There Is Hope For Me

In the world, you will have trouble, but take courage

I have overcome the world.  – John 16:33

The struggles with sin and temptation are a reality for me.  The past few days have been a whirlwind of grace and mercy from God, foremost, and from my friends.  In revealing my past sins to my friends did not create a divide or a division, but rather reconciliation and an outpouring of love. 

I must also include a supplement to an earlier post.  I titled the post “Porn Ruined My Vocation.”  Sin does separate me from God.  However, sin cannot ruin my vocation.  God’s love and mercy is a gift.  St Paul tells me that where sin runs deep, God’s grace is more.  And with the example of the Saints (particularly Augustine who famously wrote “God grant me chastity, but not yet”), I believe that I can overcome sin and temptation.  I take solace in the scriptures selected today and affirm that God’s call for me is for me only requires my acquiescence to his love and mercy.

The scriptures tell us that the wage of sin is death.  And for the sins we have committed, our earthly bodies will pass from this world and enter the judgment of God.  We entrust those who have passed to God’s mercy because the scriptures also tell us those who hope in God “[make themselves] pure, as he is pure” (1 John 3:3). 

But for me personally, I struggle to reveal the darkness of my sins because of shame.  Shameful behavior causes me to hide because I do not want to appear as a failure.  But how do I embrace the mercy of God, and the mercy of my friends, if I cannot allow myself to be reconciled through confession?  I bring another confession to light. 

A grave sin of mine is pride.  Pride is a sin that also reveals itself in my shame.  One of the causes of this pride is vanity.  I have often spoken of my own intellectual vanity.  I have a deep desire to not just always be right but to also appear to be more intelligent than those around me.  This sin impacts me and my community.

The first impact of this sin in my own life is that it deprives me of being like Jesus.  Jesus came, lived, and died with perfect humility.  Pride and vanity are the opposites of this virtue.  These sins place me above all other things.  By degrading the people near to me, whether they are aware of it or not, is itself an act of attempted murder of their being.  God create each person good and with a dignity which commands respect.  My own sinfulness deprives them of the respect due to their own personal dignity. 

This past Sunday, I had the privilege to escort an extraordinary Catholic woman to Mass, lunch, and holy hour with the Blessed Sacrament.  The beauty of this encounter is that I could only engage this person with humility.  The ability to pray with another person is a gift from God.  Her gift to me was a religious experience that I would otherwise not have sought out.  Mass in another parish is an opportunity to worship with the greater community of faith.  Lunch was a continuation of this because we shared a pleasant conversation, much of which I have already lost to my own limited memory.  The Holy Hour was an additional grace that my own spiritual laziness would not have otherwise undertaken. 

But what I do recall is that as I dropped her off at the airport, she challenged me to more holy hours.  I am a difficult person and didn’t want to set myself up for failure, but she pressed on.  “God is beckoning you.”  Her words remain with me still.  “Beckoning me for what?”  Was my only response.  “You will see.” 

“See what love the Father has bestowed upon us that we may be called the children of God” (1 John 3:1).  I pray for strength and courage as I battle these temptations in my life with Jesus as my hope.  May I trust and hope in the words of Jesus:  In the world you will have trouble, but take courage, I have overcome the world.

Confession: Turn Around

Amen, amen, I say to you, you will weep and mourn,

While the world rejoices; you will grieve,

But your grief will become joy. – John 16:20

Sadness and grief find their way into my life regularly.  I find sadness when I think about the family that has passed away.  I hope they are in heaven in restful joy.  This hope gives me joy.  So, in a personal way, I feel as though Jesus is talking directly to me in the scriptures just as he is talking to the disciples.  And the Church teaches that Jesus is talking to me. 

Faith is a desire of mine but faith is a gift from God.  I believe in God, in Jesus, in the Holy Spirit.  And within this belief comes the invitation from God to embrace faith and renounce sin.  I have asked to enter spiritual formation and direction.  My hope for this is to recreate in my heart a welcoming place for Jesus.  I want to be filled with the Holy Spirit so that I might be able to live virtuously. 

Where I am spiritually and emotionally is in a place where I am letting go of secrets.  A prior post I made a candid confession about some of my failings.  Today, I reveal my love of money.  When I was young, my family united to make it work out.  We had enough but not much of excess.  I was a fairly spoiled as a child which means that my sisters suffered for my selfishness and greed.  My younger sister required extra attention because she was nearly killed at 6 years old.  And, yet, I persisted in my greed and selfishness.  I ultimately would leave my mother for my father’s mother because I perceived a better opportunity for wealth. 

My internal conversion requires confession.  Eventually, as I continue to reveal more to the world, I will submit to a General Confession.  This General Confession will ask to me to confess all of sins.  But I desire holiness.  I desire to live such a life that will grant peace to my soul and eventually give me a peaceful death where I eventually hear “well done, good and faithful servant.” 

