Each time I fall to sin, I find it so hard to get back up. I pray and I feel no consolation, only my own unworthiness. I read Scripture and I feel no guidance, only the distance between myself and the saints about whom I'm reading. How can I hope to emulate Mary - that blessed Mother - on this the Feast of the Annunciation?
I must remember that this is how Satan wants me to feel. It's the devil that keeps us mired in our own guilt, squirming in our own filth.
Robert Morneau wrote:
Were others asked? A lassie from an isle in a distant sea?
A maiden in North Africa or a slave girl from the Congo?
How many times were angels sent and returned, unheard, unheeded?
Was Mary tenth on salvation's list, or the hundredth?
And you, my soul,
was "fiat" spoken
when the angel came?
How strange to think that perhaps it was Mary's act that made her people's history the history of God's people. How strange to think that it was Mary's choice that confirmed and ratified the choices of the men and women who came before her - Abraham and Sarah, Issac and Jacob, Joseph, Moses, Esther, David, Solomon. How strange to think that God was nurturing His people, the Jews, for millennia, so that they would produce one like Mary, who would say yes to Him.
How is our Church nurturing people who will know how to say yes to God?
Sometimes I feel as though there are parts of my own soul, my own history, that I want to ignore. I refuse to face up to certain parts of myself because there is too much pain. Or perhaps I don't want to face up to those parts because I'm afraid there are things I will have to apologize for. But as long as I keep averting my gaze from those difficult things, I will never be able to give my full fiat to God.
Denise Levertov, in "Zeroing In," writes:
"When I set forth
to walk in myself, as it might be
on a fine afternoon, forgetting,
sooner or later I come to where sedge
and clumps of white flowers, rue perhaps,
mark the bogland, and I know
there are quagmires there that can pull you
down, and sink you in bubbling mud."
"We had an old dog," he told her, "when I was a boy,
a good dog, friendly. But there was an injured spot
on his head, if you happened
just to touch it he'd jump up yelping
and bite you. He bit a young child,
they had to take him down to the vet's and destroy him."
"No one knows where it is," she said,
"and even by accident no one touches it.
It's inside my landscape, and only I, making my way
preoccupied through my life, crossing my hills,
sleeping on green moss of my own woods,
I myself without warning touch it,
and leap up at myself -"
"- or flinch back
just in time."
How aptly does that capture what I'm talking about. Wander a little bit in my thoughts, and I find myself wandering into dangerous territory, where some memory unbidden will suck me into a sinkhole. And I too am like that good and friendly dog, pleasant enough mostly, but if someone manages to touch that hidden spot - a spot that even I don't recognize, that even I can't locate - I flare into a rage, hurting the people I love.
I remember once my mother said something hurtful to me, criticizing some work I was doing for her. Afterwards I was trying to help my son with his math homework, and I said something hurtful to him, criticizing his work. I lashed out at him in my anger at my mother, and I didn't mean to do it.
I feel like I am in the tomb, pushing and shoving at the stone. But only Christ can move it away. Can I let Him?
Can I remember that, as in the story of Namaan the leper, salvation comes in unexpected ways? Usually small ways. Nothing extraordinary or grand is expected. The holding of my tongue in an argument. Saying something kind when I wish to say something cruel. No heroic acts of martyrdom necessary. But also no mere waving of a magic wand.
Let me try to remember that no one becomes a saint alone. Namaan couldn't simply pray and be cured; he had to go to Elisha, and he had to hear about Elisha through his servant. God works through the people around us. May I be attentive to those around me, what they are here to teach me or show me. Grant me the humility to learn from others, to take others' advice. Let me not be afraid to ask for help, forgiveness, prayers. Only in that way can I be pulled out of the sinkhole of my own sinfulness.
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