The blow fell suddenly.
I was within a few weeks of entering the novitiate. Already I was
receiving those last minute letters from the novice-master, with the printed
lists of things I was expected to bring with me to the monastery. They were
few enough. The only perplexing item on the list was “one umbrella.”
The list made me happy. I read it over and over. I began to feel the same
pleased excitement that used to glow in the pit of my stomach when I was
about to start out for camp in the summer, or to go to a new school....
Then God asked me a question. He asked me a question about my
vocation.
Rather, God did not have to ask me any questions. He knew all that He
needed to know about my vocation. He allowed the devil, as I think, to ask
me some questions, not in order that the devil should get any information,
but in order that I might learn a thing or two.
There is a certain kind of humility in hell which is one of the worst things
in hell, and which is infinitely far from the humility of the saints, which is
peace. The false humility of hell is an unending, burning shame at the
inescapable stigma of our sins. The sins of the damned are felt by them as
vesture of intolerable insults from which they cannot escape, Nessus shirts
that burn them up for ever and which they can never throw off.
The anguish of this self-knowledge is inescapable even on earth, as long
as there is any self-love left in us: because it is pride that feels the burning of that shame. Only when all pride, all self-love has been consumed in our
souls by the love of God, are we delivered from the thing which is the
subject of those torments. It is only when we have lost all love of our selves
for our own sakes that our past sins cease to give us any cause for suffering
or for the anguish of shame.
For the saints, when they remember their sins, do not remember the sins
but the mercy of God, and therefore even past evil is turned by them into a
present cause of joy and serves to glorify God.
It is the proud that have to be burned and devoured by the horrible
humility of hell.... But as long as we are in this life, even that burning
anguish can be turned into a grace, and should be a cause of joy.
Anguish that is transformed into a grace. A cause of joy. That's a very Flannery O'Connoresque statement. It's sort of like the Misfit shooting the grandmother in the head at the end of "A Good Man is Hard to Find" and then saying, "She would have been a good woman . . . if it had been someone there to shoot her every minute of her life."
Basically, what Merton (and O'Connor) are saying is that most of us go through life pretty self-deluded. Our primary motivation is not the betterment of our neighbor or neighborhood or city or state or country or planet or universe. Nope. Most of us don't want to be bothered with true selflessness. That would involve sacrifice. Handing the reins over to something bigger than ourselves. That's a pretty terrifying notion.
Think about it. How much of what anyone does in a day could be categorized as selfless? Yes, there are some vocations that lean in that direction. Teaching. Nursing. Doctoring. Ministering. Pastoring. But my therapist recently pointed something out. We were talking about a particular life situation that causes me a great deal of heartache, and she said to me, "What do you get out of it?"
"What do you mean?" I said, a little indignant but sensing where the conversation was headed.
"There has to be a reason why you keep doing what you're doing," she replied, "otherwise, you wouldn't continue to do it. There has to be some kind of payoff."
There it is. The primary motivation for most people: reward. Money. Prestige. Power. Fame. Self image. Benefits. Vacation time. I've worked jobs I've hated for the paycheck. I've stayed in positions for the medical insurance. And I've remained in painful relationships because, somehow, they reinforced certain roles in which I cast myself--victim, supportive friend and partner, selfless caregiver.
What Merton says in the passage above is that, until "all self love has been consumed in our souls by the love of God, are we delivered from the thing which is the subject of those torments." When does a person become a saint? When the love of God and nothing else becomes that person's primary motivation. That's a pretty tall order. And very few people reach that point in their lives.
Most of us are in the process of becoming something better. I would say that describes 99.9999% of the inhabitants of this little blue marble we live on. You can be a vegan animal rights activist and still struggle with drug addiction. Think River Phoenix. A devoted disciple and friend and still deny God not once, not twice, but three times. Think Saint Peter. A brilliant comedian and actor and still give into despair. Think Robin Williams. A nun who devotes her life to ministering to the poor and still not sense the presence of God. Think Mother Teresa.
I could go on, but you get the idea. The human condition is a mysterious thing. Full of contradiction and impossibility. One person born into poverty will end up in prison. Another person born into poverty will become a saint. And still another person born into poverty will end up in prison and then become a saint.
Tonight, Saint Marty embraces the mystery of being human.
And a poem about mystery . . .
by: Martin Achatz
Do I believe in Bigfoot?
That’s not easy to answer.
It’s like trying to figure out
love after 25 years of marriage.
Does my wife still love me?
Do I still love her?
Will she meet someone
in the dairy section at Walmart
as they both reach for the same
half gallon of 1% milk and,
in that instant, lose that ineffable
thing that has held us together
this last quarter century? What’s
bound us to each other
like a filament from a spider’s
spinneret? What sets love
in motion then lights it on fire
until it burns down the way
a fuse on a bottle rocket does?
I guess what I’m talking about
here is mystery. I want to
believe in Bigfoot, that love
won’t fuse out, shoot into
heaven, be gone faster
than a startled rabbit. Because
really, what’s life without
mysteries? Just a half gallon
of 1% milk, curdled in the back
of the fridge, three months old.
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