“God is the supreme Truth and humility is the truth.” (Saint Teresa of Avila).
It seems that a life in service of God – the supreme being and Creator of all the world – should be a glamourous life.
After all, if I were to compare this sort of life with the life of a servant of a King or Queen, I would imagine preparing for parties and functions and dignitaries and events. I would imagine matters of state being discussed in the rooms around me and I would imagine a feeling of solemnity in everything that I approached as part of that task and part of that role.
And yet, the work that I can called to do by my Beloved is work that has no glamour at all. It is hard and thankless work. I am called to the work of my family. I clean the home and argue with my children (and husband) and arrange the meals and work in my work and try to contribute to the world in a meaningful way through my family and my contribution to them.
And yet, there is a certainly no glamour in what I do.
After all, washing a set of dirty undies, or scrubbing the kitchen floor, or reprimanding children is hardly glamourous. And yet, there is such a work for the Master in those chores.
You see, my Beloved is supremely humble. And that humility is reflected in His calling to me in my life – in His desire to allow me to live a life of holiness…
Saint Teresa od Avila wrote in the “Interior Castle: at pages 175-176, “Once, while I was wondering why Our Lord so dearly loves the virtue of humility, the thought suddenly struck me, without previous reflection, that it is because God is the supreme Truth and humility is the truth, for it is the most true that we have nothing good of ourselves but only misery and nothingness: whoever ignores this, lives a life of falsehood. They that realize this fact most deeply are the most pleasing to God, the supreme Truth, for they walk in the truth.”
And I have been reflecting on that today as I have been reflecting on the life of Saint Juliana of Mont Cornillon, who was also known as Juliana of Liege, who lived in the thirteenth century and was called – through visions of Our Lord – to work for the institution of a Feast Day to celebrate the Blessed Eucharist. She was TWICE exiled from her convent for her work in this regard and died alone and in seclusion, seemingly having failed in her mission. And yet, six years after her death, Pope Urban IV (who also commissioned Saint Thomas Aquinas to prepare his texts on this subject-matter) instituted the Feast of Corpus Christi.
And when I think of this experience of this Saint, it occurs to me that a life in servitude of God is anything but glamourous. It is a life filled with suffering and sacrifice and supposed dead ends. And still the Saints – you and I too, who are called to be Saints – are called to persevere. For their work does not end with their deaths – and just as with Saint Juliana of Mont Cornillon, it might only just really begin at that point.
For with prayer, I stand on Holy Ground where everything is clear. Here. At the Foot of the Cross.