Shocked into seeing

thought-for-sundayFrom the desk of Fr. Ignatius Waters, cp

Sunday, 18th February 2018

  

 

Lent caught me by surprise! I think it always does but this year it seemed sooner than ever. I should be glad, since Lent means spring and lengthening of days! And I would be if it felt a bit more like spring. The evenings are definitely getting brighter, but it’s been so bitterly cold and dreary. Memories of Lent are dreary too! But how about seeing Lent as an opportunity for a spiritual transformation?                                                                                                      

This is true story. John (not his real name) was adopted as a tiny baby and always knew he was adopted. In his teens he had loads of pals but was easily led and was a great worry to his parents. Nothing they said ever got through to him – except this! One day he arrived home and announced that the girlfriend of one of the pals was pregnant, but it wasn’t really a problem because she’d probably get rid of it! The mother who adopted him was shocked and said, “It! Get rid of it! Listen, John, did you ever think, if your mother thought like that, you wouldn’t be here at all!” And she told me that was the first thing that ever seemed to get through to him. He went pale, his jaw dropped, and it was his turn to be shocked! 

I’m convinced all of us need to be similarly shocked into seeing things. Remember when Jesus shocked Peter by telling him he was a Satan? No doubt he didn’t like it at the time and probably didn’t believe it. He knew he wasn’t a saint but not a Satan either! But later in the courtyard, when he was cursing and swearing that he didn’t know the man, he began to see how true it was. We can go through the whole of our lives thinking we’re nice and good and humble, wouldn’t hurt a fly, and we don’t see or want to see how we can be a Satan at times, self – absorbed, jealous, sneaky, mean and ambitious.                                                                                                                             

In a book called, “If you meet the Buddha on the road, kill him!” by Sheldon Kopp, there’s a powerful passage on the need to accept our dark side if we are to avoid its power over us. He gives this example: “A patient comes into therapy complaining that he does not get along with other people; somehow he always manages to say the wrong thing and hurt their feelings. He’s really a nice fellow; just he has this uncontrollable neurotic problem. What this man does not want to know is that his “unconscious hostility” is not his problem, it’s his solution! He’s really not the nice fellow he thinks he is; he’s a bastard who wants to hurt other people while still thinking of himself as a nice fellow. If the therapist can guide him into the pit of his own ugly soul, then there may be hope for him. Once this man can see how angry and vindictive he is, he can trace his own story and bring it to the light, instead of being doomed to relive it all the time without awareness. 

Nothing about ourselves can be changed until it is first accepted. That’s obvious, isn’t it, but hard to take!  But isn’t it a thousand times better than never waking up to how selfish, proud, jealous and scheming we can be? Everyone else can probably see it but we can’t!  We must allow the Lord to shock us into life this Lent. It’s a moment of grace when it happens. It can bring spring to our hearts and a spring to our steps!

 The best day in Peter’s life was the day he admitted to himself first and then to Jesus, “Yes, Lord, I am a Satan!”  His future ministry and leadership grew from that moment!