“In spite of your passions, you have a responsibility for the Christian life of your neighbour, for the spiritual effectiveness of everyone, indeed for their very sanctity.” (Saint Josemaria, “The Forge” at 955).
I have been thinking about all the things with which I fill my days and nights.
There are so many stages of a day in my routines of my life. I am an extremely routine person. I always have been. And that means that I spend a great deal of time working out how to fit in one thing or another and feeling as though everything that I squish into my routines at one end will fall out at the other end…
And I have been thinking about that today… You see, the only thing with which my life should be filled is charity. My neglect of others – or of my own behaviour and actions – will result in the spiritual safety and effectiveness of others. Saint Josemaria wrote in “The Forge” at 955, “In spite of your passions, you have a responsibility for the Christian life of your neighbour, for the spiritual effectiveness of everyone, indeed for their very sanctity.”
And prayer is the one sure way to make sure that I can maintain the charity that God has made me to live. And the world is supposed to be a Holy place. The Garden of Eden was a Holy Place. And it was perfect in its holiness. And there was a big fat sin at the centre of everything bad about that place and there – right there in the middle of that sin – everything went wrong. The perfect and holy world turned to mush…
When I imagine the Garden of Eden, I always imagine lions and tigers and bears. And I imagine them walking around peacefully among Adam and Eve and leaving them alone. Not harming them or threatening them or being in any way a problem for the humans there. Because in that Holy place there was nothing to fear.
And when I think about that I am struck by how full of holiness that place was – this Earth on which we stand. It was so full of holiness that there was no room for a lack of charity… There was only a little chink – in the serpent that was allowed to enter and to tempt. And out of that little chink in an otherwise full world, the evil spawned.
And I have been thinking about that too today, because it seems to me that I should be spending my every waking moment filling my life with holiness until there is not even a little tiny chink left. Because all the trouble in this whole world started with a chink in the garden, just wide enough for a serpent to sneak in. And upon reflection, I hang my head in shame. Because I have not left a little chink in my world for evil to creep in, I have filled my life with routines that open whole chasms to unholiness.
And today, I pray for the Grace to close those gaps…
For with prayer, I stand on Holy Ground where everything is clear. Here. At the Foot of the Cross.