Confession is painful.  I have often commented how waiting for Confession can make me angry.  Why are these people taking so long?  Why is the line long?  And then, I remember that I am judging sinners who are seeking forgiveness.  My selfishness strikes again.  But confession is painful.  But as it is a sacrament, it is an encounter with Jesus. 

An encounter with Jesus doesn’t require anything but a willing spirit.  In my heart, I usually go to Confession knowing that I will encounter Jesus, and so I will enter this encounter reverently.  And so, I question how have I come to a place of desolation?  I vainly think that I am intelligent and in some respects, God has gifted me with a great ability to make connections fast.  Some have commented that this is itself is intelligence.  So, I reflect on this today:  How am I in desolation? 

Desolation is described by St Ignatius of Loyola in the Fourth Rule of his Spiritual Exercises as containing characteristics “such as darkness of soul, disturbance in it, movement to low and earthly things, disquiet from various agitations and temptations, moving to lack of confidence, without hope, without love, finding oneself totally slothful, tepid, sad, and, as if separated from one’s Creator and Lord.”  Within this definition, it is possible that I have spent the clear majority of my life in desolation.  I think that because I have spent most my life in selfishness, lustfulness, in lies, essentially in sin, that I may have chosen to live in desolation. 

Conversion is a metanoia.  Metanoia comes from a Greek word that literally means “to turn around.”  I am turning towards God.  I am afraid of what he says when I finally can hear his voice.  But Jesus says to me, “you will weep and mourn, while the world rejoices; you will grieve, but your grief will turn to joy.”

Porn Ruined My Vocation

“…beneath my arrogance there lies much self-doubt,

Just as there is a great amount of pride hidden in my self-rejection.”

                                    -Henri J.M. Nouwen, Life of the Beloved

 

A few months ago, I found myself in the confessional which is generally a regular occurrence for me.  In there, Father Dan, our parochial vicar, tells “You are a holy man.  I’m serious.  You are a holy man…”  I sat there and did not believe him.  I know my heart and I know me.  I may not see what he saw but I could not accept his words.

 

Fast forward to today.  I was back in confession.  Not with Father Dan, but with another priest I asked to be my spiritual director.  I was not hidden by a screen.  I had to let him see me.  I had not received the Eucharist since Easter.  It has been three and half weeks.  It feels twice as long.  I listed off my sins.  Violations against chastity, immorality, anger, laziness.  A new item came out.  A truth that had been buried deep. 

 

I am not formed in the faith and my hidden, interior life that is shrouded by lies that I tell anyone that gets too close.  I am tired of lies and I ache for truth.  I hinted to a friend the depth of these struggles.  I said I should write a book and call it, “Porn ruined my vocation.”  Yes, pornography.  Images burned deeply into my mind that have compromised my ability to dig deeper into relationships.  A sin that has led me to lie about every aspect of my faith life. 

 

I struggle with porn.  The sin is out there now.  I have written it.  I have confessed it countless times.  This pernicious thorn which has been with me for the last 25 years and possibly longer has undermined a faithful and virtuous life I could have led.  I told Father that I lack virtue.  I hypocritically valued integrity and respect above all else but could not trust deeply enough these things to my closest friends. 

 

Today, I realize that I cannot be joyful without renouncing these sins.  I realize that I cannot embody the Catholic virtue and still live behind lies.  I lied for so many years.  I introduced myself to Father and we talked after a very long confession about me.  I told him that I would struggle with spiritual direction because I am lazy and unformed.  I told him that I will probably lie to him at some point because I am a liar.  I cannot imagine a vocation because I lack the virtue.  I lack a prayer life which means I cannot hear God’s voice because my own pride is too loud. 

 

I had coffee with a good friend.  I scripted my conversation in my head and practiced the statements.  I was going to ask, “do you feel that I am fit for ministry?”  I expected a yes.  And then I was going to enumerate all of the sins and lies that would clearly disqualify me.  As I spoke, I desired to move past the jealousies that I had harbored and the self-rejection that I nurtured to strengthen my ability to lie.  I put much of this out there.  His response was “this is the breakthrough I was waiting for.”

 

I am on a journey.  I want to begin to be formed.  I want to know that my laziness and self-rejection can be overcome with great love.  So today, I cleaned my room.  I cleaned my body.  Most importantly, I cleaned my soul.  After it all, I hungered for truth.  I hunger for the Lord.  During my conversations, I recounted my inability to deny the existence of God and accept that I fail to live an internal conversion which should demonstrate that I am Catholic.  Instead, I made a new confession and a humble prayer to live a way that says I am a Christian.  My heart lacks the formation to own this faith but after confessing this, the stony part may be softening.  With the grace of God, I may actually believe that I am “a holy man.”