Holy Rule for January 26
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St. Mary's Monastery
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Br. Jerome Leo’s Daily Reflection on the Holy Rule
January 26, May 27, September 26
Chapter 7: On Humility (10-12)
The first degree of humility, then, is that a person keep the fear of God before his eyes and beware of ever forgetting it. Let him be ever mindful of all that God has commanded; let his thoughts constantly recur to the hell-fire which will burn for their sins those who despise God, and to the life everlasting which is prepared for those who fear Him. Let him keep himself at every moment from sins and vices, whether of the mind, the tongue, the hands, the feet, or the self-will, and check also the desires of the flesh.
REFLECTION
Wow! Fearing God and hell-fire! It's a safe bet that this chapter was not the darling of the 1970's and beyond! But, if we look at it properly, there's nothing to get upset about here.
God is perfect Unity, He is totally of a whole. He is all He is at once and utterly. Human beings, on the other hand, have minds that are finite and cannot wrap their intellects around such a perfectly holistic God without problems. One of those problems is what seem to us to be contradictions in God: His total, absolute Justice and His unfathomable, infinite Divine Mercy. Since we have a hard time figuring out both at once, we have a tendency to let one cancel out the other. God, to many, is either ALL hell-fire and dread or ALL pushover and cuddly. That is not the case!
Sorry, folks, but one mark of heresy is to take a real part of the truth and make it ALL of the truth, the only truth. Foul up the delicate balance here and you are in deep trouble. Face it, God's perfections don't seem to trouble Him any- perfection shouldn't, after all- so why should they get us hung up? Deep breath, lots of faith and let's go on...
God is all at once, God is perfect, God does not change. OK, fine. But we change, time in which we are immersed changes, has to change. It is the nature of things. Hence, our convergences with God occur at different times, points and conditions. The whole equation changes, not because God changes, but because we do and must. Stop and think, the encounter between God and one lost in sin is different from the same person encountering God after years of conversion. The encounter between a living soul and one after death is different, not because God is, but because we are.
We see different Persons of the Trinity predominant in different ages of salvation history. Might we not just as safely assume that different attributes of God predominate at different times in His dealings with us? Anyone who has lived any length of time at all with God can tell you that aridity and tenderness, loving kindness and seeming absence, joy and seriousness play off each other singly or in groups, like light dancing through the kaleidoscopes of our soul's broken glass and shattered gems. The pattern is always changing. All the elements are always there, but they are constantly regrouping, forming new and dare one say hardly boring designs!
So, always try to remember that WE are the kaleidoscopes and that the Light shining through them does not change, even though our scattered bits may reflect it differently, to ourselves and to others. Check out the revelations of St. Catherine of Genoa: the same Love that delights the soul is also the fire purifies it. She said that paradise had no gates: any who want may enter. Ah, but by choice, to enter there would be hell, indeed, for some. A priest once wrote that if the gates of hell were open, no one would leave. Same God, same Love, different us! His changeless Love would be hell for some, bliss for others. Choose bliss!!
The justice is always there, but so is the mercy. Jesus told St. Faustina that now, in this life, is the time for mercy, which will never, ever be denied a soul. Dump that chance in this life and justice will be what you deal with in the next.
It seems simplistically harsh, but it isn't. We are swimming, all but drowning in a sea of infinite mercy right now. When we leave that sea, we will wind up on the shore of justice, unless we have guaranteed that mercy is already ours by asking and trusting Him! Confession is a perfect way to ask for mercy.
God is not itching to nail us, eager to condemn. But we can tie His hands- we are the only creatures who can do so! We can insist on justice by rejecting His mercy. Not a smart move... His mercy and justice are part of a whole, they both perfectly reflect and employ His love. What changes is not God, but us. What changes is our willingness to accept or reject His overtures at any given moment.
So, yeah, God is watching us all the time. But also, yeah, God forgives us the second we turn to him in perfect contrition and trust in His mercy. God knows we aren't perfect, so He isn't surprised that we fall.
We, on the other hand, can be distressingly wrong about how perfect we are! Our falls shock us badly, because we have so little humility. Think there might be a connection there about God doing or using all things to further His will? Our very falls teach us humility that we sorely lack!
