Archive for February 20th, 2022
The constant battle to stop our frustration
Some reflections on the readings at Mass on the Seventh Sunday in Ordinary Time (Year C), 1 Samuel 26:2, 7–9, 12–13, 22–23; Psalm 103:1–4, 8, 10, 12–13; 1 Corinthians 15:45–49; St Luke 6:27–38. Read them here.
Our in-built identity crisis
Each one of us has an in-built identity crisis. It is a constant thing. It’s impossible to get rid of it. And we will have it with us until the day we die. In today’s Epistle, St Paul explains what it is. In the first part of the First Epistle to the Corinthians, St Paul is writing about the resurrrection of the body, since some of the Christians in Corinth were saying that there was no such thing. St Paul says that we will be resurrected on the Last Day. The reason, he says, is because as Christians, we have received Christ’s own spirit into our souls.
At our baptism, God planted the seed of eternal life in the very depths of our souls. Ever since then, He has been nourishing it with His Grace. Through every reception of Holy Communion, every Confession, and through all the other Sacraments, as well as in many other ways, He has been feeding and encouraging the inside of our souls, this supernatural life. This supernatural life, the inner tendency to be more and more like Chirst, is transforming us from the inside out, like leaven does in a mass of dough.
The tendencies of our fallen nature are still at work in us, at the same time that God’s Grace is at work. The catechism calles these tendencies “concupiscence.” We still have the first Adam—our fallen nature—even though we have also received the second Adam—our Christian nature. We have the earthly tendencies of self-indulgence and self-centredness, but we also have heavenly tendencies of self-giving, self-sacrifice, and heroism. This is why we so oftewn want to do the right thing, but doing the wrong thing seems so much easier.
Our lives, therefore, are a constant battle, a struggle to resist the old, fallen-nature self and encourage the new, redeemed, Christian self.
St Maximilian Kolbe’s famous phrase
This is our permanent identity crisis. Waging this constant battle is the adventure of following Christ.
St Maximilian Kolbe had a clear understand of this battle. He was the Franciscan priest who was martyred in Auschwitz during World War II. One of the other prisoners had been condemned to execution, but St Maximilian offered to go in his place, since the condemned man had a wife and family.
Before the War, St Maximilian had founded a community of almost 700 religious brothers in Poland. They formed what was called the “Knights of the Immaculate.” They created a state-of-the-art media complex that included a printing press, radio station, college, and an airfield. Their most popular publication was a magazine that had more than a million subscribers worldwide.
St Maximilian suffered from chronic tuberculosis, which slowed him down but never stopped him. He used to tell the members of his community that when he died and went to heaven, he would be able to help them more than he was able to here on earth. Why? Because in heaven he would be able to use both hands to help them; here on earth, he could only use one hand. He had to use the other to keep himself from falling.
That’s what our lives are like. We are always beset with temptations, difficulties, and problems. We are always on the verge of betraying our Lord through selfish, evil thoughts, words, and deeds. Within us, we bear God’s Grace, but it is mixed together with our fallen nature: the old Adam and the new Adam are fighting it out within our hearts.
Defusing frustration
This truth can help us overcome one of the great enemies of happiness: frustration. A certain amount of stress and frustration in life is natural. It will always be there. But when it becomes the dominant tone of our lives, it actually interferes with God’s action in our soul.
Frustration is a function of expectations. It comes about when our expectations are out of sync with reality. When we expect to be able to do a thousand things in one day, but in reality we can only do a hundred, we become frustrated. When we expect other people to be perfectly capable of doing exactly what we want them to do, and then in reality they fall short, we get frustrated. When we take on one hundred commitments expecting to have enough time to fulfil them all, but in reality we only have time to fulfil fifty, we get stresed out.
Unless we remember that each one of us has a built-in identity crisis, that we are only on our way to perfection, but we are not there yet, our expectations will always be out of sync with reality.
If we do remember this lesson, if we remember that the seed of grace is growing inside this very imperfect garden of nature, we have a much better chance of keeping our expectations in proper perspective.
The Christian thing is to be idealisitic and realistic at the same time. This makes us wise, like the saints. It makes us energetic, but at peace.
Today, and throughout this week, let us thank Christ for teaching us this lesson. Let us ask him to help it to sink in. When we receive Him in Holy Communion, let us renew our confidence in Him, let us recommit to following Him energetically, but always with the interior peace He wants to give us.
