Saint Josemaría said that we should not “flutter about like a hen, when they can soar to the heights of an eagle.”
Some time ago we kept chickens – hens – in our backyard.
Those hens were a welcome distraction in our lives. The children played with them, carried them, cared for them and collected their eggs. They needed food and water each day and they needed cleaning and attention at least once a week.
And then – after much deliberation – it was decided that our beautiful little hens would have to go to a farm to live because they were bringing pests into our backyard because they are a messy sort of animal.
And I have been thinking about those hens these days because they sort of remind me about sinners…
You see, a hen is a bird that does not fly. It has the wings and bone structure for flight, but apart for a bit of flapping and a few high jumps, a hen is actually unable to fly.
This is like a sinner. You see, our weak human souls were actually made for sanctification. Gos created us so that we could know Him and love Him on earth and be with Him forever in Eternity in Heaven. And yet, just like the hen that cannot fly, my weak human soul sins and this destroys my chance of ever being able to achieve heaven.
It would be much like a person finding the egg of an eagle and placing it into the chicken coop to hatch. When the eagle hatched, it would follow the other chicks around the farmyard and eat like them and walk like them and hop like them, but ti would never actually realise its ability to fly.
And that eagle would grow up not even realising who it was or what it could do. And it is much the same with my sinful human soul. I do not realise – having though myself a hen all my life – that I was made for greater thing, that I was made for sanctity. And so, I look at the Saints as the eagle chick looks at the Eagles in the sky, and think to myself, how wonderful they are.
For “Jesus then said to the Jews who had believed in Him, ‘If you continue in my word, you are truly My disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free.’ They answered Him, ‘We are descendants of Abraham, and have never been in bondage to anyone. How is it that you say, ‘You will be made free’?’ Jesus answered them, ‘Truly, truly, I say to you, every one who commits sin is a slave to sin.’” (John 8:31-42).
And today I remember the words of Saint Josemaría, who said that we should not “flutter about like a hen, when they can soar to the heights of an eagle.”
For with prayer, I stand on Holy Ground where everything is clear. Here. At the Foot of the Cross.