Meditation of the Day

Admit it.

Aren’t you annoyed sometimes, when reading the lives of the saints, to find
them deeply grieved over sins or weaknesses that appear incredibly minor?
Teresa of Ávila begged God’s forgiveness for having been fond of parties and
pretty dresses when she was young. Francis of Assisi repented publicly for
having eaten chicken when he was sick. He had one of his followers tie a
rope around his neck and lead him through the villages crying out: “Here is
the great glutton who ate chicken in secret!” And then there is Augustine,
who lamented a “deed of darkness”—stealing pears with some friends when he
was sixteen.

If we could just dismiss such saints as obsessive, it might let us off the
hook—but no such luck. These men and women were moved to repentance because
they were able to recognize outwardly minor failings as shoots from deeply
buried roots of serious issues like vanity and pride. In Augustine’s case,
willful rebellion against God was behind that youthful theft: “The pleasure
I got was not from the pears—it was in the crime itself.” And furthermore,
he explained, it was only by the grace of God, “who illumines my heart and
searches out its dark corners,” that he came to see his sin for what it
really was.

The same is true for us. How easy it is to delude ourselves that it’s other
people who commit the big sins and that we ourselves are pretty good
followers of Jesus. Oh sure, I stumble every now and then—but nobody’s
perfect. Or if we do happen to sin more grievously, how easy to justify
ourselves or to consider the sin a “one off”—something not typical of our
basically holy selves. As today’s two readings point out, this blindness to
our own failings comes accompanied by an exquisite sensitivity to other
people’s!

There is only one remedy for this tendency to misjudge our neighbors and
ourselves. It requires bringing every thought and action to God, asking him
for help to get on course and stay there. Challenging? Yes. But consider
this: Your judge is also your healer, who wants you to know “his priceless
kindness, forbearance, and patience” (Romans 2:4). How will you respond to
his invitation today?

“Probe me, God, and know my heart. Correct whatever is broken and crooked,
so that I can walk in freedom and become the person you created me to be.”

Psalm 62:2-3,6-7,9; Luke 11:42-46