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Cosmos-Liturgy-Sex

February 1, 2008

Tolerance Among the Wretched

Filed under: Holiness, Spiritual Life — shelray @ 1:33 pm

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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. —Revelation 3:15-19

We go to Mass and know all of our favorite prayers and devotions by heart and give thanks and praise to God for our charmed lives and blessings. We understand grace, sin, humility and so on. So it is, we intellectually practice our faith. We understand that we are ourselves sinners and the importance of showing tolerance, charity, forgiveness, mercy, etc..unto others. - Easy enough to intellectually understand and appreciate, “except for the grace of God - there go I“, but why is it so difficult for some of us to fully accept and embrace, to the point we faithfully live it?

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. —Saint Louis Marie de Montfort, True Devotion to the Blessed Virgin, 79

In the fallen world which we live, there are those among us who develop a type of pathological, self-hating wretchedness and choose to intellectually run away from it’s associated pain by seeking out hedonistic means of “feeling good” while convincing ourselves that we were somehow superior to our enemies (which in itself can become an addictive behavior). Those of us who pick this particular path of self-destruction eventually become blind to one’s own wickedness, and many times project the evil from within onto any enemy of choice.

There are many among us who are in the process of healing from the sins of our past while desperately holding on to this deep seeded, dysfunctional coping mechanism, which ultimately makes for a self-discovery of one’s own wretched heart a slow and often painful process. Many will choose to never venture outside of their spiritual comfort zone and remain neither hot nor cold. Others will buy His gold refined by fire, and despite the struggles and many prideful falls along the way, one may hope to attain the prize of purifying clarity. For those who persevere through divine grace, will be the hope of loving God more deeply and seeking greater and greater purification from our wretchedness, which will ultimately make us free to love others as God loves us.

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2 Comments »

  1. Phew! That’s deep..even for me!

    Comment by mrs jackie parkes — February 2, 2008 @ 2:26 am

  2. I think this is why, in her wisdom, the Church moves us through cycles. Lent can never come soon enough for me.

    Comment by monica — February 2, 2008 @ 8:46 am

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