at it. But I can’t give up. Because if that sin is allowed to grow up long enough to start making its own food again, I am going to have to start at square one all over again. My current efforts are NOT wasted, no matter how many sprouts seem to pop up triumphantly waving in my face. I cut them off, and keep going, trusting in the Lord’s plan for my ultimate triumph.