If the Saints were able to overcome their own weakness, then it is quite possible for me to do the same.
God made humankind in His Image.
We hear it in the Bible…
“So God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them.” (Genesis 1:27).
This is a single sentence in the Bible and the Bible is comprised of thousands of sentences. And yet – even in that single sentence, we have a miracle of such proportions that the mind cannot even begin to fathom.
I have been thinking about just that sentence today. You see, God made me and he built HIMSELF – His Divinity into the creation of me. He built me – designing me out of nothing so that I would be in some way like Him because He is perfect and Divine.
And I have been thinking about what sort of a God would deign to do such a thing – to make His creature – a lowly creature like me, who is sinful and flawed and wrong and weak, just like Him in some ways. This is not to say that I – or any of us mere human souls – are Divine. This is rather to say that there is great power and great strength contained within my soul – because rGod Himself is contained in it.
And I have been reflecting on that today.
I have been reflecting on the Saints. They lived lives sanctified in the odour of holiness. They lived lives where they were able to make sacrifices and offer suffering in a heroic manner. They made use of their role as children of God, offering to God their entire lives by entrusting God with their lives. And this entrusting means that the Saints accept as GOOD everything that happened to them. If it was obviously good and easy, the Saints offered it to God. If it was difficult and challenging, the Saints also offered it to God. There was in fact, no time when the Saints did not make an offering of their time to God.
But it is not this more perfect reflection of the Divine in the Saints that I have been reflecting on today. Rather, I have been reflecting on the faults of the Saints – I have been considering the temper of Saint Damien of Molokai, or the preoccupation with sexual pleasure of Saint Augustine, or the emotional fragility and extreme sensitivity of Saint Therese of Lisieux. For each of these Saints overcame – through GRACE – the flaws in their nature. And today, I consider the Divine presence in their souls and the ways that He was able to help them to overcome their own weaknesses. For it seems to me today that if the Saints were able to overcome their own weakness, then it is quite possible for me to do the same – through Grace. And I have been reflecting on that today, as I have been thinking about the Saints – who were made in the Image of God, just as I am…
For with prayer, I stand on Holy Ground where everything is clear. Here. At the Foot of the Cross.
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