O Lord, thou hast
deceived me, and I was deceived; thou art stronger than I, and thou hast
prevailed.
[1]
Look at a crucifix. What do you see? What we actually see is a man executed upon a
cross; however, I think Christians will remark that they see Jesus, the Son of
God, our Lord and Savior. They
acknowledge the words of St. Peter and our Lord’s response: “You are the Messiah,
the Son of the living God,” and Jesus’ reply, “Blessed are you … for flesh and
blood has not revealed this to you, but my heavenly Father.”[2] It is for this reason that we run to him, in
order that he will save us from our sins.
For many of us, this entailed a gladness, a joy. God had shown us where salvation lies. It was like waving a string in front of a
cat, and we jumped. Shortly thereafter,
the enthusiasm goes away. Many people
even stop going to church, falling away.
They might feel as though they have been duped. They did not read the “rest of the story.”
In the case of Jeremiah, he says
that God has deceived him. “The meaning
of the prophet is not to charge God with any untruth; but what he calls deceiving was only the concealing from
him, when he accepted of the prophetical commission, [of] the greatness of the
evils which the execution of that commission was to bring upon him. [In the words of Cholloner, from the Hebrew],
‘Thou hast enticed me’ when I declined the office. [Tirinus reminds us], God never promised that
he should suffer no persecution.”[3] This, we also see transpires upon St. Peter’s
confession. As soon as Peter made his
confession and our Lord responded by giving him the keys to the kingdom, the
Church, from that time on, Jesus began to
show his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and suffer greatly.[4] And then our Lord commands us, “Whoever wishes to come after me must deny
himself, take up his cross, and follow me.”[5] It is not that we have been duped; it is that
we ignore the “rest of the story” because we do not like suffering. Yes, God desires to save us; however, that “saving”
entails both forgiveness and transformation.
God does not save us in our
sins; he saves us from our sins. And that requires suffering.
St. Paul, after teaching the
Christians located in Rome, then commands them to put into practice what he was
taught: “I urge you therefore, brothers,
by the mercies of God, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and
pleasing to God, your spiritual worship. Do not conform yourselves to this age
but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that you may discern what is
the will of God, what is good and pleasing and perfect.”[6] He tells them to renew their minds,
disregarding the things they believed prior which were contrary to his
teachings and believe what he had taught them.
By doing this, and by adhering to what he taught, they would be
transformed.
This is difficult. It could be that it is inherent in us to
think that what we believe is truth, or it could be that the devil is deceiving
us. Nevertheless, we find it difficult
to dismiss beliefs that appear rational to us.
We are easily deceived; nevertheless, we sometimes have difficulty
believing the Church, of which the Head is Jesus Christ himself. We especially find it difficult if it comes
from another Catholic. Instead of
researching what the individual has said to determine whether it is true or
false, we dismiss it because it does not conform to what we want to believe. We see this illustrated in the demise of King
Josiah.
After
Josiah had done all this to restore the temple, Neco, king of Egypt, came up to
fight at Carchemish on the Euphrates, and Josiah went out to meet him. Neco
sent messengers to him, saying: “What quarrel is between us, king of Judah? I
have not come against you this day, for my war is with another kingdom, and God
has told me to hasten. Do not interfere with God who is with me; let him not
destroy you.” But Josiah would not withdraw from him, for he was seeking a
pretext to fight with him. Therefore, he would not listen to the words of Neco
that came from the mouth of God, but went out to fight in the plain of Megiddo.
Then the archers shot King Josiah, who said to his servants, “Take me away, I
am seriously wounded.”[7]
It is necessary that we should
suffer after coming into salvation. God
needs to transform us, purify us. He
must “wean” us taking comfort in temporal things, from finding pleasure in
them. He must make ways to change our
trust, comfort, and pleasure from created things to him. An example of this was when he took my father
and my best friend. I did not realize
how much comfort I derived from them until he took them away. We see this also occurring in the psalmist’s
life. God took away his happiness in
order that he would realize that only in God was there true happiness. O God,
you are my God—it is you I seek! For you
my body yearns; for you my soul thirsts, in a land parched, lifeless, and without
water. I look to you in the sanctuary to
see your power and glory. For your love
is better than life; my lips shall ever praise you![8] You indeed are my savior, and
in the shadow of your wings I shout for joy. My soul clings fast to you; your right hand
upholds me.[9]
St. Alphonsus de Ligouri teaches
us: “The soul then, in the commencement of her conversion to God, tastes the sweetness
of those sensible consolations with which God seeks to allure her and, by them,
to wean her from earthly pleasures. She
breaks off her attachment to creatures and becomes attached to God. Still, her attachment is imperfect, inasmuch
as it is fostered more by that sensibility of spiritual consolations than by
the real wish to do what is pleasing to God; and she deceives herself by
believing that the greater the pleasure she feels in her devotions, the more
she loves Almighty God. The consequence
of this is that, if this food of spiritual consolations is stopped by her being
taken from her ordinary exercises of devotion and employed in other works of
obedience, charity, or duties of her state, she is disturbed and takes it
greatly to heart--and this is a universal defect in our miserable human nature:
to seek our own satisfaction in all that we do. Or, again, when she no longer finds this sweet
relish of devotion in her exercises, she either forsakes them or lessens them;
and, continuing to lessen them from day to day, she at length omits them
entirely. And this misfortune befalls
many souls who--when called by Almighty God to love Him--enter upon the way of
perfection and, as long as spiritual sweetness lasts, make a certain progress;
but alas! when this is no longer tasted, they leave off all and resume their
former ways. But it is of the highest
importance to be fully persuaded that the love of God and perfection do not
consist in feelings of tenderness and consolation, but in overcoming self-love
and in following the Divine will.”[10] This is one of the major crosses we must
learn to bear. We do not pick up the
cross for comfort and pleasure. We pick
up the cross because we are going to die, especially to those things that are
not pleasure to our Savior.
In the Taiwanese show we are
watching, a mother injured herself in saving her daughter from being
injured. It caused repentance in the
daughter and increased the love she had for her mother because her mother had
forewarned her and she disobeyed. Jesus
truly “injured” himself in saving us.
Does it cause the same response in us?
We are not being duped; we are being saved, transformed into the image
of our Savior, being caused to persevere.
[1]
Catholic Biblical Association (Great Britain), The Holy Bible:
Revised Standard Version, Catholic Edition, (New York: National
Council of Churches of Christ in the USA, 1994), Je 20:7.
[2] New American Bible,
Revised Edition., (Washington, DC: The United States Conference of Catholic
Bishops, 2011), Mt 16:16–17.
[3]
George Leo Haydock, Haydock’s Catholic
Bible Commentary, (New York: Edward Dunigan and Brother, 1859),
Je 20:7.
[4] New American Bible,
Revised Edition., (Washington, DC: The United States Conference of Catholic
Bishops, 2011), Mt 16:21.
[5] Ibid.,
Mt 16:24.
[6] Ibid.,
Ro 12:1–2.
[7] Ibid.,
2 Ch 35:20–23.
[8] Ibid.,
Ps 63:2–4.
[9] Ibid.,
Ps 63:8–9.
[10] Liguori,
St Alphonsus. Uniformity with God's Will & The Practice of the Love of
Jesus Christ (pp. 249-250). Veritatis Splendor Publications. Kindle Edition.
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