From the song ‘Shepherd me, O God’… ‘You have set me a banquet of love in the face of hatred, crowning me with love beyond my power to hold.’
I love this song. This is my favorite line but I could never relate to it for I’ve never been surrounded by hatred or been put in the middle of it. Not until this morning did I realize where the hatred was coming from.
I was driving to church this morning actually saying in my mind and heart ‘I hate you God!’. People have said God can take your anger and I felt so free opening up to Him. One of those honest moments with Him. “I HATE YOU!!!”
And then for responsorial psalm at Mass today, this is what they sung.
So it is in the face of hatred within my heart that You STILL set a banquet of love. I don’t understand.
Whoever runs across this post may find me really weird or a loony but it will help me to write it down, so here goes…
Have you ever seen the movie ‘Sybil’? I saw the one with Sally Field. I think most of us have different personalities that arise depending on the people we are with and the environment we are in. Not all may be as extreme as others. I’m a borderline. I split into three different ones and I’ve actually named them.
Meet Charlie – she’s childlike and maybe childish at times. She loves to have fun and finds joy in very simple, ordinary things. She has no fears, no worries, no doubts. She loves God… as a true friend and older brother. She’s not afraid to try new things and loves the outdoors and hanging out with friends. She comes out most when she’s with her nephews and nieces and when she’s at work. She would even go bungee jumping if asked.
Meet Christine – she is more conservative, timid, really shy. She is afraid to fail and therefore sometimes even afraid to try new things. She is worried about what other people think of her and she’s always trying to please everyone. She doesn’t think what she wants matter. She believes it to be being selfish to go after or to even do what makes her happy, even if it is something good for her. She is super, SUPER sensitive. She cries a lot and is always sorry for when she makes mistakes. She fears God in a sense that she is even afraid to be close to Him… afraid that He would reject her, or that He has already rejected her because of her imperfections.
Meet Celine – She is the angry one. She has fears too but she fights it with hate and self-destruction. She is envious when others succeed and jealous when other people become close. She is manipulative, proud, and a loner. She has a difficult time enjoying family and friends, being grateful for all God has blessed her, growing up.
I am torn between all these three. Christine is the dominant one. I’ve somehow lost Charlie. Celine creeps in constantly and has actually been the influence in me for a long time now, and that is not at all pleasant. I’m working on getting Charlie back and have her bring out the joy and child in me again.
What is it about priests that make me think highly of them? It’s their commitment to living for God and preaching about God. And to surrender with such depth means they BELIEVE in God.
I STRUGGLE to believe in God. It doesn’t come naturally. And I force myself to believe because nothing else would have meaning. Not even my life.
I go through these rituals of prayers, going to Mass and to confession, and so forth. A very small part of me moves me to do them. But I question and I doubt. I doubt even the existence of God. He is One I hold on to for guidance, comfort, and healing, yet I cannot be 100% truthful when say I believe He is real.
I was watching Disney’s ‘Meet the Robinson’s’ and one of the characters was giving an advice to someone who made a mistake and as a consequence was treated badly and even beaten by others. I pictured this character as the devil, gently whispering in our moment of weakness from pain and hurt, these words on how to deal with past mistakes and hurts we may have caused and others may have caused us.
Everyone will tell you to let it go and move on, but DON’T.
Instead, let it fester and boil inside of you.
Take these feelings and lock them away. Let them fuel your actions.
Let hate be your ally and you will be capable of wonderfully horrid things.
Heed my words. DON’T LET GO!!!
Those are very powerful words, especially when you hear them at your lowest point, when all seems to be going wrong and you don’t have any ounce of strength to move forward. But remember that those words are from the evil one. It speaks neither of peace nor forgiveness, and definitely not of love.
God on the other hand teaches, commands! us to forgive others, even ourselves… and to love.
“Teacher, which commandment in the law is the greatest?”
He said to him, “You shall love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the greatest and the first commandment.
The second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself.
I volunteer at my parish a whole lot of time. For what reason varies immensely. Here’s a few I’ll mention… I want to serve God… it gives me an excuse to not be home… it gives me something to do… I get to spend some time with people I enjoy hanging out with… and here’s the best one of all… I feel some worth when I volunteer.
I’ve mentioned this to a few people, that I see my worth to be proportional to the time I spend at church. Nothing more, nothing less. Even if it takes me away from my family and from taking care of myself, I still choose to stubbornly spend a lot of time in church, serving. Funny thing is I don’t even get paid doing what I do. It’s volunteer work. So what do I get out of it? Once in a while I do experience peace and even God’s presence as I work around the altar, or behind the altar. THAT is priceless. But what am I really after? There must be a catch somewhere.
People have told me how I’m earning some points in heaven for what I do. I don’t even care about that. I’m trying to earn points to have friends. If I make myself always available, people will like me more. If I am at their beck and call, they’ll love me a little, or even more. I then must be worth something if people like me. The more time I serve, the more points I earn… points to how much I am worth. I am even afraid to accept help because that will lessen my time at church, therefore lessening my worth.
