“Who except God can give you peace? Has the world ever been able to satisfy the heart?” (Saint Gerard).
I have been reflecting on peace and indignation.
Sometimes, I go through a patch where everything – literally everything – I do is wrong… When I try things one way, I offend one person. When I try things another way, I offend another person. Sometimes, this becomes so overwhelming to me, that I lose sight of my original intentions and start to wonder if I had in fact originally intended to upset people through my actions…
And when it gets to the point that my own self-knowledge and self-awareness is made weak and vulnerable by my own weakness and self-doubt, that is when I realise that I must indeed turn to God…
Saint Gerard said, “Who except God can give you peace? Has the world ever been able to satisfy the heart?”
And I have been reflecting on that today. You see, I have come to believe the words of Saint Padre Pio, who said, that if a person is distressed about their sin, then that distress does not come from God. Instead, such distress as that is a sign that it is the Evil One and not God at all who is tempting the soul to Pride. After all, if a soul accepts their own miserable weakness, then there is very little risk that we would expect to be capable of doing more than we are doing right now.
Saint Alphonsus De Liguori said the same thing as Saint Padre Pio – though born thousands of years earlier when he said… “God wishes us to be meek even toward ourselves. When a person commits a fault, God certainly wishes him to humble himself, to be sorry for his sin, and to purpose never to fall into it again; but He does not wish him to be indignant with himself, and give way to trouble and agitation of mind; for, while the soul is agitated, a man is incapable of doing good.” (“The Sermons of Saint Alphonsus De Liguori”, p.259).
And it is that indignation that stems from pride. And that is what I have been thinking about today. You see, pretty much every single time that I have failed at something, I have become indignant. Whether it is a big or small matter, my reaction tends to be the same. I become unsettled, negative and indignant or angry with myself for my failure. And after considering the words of these saints, I have come to see this as a terrible failing – a terrible pride – on my part.
You see, to become indignant at my failure, I must first EXPECT to succeed. In other words, first I expect – proudly – to do well based on my own power, and then (when that fails, because I am nothing without God), well then, that is when I become indignant. If instead, I trusted God to use me according to HIS Will – as the Blessed Virgin does – then there would be no room for indignation as there would be no PROUD expectation of success…
And I have been thinking about that today – with perhaps a little less indignation than usual – because I have come to realise that my soul really is nothing without my Lord and God… After all, “Who except God can give you peace?” (Saint Gerard).
For with prayer, I stand on Holy Ground where everything is clear. Here. At the Foot of the Cross.