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Introduction |
The Refusal to Acknowledge
Wretchedness |
Scrutiny |
Wretched
{period} |
Bypassing
Denial |
Wretched
{gracefully}
In
his letter to the Romans, Saint Paul reminds the members of the Roman church
that they “have been freed from sin” (Romans
6:22). This statement, however, does not mean that Christians do not sin.
Even though many heretics and so-called mystics over
the years have tried to make the claim that they are “above sin,”
the fact is that all of us—Christian or not—commit sin.
Of course, when Christians live
out their love for Christ in a genuinely devout
and holy lifestyle they will be “freed from sin”—that is,
if they desire God above all things they will
be shielded from the desire to commit sin.
Nevertheless, no matter how ardent
our love for God, we all fall short in our attempts to live holy lifestyles.
No matter what we do, we leave something undone. All our actions are flawed
and imperfect.
In short, we are wretched
creatures.
The Refusal to
Acknowledge Wretchedness
Sadly, many so-called Christians
refuse to acknowledge their own wretchedness. They go to Mass, they practice
their devotions, and they say their favorite prayers. Their lives go smoothly,
and they give thanks to God for their blessings. They aren’t wretched,
they say; they are content and at peace. All is well—so they think.
They practice their faith intellectually, rather
than live it from the depths of their wretched hearts.
Why? Well, they refuse to acknowledge
their own wretchedness because they don’t understand the difference
between being wretched {period} and being wretched {gracefully}.
Scrutiny
The only way to understand this
difference between being wretched {period} and being wretched {gracefully}
is through deep and profound self-examination (or
scrutiny).
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It does not matter
how many virtues a man may have, even if they are beyond number and limit.
If he has turned from the path of self-scrutiny, he will never find peace.
He will always be troubled himself, or else he will be a source of trouble
for others, and all his labors will be wasted. |
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—from the teachings of Saint
Dorotheus, abbot,
Office of Readings, Monday,
Ninth Week in Ordinary Time |
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 Saint Ignatius of Loyola
called for deep self-examination in his Spiritual Exercises. Saint Louis
Marie de Montfort in his True Devotion to the Blessed Virgin called
for self-examination in the preparation for the Consecration to Jesus through
Mary.[1]
In fact, all the saints, in one way or another, have realized that a truly
devout life depends on self-knowledge, for as we look deeply into ourselves,
we cannot help but see our pitiful wretchedness.
Well, there you have it. That’s
wretched {period}.
Wretched
{period}
Most persons, however, turn in
disgust from those words of Saint Louis de Montfort. They want nothing to
do with this understanding because, ironically enough, they have had it pounded
into their heads since childhood. Sometimes the pounding was literal, in
physical abuse. Sometimes the pounding was emotional, as in sexual or emotional
abuse. Sometimes the pounding was the cumulative result of parental
threats and manipulations in botched attempts
at discipline. But, however the abuse occurs, multiple irrational humiliations
end up leading the child to one inevitable, unconscious conclusion: This
all happened to me because I must be a wretched person—a piece of
garbage—and I deserve nothing but
condemnation.
And then a profound psychological
twist happens. Feeling unconsciously wretched—hopelessly trapped with
no escape—we run and we hide. We do whatever
we can to push our wretched helplessness out of awareness. So we seek out
ways to make ourselves feel important and satisfied. We turn to
entertainment, sports,
sexual pleasure,
cigarettes,
overeating, alcohol,
drugs—and on and on down the barren road
on a quest to “feeling good” about ourselves.
Now, it sometimes happens that
some of us will open our eyes as if waking from a dream and, finding ourselves
in the middle of that barren nothingness of self-satisfaction, will turn
back to the Church. But, unless that conversion is accompanied by a profound
self-knowledge, we will continue to cling unconsciously to our being wretched
{period}, and we will remain attached to whatever the world can offer us
in our unconscious need for recognition. We will say, “Listen. I don’t
want to be a saint. I just don’t want to go to
hell.”
No one knows, of course, what
God in his mercy will do with any particular soul, yet anyone can see that
the mere desire to avoid hell is an act of selfishness, not love.
True love seeks greater and greater purification,
at any cost (see Matthew 13:44–46), but lukewarm complacency can easily
end up in the very hell it wants to avoid.
