I must share that I feel very heartened that ppl have asked me what happened to my Lenten resolution to share a little bit everyday. :P my apologies that I have buried myself in work n stuff n really haven't had much time left over to sit down and type this reflection.
And so, encouraged by some of you who have spoken to me, I decided not to give up so soon, and to try again to fulfil my (failed) resolution! :P
This goes out especially to Anthony, who is the main reason why I'm re-starting this. :)
***continuing from Thomas Merton's "No Man Is An Island":
The Christian must not only accept suffering: he must make it holy. Nothing so easily becomes unholy as suffering.-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Merely accepted, suffering does nothing for our souls except, perhaps, to harden them. Endurance alone is no consecration. True asceticism is not a mere cult of fortitude. We can deny ourselves rigorously for the wrong reason and end up pleasing ourselves mightily with our self-denial.
Suffering is consecrated to God by faith --not by faith in suffering, but by faith in God. To accept suffering stoically, to receive the burden of fatal, unavoidable, and incomprehensible neccessity and to bear it strongly, is no consecration.
Some men believe in in the power and the value of suffering. But their belief is an illusion. Suffering has no power and no value of its own.
It is valuable only as a test of faith. What if our faith fails in the test? Is it good to suffer, then? What if we enter into suffering with a strong faith in suffering, and then discover that suffering destroys us?
To believe in suffering is pride: but to suffer, believing in God, is humility. For pride may tell us that we are strong enough to suffer, that suffering is good for us because we are good. Humility tells us that suffering is an evil which we must always expect to find in our lives because of the evil that is in ourselves. But faith also knows that the mercy of God is given to those who seek Him in suffering, and that by His grace we can overcome evil with good. Suffering, then, becomes good by accident, by the good that it enables us to receive more abundantly from the mercy of God. It does not make us good by itself, but it enables us to make ourselves better than we are. Thus, what we consecrate to God in suffering is not our suffering, but our selves.
wow. if you've "suffered" through that long excerpt, congratulations! :P
i guess his point is that our self-denial / suffering, must be done for the 'right' intentions, and not merely to satisfy a 'rule' or to feel accomplished at the end of the day having given up drinking alcohol / coffee for Lent, as if God keeps score of the number of cups you have given up just for Lent.
We are not meant to suffer for the sake of suffering. Without faith in God's providence and mercy, suffering has no meaning. The point of self-denial / suffering during Lent, is not to prove to ourselves how strong our wills can be, but rather, it should lead us to lean on God more and more because we find that we are so terribly weak and helpless. Every time we're presented with a temptation, we submit that temptation to the Lord and implore Him to help our weak wills. It is not so much that God wants us to surrender the temptation, but that we surrender our wills. :)
With the recent earthquake, tsunami and radiation news, many ppl have been asking about suffering and God's will. I'm of the opinion that disasters are opportunities for us to grow in faith and to receive God's mercy. :) each disaster forces us to learn important lessons about the values we hold, and the transient nature of material goods and worldly pursuits. Literally unfolding before our eyes, as we watch the video clips on the news, is the parable of building our house on sand v.s. building on solid rock. We see houses being swept away, personal belongings ruined by the floods, luxury cars floating next to motorboats... everything that ever mattered to anyone, all swept away in a flash.
And if this does not trigger us to re-evaluate our priorities in our lives, and examine where or what we are investing time and money in, then I'd venture to say that no amount of self-imposed 'suffering' during Lent will ever effect a conversion of heart in us.
So what are you living / suffering for? What's the point? We'll have to search ourselves for those answers. :)
i guess his point is that our self-denial / suffering, must be done for the 'right' intentions, and not merely to satisfy a 'rule' or to feel accomplished at the end of the day having given up drinking alcohol / coffee for Lent, as if God keeps score of the number of cups you have given up just for Lent.
We are not meant to suffer for the sake of suffering. Without faith in God's providence and mercy, suffering has no meaning. The point of self-denial / suffering during Lent, is not to prove to ourselves how strong our wills can be, but rather, it should lead us to lean on God more and more because we find that we are so terribly weak and helpless. Every time we're presented with a temptation, we submit that temptation to the Lord and implore Him to help our weak wills. It is not so much that God wants us to surrender the temptation, but that we surrender our wills. :)
With the recent earthquake, tsunami and radiation news, many ppl have been asking about suffering and God's will. I'm of the opinion that disasters are opportunities for us to grow in faith and to receive God's mercy. :) each disaster forces us to learn important lessons about the values we hold, and the transient nature of material goods and worldly pursuits. Literally unfolding before our eyes, as we watch the video clips on the news, is the parable of building our house on sand v.s. building on solid rock. We see houses being swept away, personal belongings ruined by the floods, luxury cars floating next to motorboats... everything that ever mattered to anyone, all swept away in a flash.
And if this does not trigger us to re-evaluate our priorities in our lives, and examine where or what we are investing time and money in, then I'd venture to say that no amount of self-imposed 'suffering' during Lent will ever effect a conversion of heart in us.
So what are you living / suffering for? What's the point? We'll have to search ourselves for those answers. :)
No comments:
Post a Comment