Thousand

“I am a Catholic and wholeheartedly do accept death for God. Had I a thousand lives, all these to Him, shall I offer.” (Saint Lawrence Ruiz).

Assumption of Mary (Santa Maria Immacolata a via Veneto, Rome)

I have been thinking about my chances.  I have been thinking about what it is like to try to do something and then try to do something differently.  After all, how many times would I think to myself, things could be different if only this happened or that happened?  How many times do I blame my own failings on the fact that someone else did something to upset me?  How many times do I think to myself, it is too hard or I am too busy or that was too distracting?

And I have been reflecting on all the ways that I make excuses in my life.  In fact, in every single occasion of sin, I have a valid excuse or reason.  I was tired, I was hungry, I was angry, I was lazy…  The list goes on.  And when I think of those excuses, it occurs to me that I am simply setting myself up for a situation where I am able to try to argue my way out of things… 

But then I think of eternity.  On the day that I die – in that final moment in the instant when the last breath leaves my body – I shall be judged by my Creator.  God will judge my soul and I will be in Heaven, Purgatory (or God-forbid) Hell.  And while my family are praying prayers for me and organising my funeral, I shall be in my eternal state.  And in that judgement, there is no lawyer to argue their way out of things.  All my big words and clever phrase will be meaningless to me there.  Instead, I will be there – sitting right there – being judged by my God on the depths of my soul…

And it occurs to me that I must offer myself to God.  “I am a Catholic and wholeheartedly do accept death for God. Had I a thousand lives, all these to Him, shall I offer.” (Saint Lawrence Ruiz).

Saint Therese of Lisieux wrote in “Story of a Soul” at page 117, “One day I complained of being more tired than the other Sisters, because in addition to a Community duty I had done some work of which no one knew. The Servant of God replied: ‘I would like to see you a brave soldier who never speaks of his own troubles, who considers the wounds of his comrades serious, but his own mere scratches. Why are you feeling your fatigue so much? Is it because no one knows of it.’”

And I have been thinking about that today.  For it seems that I spend so much of my life trying to make excuses about why I cannot do what God has created me for and why I can sin that I have wasted thousands of opportunities for sanctification.  And that seems a terrible waste to me today.  A terrible terrible waste…

For with prayer, I stand on Holy Ground where everything is clear. Here. At the Foot of the Cross.