Personal Failures

There have been a few incidences in the past months which have made me ponder human weakness. I thought I'd share my thoughts with you over the next couple posts. Here goes!

(From Despair.com)

 Personal failures. How easy it is for us to create a magnificent mental image of ourselves when reflecting on our achievements or even just our lack of "serious sin."  We begin to put ourselves on a pedestal and then we fall--not surprisingly. We repent and with God's grace get up again, yet even as our "mea culpa" is resounds, we fall again. And the cycle repeats itself.

We must get up each time, but how easy it is to become discouraged! It is so easy to think that as soon as we make a conscious decision to strive for sanctity, *poof* our weaknesses disappear. Everyone knows this is not true, but the thought can pervade our emotions and the temptation to discouragement seems ever greater. When we think like this though, our focus is in the wrong spot. (Geek warning!) It is as if we're looking through a diverging lens instead of a converging lens--instead of focusing beyond ourselves on God, our focus is inward on ourselves.

St. Josemaria Escriva wrote: 

"If you fall, get up with greater hope. Self-love alone is incapable of understanding that an error, when put right, helps us to know and to humble ourselves." 

Wow. You get a lot of bang for your buck there! Take a minute to reflect on that: "Self-love alone is incapable of understanding that an error, when put right, helps us to know and humble ourselves." Goodness. How easy it is to forget that we are not the Redeemer but rather the redeemed. Christ, the All-Perfect One is the reason we can strive to "...be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect." (Matt 5:48)

Without His grace, all of our efforts would be in vain. Of course, we should never rejoice in our faults, but rather, once confessing them, rely on Christ's help to move forward. "With God all things are possible,"but the inverse could also be said: without God all things are impossible. If it were not for God's wonderful grace, we would be incapable of loving Him at all. Let us never forget to thank him for all the times he has helped us to love. (How good that he has pity on us even when we do not seek him out!)

Taken from The Curt Jester Blog

Someone once told me, "You know, no one--aside from Mary and Jesus--ever has been or ever will be completely perfect until heaven." It's easy to relativize that and say that "Oh yeah, every saint has sinned," but I believe there is a more profound truth to be found in that statement. That is, every saint had to deal with at least some sort of imperfection until the moment they died. As a local DRE once said, "The difference between saints and everyone else lies not in the fact that saints never sinned, but rather that they always got up and started over." This goes hand in hand with something Pope Benedict said in 2007:

"It is not correct to think we must live like this, so that we are never in need of pardon. We must accept our frailty but keep on going, not giving up but moving forward and becoming converted ever anew through the Sacrament of Reconciliation for a new start, and thus grow and mature in the Lord by our communion with him."

We all fail, but we can "gain" by our faults by turning to God in true contrition and acknowledging our weaknesses rather than focusing on our self love. In this way, God can bring great good even out of our greatest weaknesses. Obviously, we strive for perfection, but when failures come we seek He who is the Fountain of Mercy through placing our faults before the "doctors of the soul."