FROM THE PASTOR’S DESK
Dear St. Mary’s Parishioners,
Our relationship with God requires tremendous energy and effort. As finite, fallen creatures, we have a limited amount of strength required to strive for God. In one dramatic moment, the great 16th century Spanish mystic cried out, “Oh, how painful it is for a soul who finds itself in this stage to have to return to dealing with everything, to behold and see this face of this so poorly harmonized life, to waste time in taking care of bodily needs, sleeping and eating! Everything wearies it; it doesn’t know how to flee; it sees itself captures and in chains.” Our attachments to the world can consume vital spiritual vigor, that otherwise could be spent more worthwhile on things that lead us to deepen our desire for him. She experienced firsthand as Teresa advanced in her prayer life. She noticed as her “prayer was increasing” that a ferocious battle was underfoot which she described as “some great good or some terrible evil.” Attempting to strengthen her resolve she attempted to purge all evil thoughts and the near occasion of sin. She understood her attachments to the world would be a cause for consternation: “Resolved to strive for this purity of conscience and beseeching the Lord to help me, I saw, after trying it for some days, that my soul didn’t have the strength to reach such perfection alone on account of some attachments that, though in themselves were not bad, were enough to spoil everything. “
Once a person severs all disordered ties to the created things of this world, the soul is now primed to grow in his desire for God and “(become) ablaze with burning love for God”. God now has free reign in their soul and is able draw him more intimately into communion with him, free from all other finite distractions “because there is no impediment from outside, the soul is alone with its God; it is well prepared for this enkindling.” God, so to speak, has the soul’s undivided attention. Once this point is reached, a soul abhors any separation from the beloved and shuns sin, which can sever communion with God. In this state of grace, all that the person does in their life, “When practiced with a pure conscience, such detachment must be what most joins the soul to God. There is no need to point this out because if the detachment is true it seems to me impossible that one offends the Lord.”
A Slave of Jesus Christ,
Fr. Brian J. Soliven
