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.