My God is my friend and I have nothing to fear…
I have been reflecting on the lives of the Saints.
You see, if you really consider the lives of the Saints you can be entirely overwhelmed and intimidated.
I mean some of those Saints suffered so terribly that it does not seem possible or likel;y that I could ever replicate their path to sanctity...
I mean, Saint Jacinta suffered a terrible abscess as a young child and offered many additional penances to Our Blessed Lord to atone for sins and to save souls from damnation – and she was just a little tiny girl. Saint Catherine of Sienna lived on the Blessed Eucharist and no other food for most pf her life, as she abstained from all pleasures to atone for sin out of love for Our Blessed Lord.
And then there are the great writers and thinkers of the Church… One has only to think of Saint Therese of Lisieux, who died of tuberculosis at the age of 24 years old, and who is recognised as a doctor of the Church. Or Saint Augustine of Hippo or Saint Teresa of Avila, whose teachings still inspire countless Catholics today…
And when I think of my own paltry little contribution when compared with theirs, I am almost overcome with the immensity of the task before me to achieve sanctification…
And yet, I seem to remember, that Saint Therese of Lisieux had a terrible temper as a child, and Saint Augustine was a notoriously lustful man for the thirty years prior to his conversion, and Saint Teresa of Avila spent the first twenty years of her vocation as a nun being distracted by earthly things.
And, when I think of that, I can remember the fundamental truth in all of this… I am not the one who will achieve sanctification. For of myself I am nothing. I have no power, no talents, no strength, no discipline and no courage – save what Our Lord has seem fit to bestow upon me – and this means that it is not my concern, or my worry to try to fathom the immensity of the task of salvation. My only job – my only need – is to give myself to God.
All I need do, is follow the example of the Blessed Virgin and I shall be saved. For the Blessed Virgin turned all things to God. She REFLECTED God in all His glory and all His goodness and she accepted ALL that He sent to her. And there is such peace in that. For she TRUSTED God as a child trusts her father.
And she prayed more perfectly than Saint Teresa of Avila learned to pray. For she knew that prayer was a “friendly conversation … (without) much thinking but (with) much loving, not many words but rather a relaxed conversation with moments of silence as there must be between friends.”
For my God is my friend and I have nothing to fear…
For with prayer, I stand on Holy Ground where everything is clear. Here. At the Foot of the Cross.
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