It’s actually come to a point now where I sometimes even hate (maybe hate is too strong of a word), or do not enjoy, time serving. It’s work, not for money, but for attention and friendship. How awful this distorted truth is. That I crave for being accepted and wanted and loved, and believing, deep inside, that I need to earn this.
I subscribe to ‘The Twelve Step Review’, a publication of the Western Dominican Province. In the upcoming issues, they will look into the Seven Deadly Sins. (Now where did I see that before? God has a good sense of humor.) They begin with Pride. I will quote from the paper text that speak loudest to me.
Bishop Sheen once remarked:‘God does not love us because we are lovely or lovable. His love exists not on account of our character, but on account of His. Our highest experience is responsive, not initiative. And it is only because we are loved by Him, that we are lovable.‘
On PRIDE:
If a person has never experienced God’s free gift of His love, then a person is subject to the forces of that original wound in which we were conceived. He then seeks to be the source of his own excellence, which is pride. To desire to be the source of one’s own excellence was the sin of Lucifer. It is something that belongs only to God.
The devil has great power over us because of that cold pride that demands that love must be merited. We are afraid of being unlovable and we are afraid of dying. This fear can be provoked in us by the devil.
Christ offers us the path of freedom, which is expressly manifest in the Easter mystery which we celebrate each time we attend Holy Mass; the mystery of Christ’s passion, death and resurrection which sets us free from the power of sin and death.
On HUMILITY:
Humility is simply the growing awareness that “of myself I am nothing; Jesus does the work.”
Real humility comes when we stop comparing ourselves to others and accept ourselves as we are. It is an honest assessment of oneself, no better, no worse than you really are.
When we let go of the need to compare ourselves to others, we let go of a great deal of anxiety. When we let go of the need to be critical of others, we let go of the fear of being diminished by others and their successes. Humility isn’t thinking less of oneself, it is thinking of oneself less.
from The Twelve Step Review, Spring 2009, Fr. Emmerich Vogt, O.P. www.12-step-review.org
The fruits of the Spirit are love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control.
This was taken from the preaching at my church last weekend, Pentecost Sunday.
If we practice generosity by giving so much that we neglect our own family and responsibilities, we are generous to a fault, we are not truly in the Spirit. If we love another in a distorted way that feeds our own selfish desires, this is not in the Spirit. If we practice self-control in a non-balanced way we can even fall into pride. These fruits of the Spirit when rightly enjoyed are indications that we are living in the Spirit and truth of God.
The conclusion of this year’s Easter Season is the beginning of a new opportunity to live in the Spirit and enjoy the fruit. But, we must set our worldly ways aside and be renewed in the power of the Spirit and know that God does have a plan for us. God cares about us enough that we are continually given the Spirit in our sacramental lives, in our relationships rooted in God, and in a special way for each of us. All things are possible in God.
Love is patient, love is kind. It is not jealous, (love) is not pompous, it is not inflated, it is not rude, it does not seek its own interests, it is not quick-tempered, it does not brood over injury, it does not rejoice over wrongdoing but rejoices with the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never fails (1 Corinthians 13:4-7).
Oh Lord Jesus, only through You can I learn about love that is true and pure. I ask that You grant me the grace to grow in Your love as You will, that I may in turn, in union with You, love others and myself.
“Ask and you shall receive… Seek and you shall find… Knock and it shall be opened unto you.” God did not waste any time coming to my aid (see my post ‘Help’).
Fear is the path to the dark side.
Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering.
* I can’t remember where I got this quote from.
Fear is of the evil one.
Whoever acknowledges that Jesus is the Son of God, God remains in him and he in God.
We have come to know and to believe in the love God has for us. God is love, and whoever remains in love remains in God and God in him.
In this is love brought to perfection among us, that we have confidence on the day of judgment because as he is, so are we in this world.
There is no fear in love, but perfect love drives out fear because fear has to do with punishment, and so one who fears is not yet perfect in love.
We love because he first loved us. If anyone says, “I love God,” but hates his brother, he is a liar; for whoever does not love a brother whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen.
This is the commandment we have from him: whoever loves God must also love his brother.
*1 John 4: 15-21
Fear vs. Love. Which do I choose? It is either one or the other. It cannot be both. And I cannot keep moving back and forth from one to the other. I need to make that choice, NOW, and live by it, whether it be fear or love.
Oh my God, if You can hear me, I need help. Please show me the way. Speak to my heart. I need Your direction and guidance. I need You to hold my hand and walk with me… leading me to Your path. I cannot find my way in Your Truth. Even when I prayed that You whisper to me in my dreams, when my mind is quiet and not restless, what it is You want me to do, I wake up feeling more lost and confused. I cannot see beyond this darkness, but You do give me glimpses of the Light when my spirit will be truly free and alive. For that, I thank you Jesus. It’s the only hope I can grasp as I travel to the depths of my infirmities.
