A TRUST
BETRAYED
“Cum haec dixisset Iesus,
turbatus est
spiritu et protestatus est et dixit:
‘Amen, amen
dico vobis:
unus ex vobis
tradit me.’ （「你們中有一個要出賣我。」）”
“When Jesus had thus spoken,
he was troubled in spirit, and testified,
‘Truly, truly I say to you,
one of you will betray me.’” (Jn 13:21)
“If my enemy had reviled me, I would
verily have borne with it.
And if he that
hated me had spoken great things against me,
I would
perhaps have hidden myself from him.
But thou, a
man of one mind, my guide, and my familiar,
who didst take sweet meats together with
me;
in the house of God we walked with
consent.” (Ps 54:13-16)
TWO KINDS OF
LOVE
“Two different
kinds of love have given origin to two cities,
a heavenly city and an earthly one.
Self love,
even unto contempt of God,
gave origin to the
earthly one;
love of God, even unto contempt of self,
gave origin to the heavenly one.” (St
Augustine, De Civitate Dei, 14,28)
INORDINATE
SELF-LOVE AND GOD’S CURE
“We must love
ourselves: our very nature demands that we do so;
the desire for happiness is innate in us.
…
Yes, this
rightly ordered love of ourselves
is the natural
prerequisite and foundation for our love of God.
We might quite
lawfully desire natural gifts for ourselves:
talents, knowledge,
strength of character, a resolute will,
all noble human
qualities.
We may also
lawfully love our body
and be solicitous
for it,
always however
preserving a right order.
Our self-love
is perfectly ordered
if we love
ourselves for God’s sake
[in the way God
loves us, and in the way God loves us to be!],
that is if we love
ourselves as creatures,
as children of
God, as the instruments of his glory,
called to serve him,
to work for him, to suffer for him,
to receive and
use his gifts and graces,
to do his
adorable will in all things.
[his wonderful
will, his awesome plans…]
Inordinate
self-love, …
also called
selfishness or self-seeking …
is the deepest and
the ultimate root of all the sins and faults in our lives.
Already in the
Garden of Eden self-seeking caused sin.
And the whole
catalogue of men’s crimes,
of their wars and
dissensions and hatreds,
from the beginning
right up to the present day,
is really nothing
else but the continual manifestation
of the
self-seeking and self-love
that is so
deeply seated in the human heart.
Self-love is
the root of all evil passions;
it causes great
suffering to mankind:
in the community,
the family, in the hearts of individuals.
The world, the
flesh and the devil can harm us
only when they find
within us an enemy
with whom they
can form an alliance.
Self-love is
the enemy of God.
Indeed, for
that matter, self-love is the enemy of all noble human qualities
and of all genuine
affection.
It makes us
insincere, unprincipled, two-faced, moody, dissembling, mean;
and it is often the source from which
hysterical behavior originates.
‘Genuine
fraternal charity lives with a thousand souls;
self-love lives
with only one soul
and that is narrow,
small and wretched,’ says a recent writer.
Most of the
work in the campaign against self-love, let us
remember,
must be done by God
himself.
He takes us
into his own loving care
and trains us in
his own school,
the school of
suffering and humiliation:
of exterior
sufferings, difficulties, failures, disappointments, illness;
of interior
sufferings and trials, aridity, temptations of every kind.
In this way he
gives us a deep, salutary, experimental knowledge
of our own
nothingness and sinfulness and instability
and he frees us
gradually
of
self-admiration, of inordinate self-confidence,
of conceit and
secret pride.
It is a
painful process,
but it is necessary
if we are to be formed
into true and
perfect men and wholehearted Christians.”
(B Baur, Frequent Confession)
PRIDE DETECTOR
“It is so easy to detect the lack of humility in other people—
and so
damnably hard to recognize the same defect in ourselves. …
We do want to be humble, and we do try to be.
But the vice of pride, humility’s lack,
is
such an insidious enemy,
and
can creep into our lives like the parasites
from
which many tropical peoples suffer;
parasites
which sap their energy,
without
any localized pain to tell of the evil’s presence.
So too pride can penetrate to our own spiritual vitals,
providing
its own anesthetic as it enters.
One sure sign of a lack of humility
is an
unwillingness to give honest praise
where
praise is deserved.” (Trese, A
Man Approved, 92-95)
AN ACT OF CONTRITION
“Have mercy upon me, O God,
according
to thy great mercy.
And according to the multitude of thy tender mercies,
blot
out my iniquity.
Wash me yet more from my iniquity,
and
cleanse me from my sin.
For I know my iniquity,
and my
sin is always before me.
To thee only have I sinned, and have done evil before thee.
Thou shalt sprinkle me with hyssop,
and I
shall be cleansed;
thou shalt wash me
and I
shall be made whiter than snow.
Turn away thy face from my sins
and
blot out all my iniquities.
Create a clean heart in me, O God,
and
renew a right spirit within my bowels.
Cast me not away from thy face,
and
take not thy Holy Spirit from me.
Restore unto me the joy of thy salvation,
and
strengthen me with a perfect spirit.”
(Ps 51)
CALLING ALL SINNERS!
[Our Lord in Matthew’s house]
“I came not to call the righteous [nice people]
but
sinners [nasty].” (Mt 9:13)
“Et cum amicitiam tuam, non oboediens, amisísset,
non eum dereliquisti in mortis imperio.” (Eucharistic Prayer IV)
GOD’S FATHERLY GOODNESS AND MERCY IN CONTRAST
“Passio
Domini nostri Iesu Christi,
intercessio Beatae Mariae
Virginis et omnium sanctorum,
quidquid boni féceris et mali
sustinúeris,
sint tibi in remedium peccatorum,
augmentum gratiae,
et praemium vitae aeternae.”
“May the Passion of our Lord Jesus Christ,
the
intercession of the Most Blessed Virgin and of all the saints,
whatever
good you do and suffering you endure
heal your sins,
help
you grow in holiness,
and
reward you with eternal life.”
(Dismissal of penitent in the Formula for Absolution)
C:\Documents and Settings\user\My Documents\jmom RETREAT\crt_04Sin.rtf
Revised 25 March 2005