Br. Jerome Leo Hughes, OSB (RIP)
Br. Jerome Leo’s Daily Reflection on the Holy Rule
January 26, May 27, September 26
Chapter 7: On Humility (10-12)
The first degree of humility, then, is that a person keep the fear of God before his eyes and beware of ever forgetting it. Let him be ever mindful of all that God has commanded; let his thoughts constantly recur to the hell-fire which will burn for their sins those who despise God, and to the life everlasting which is prepared for those who fear Him. Let him keep himself at every moment from sins and vices, whether of the mind, the tongue, the hands, the feet, or the self-will, and check also the desires of the flesh.
REFLECTION
Wow! Fearing God and hell-fire! It's a safe bet that this chapter was not the darling of the 1970's and beyond! But, if we look at it properly, there's nothing to get upset about here.
God is perfect Unity, He is totally of a whole. He is all He is at once and utterly. Human beings, on the other hand, have minds that are finite and cannot wrap their intellects around such a perfectly holistic God without problems. One of those problems is what seem to us to be contradictions in God: His total, absolute Justice and His unfathomable, infinite Divine Mercy. Since we have a hard time figuring out both at once, we have a tendency to let one cancel out the other. God, to many, is either ALL hell-fire and dread or ALL pushover and cuddly. That is not the case!
Sorry, folks, but one mark of heresy is to take a real part of the truth and make it ALL of the truth, the only truth. Foul up the delicate balance here and you are in deep trouble. Face it, God's perfections don't seem to trouble Him any- perfection shouldn't, after all- so why should they get us hung up? Deep breath, lots of faith and let's go on...
God is all at once, God is perfect, God does not change. OK, fine. But we change, time in which we are immersed changes, has to change. It is the nature of things. Hence, our convergences with God occur at different times, points and conditions. The whole equation changes, not because God changes, but because we do and must. Stop and think, the encounter between God and one lost in sin is different from the same person encountering God after years of conversion. The encounter between a living soul and one after death is different, not because God is, but because we are.
We see different Persons of the Trinity predominant in different ages of salvation history. Might we not just as safely assume that different attributes of God predominate at different times in His dealings with us? Anyone who has lived any length of time at all with God can tell you that aridity and tenderness, loving kindness and seeming absence, joy and seriousness play off each other singly or in groups, like light dancing through the kaleidoscopes of our soul's broken glass and shattered gems. The pattern is always changing. All the elements are always there, but they are constantly regrouping, forming new and dare one say hardly boring designs!
So, always try to remember that WE are the kaleidoscopes and that the Light shining through them does not change, even though our scattered bits may reflect it differently, to ourselves and to others. Check out the revelations of St. Catherine of Genoa: the same Love that delights the soul is also the fire purifies it. She said that paradise had no gates: any who want may enter. Ah, but by choice, to enter there would be hell, indeed, for some. A priest once wrote that if the gates of hell were open, no one would leave. Same God, same Love, different us! His changeless Love would be hell for some, bliss for others. Choose bliss!!
The justice is always there, but so is the mercy. Jesus told St. Faustina that now, in this life, is the time for mercy, which will never, ever be denied a soul. Dump that chance in this life and justice will be what you deal with in the next.
It seems simplistically harsh, but it isn't. We are swimming, all but drowning in a sea of infinite mercy right now. When we leave that sea, we will wind up on the shore of justice, unless we have guaranteed that mercy is already ours by asking and trusting Him! Confession is a perfect way to ask for mercy.
God is not itching to nail us, eager to condemn. But we can tie His hands- we are the only creatures who can do so! We can insist on justice by rejecting His mercy. Not a smart move... His mercy and justice are part of a whole, they both perfectly reflect and employ His love. What changes is not God, but us. What changes is our willingness to accept or reject His overtures at any given moment.
So, yeah, God is watching us all the time. But also, yeah, God forgives us the second we turn to him in perfect contrition and trust in His mercy. God knows we aren't perfect, so He isn't surprised that we fall.
We, on the other hand, can be distressingly wrong about how perfect we are! Our falls shock us badly, because we have so little humility. Think there might be a connection there about God doing or using all things to further His will? Our very falls teach us humility that we sorely lack!
Br. Jerome Leo Hughes, OSB (RIP)
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