And so, even as we try to deny
it, we remain stuck in our wretchedness. Period.
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I know your works;
I know that you are neither cold nor hot. I wish you were either cold or
hot. So, because you are lukewarm, neither hot nor cold, I will spit you
out of My mouth. For you say, “I am rich and affluent and have no need
of anything,” and yet do not realize that you are wretched, pitiable,
poor, blind, and naked. I advise you to buy from Me gold refined by fire
so that you may be rich, and white garments to put on so that your shameful
nakedness may not be exposed, and buy ointment to smear on your eyes so that
you may see. Those whom I love, I reprove and chastise. Be earnest, therefore,
and repent. |
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—Revelation 3:15-19 |
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Bypassing
Denial
Only one solution, therefore,
can bypass psychological denial. We must die
to ourselves, as Christ told us, as Saint Paul admonished us, and as all
the Catholic mystics since then have reminded us.
 Notice that last phrase:
whose life is hidden with Jesus Christ in Him. To die to self is to
step outside our own wretched psychology and into the completely different
reality of divine mercy where Christ stands between
us and the condemnation that we so wretchedly deserve. Christ’s mercy
is a graceful reality—that is, it’s the reality of
love, offered through a grace we don’t deserve
but can attain if only we set aside our bitterness for being so
wretched.
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In the book of
Genesis we are told how both Cain and Abel made offerings to God, but that
God looked with favor only on Abel’s offering. Cain “greatly resented
this and was crestfallen” (Genesis 4:5). He felt wretched. But then
God, in His mercy, reassured him: “Why are you so resentful and crestfallen?
If you do well, you can hold up your head; but if not, sin is a demon lurking
at the door: his urge is toward you, yet you can be his master” (Genesis
4:6-7). Cain, though, did not heed this advice to master his wretchedness
and his anger. Instead, he killed Abel. |
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Therefore, if we, unlike Cain,
choose to understand God’s graceful mercy, we can then understand how
to be wretched {gracefully}.
Wretched
{gracefully}
We can understand that, in spite
of our inclinations to self-love and self-will, in spite of our knowing that
we can never do enough, in spite of all our
imperfections, in spite of all the wretchedness that separates us from God,
we still have one chain of hope.
We can
admit that apart from God we truly
are wretched {period}.
In admitting it, we can
face
it without hiding
it in the unconscious.
In facing it, we can
see that even if we avoid all
mortal sin we still sin constantly in
small ways.
And in seeing all those small
sins through the illumination of grace we will be
moved to love God more deeply and
to seek greater and greater purification from our wretchedness.
And here, at the end of the chain,
we find ourselves being wretched {gracefully} in God’s love. The more
we admit our wretchedness the more we gain access to divine
grace.
So ultimately we discover a great
irony. When we stop trying to use psychological
defenses to hide our being wretched {period},
and when we turn back to the Church in total
obedience, and when we die to ourselves by
detaching ourselves from the
world’s attachment to
sin, and when we give up trying to make ourselves
feel good, then—in our very own
self-examination—we find the opening to divine grace. We can then be
wretched {gracefully}, freed from that trap of hopelessness that is sealed
and locked, like the last sentence of a paragraph, with the wretched period
of sin.
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1. Complete instructions for the Consecration
to Jesus through Mary can be found in St. Louis Marie de Montfort’s
book, True Devotion to the Blessed
Virgin.
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By nature we are prouder
than peacocks, we cling to the earth more than toads, we are baser than goats,
more envious than serpents, greedier than pigs, fiercer than tigers, lazier
than tortoises, weaker than reeds, and more changeable than weather-cocks.
We have in us nothing but sin and deserve only the wrath of God and the eternity
of hell.
If we do not die to self
and if our holiest devotions do not lead us to this necessary and fruitful
death, we shall not bear fruit of any worth and our devotions will cease
to be profitable. All our good works will be tainted by self-love and self-will
so that our greatest sacrifices and our best actions will be unacceptable
to God. Consequently, when we come to die we will shall find ourselves devoid
of virtue and merit and discover that we do not possess even one spark of
that pure love which God shares with only those who have died to themselves
and whose life is hidden with Jesus Christ in Him.
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