Week Three: Halfway
through Lent! The blaze of grand
resolutions has died down to an occasionally glowing ember. I believe that the lessons of this week’s
Scripture readings say to us that this is a good state of affairs. Simplicity and humility are marks of true
holiness. God calls Moses to Himself by
means of a quietly burning bush, not a cinematic conflagration. He names Himself “I Am”, not “The Great and
Powerful God Almighty”. Namaan is healed
by a simple act, “Go, wash seven times in the Jordan.”—not by some magical,
mystical Shaman-special-performance.
Centuries later, an unbelievable act of self-sacrifice is explained by a
simple statement: “He has children—I do
not.”—not by a theological dissertation on conforming to Christ.
So often in our narcissistic, “selfie” driven society, the
“I did it my way” mentality tempts us away from the way of Christ, making it
hard for us to see the virtue of humility as a good to be sought after. Holiness is for everyone, not just for
mega-watt performers on a world stage.
Some of us may be called to a bloody martyrdom, but most of us are
called to the white martyrdom of everyday annoyances. We should still aspire to acts of holiness,
but we must not pass by everyday opportunities while seeking spectacular
exhibitions.
Holiness is found in hidden ways as well as the public
arenas of the world: in a house all
alone all day serving the needs of my family, in a back office crunching
numbers all day, in small unnoticed deeds done in love, in misjudgment suffered
quietly and without retaliation. The
holiest of all events, after all, took place in the hidden quiet of night, and
was made manifest “in the semblance of the gardner”:
“On the third day the friends
of Christ coming at daybreak to the place found the grave empty and the stone
rolled away. In varying ways they realised the new wonder; but even they hardly
realised that the world had died in the night. What they were looking at was
the first day of a new creation, with a new heaven and a new earth; and in a
semblance of the gardener God walked again in the garden, in the cool not of
the evening but the dawn."
~G.K. Chesterton: The Everlasting Man
~G.K. Chesterton: The Everlasting Man
- Sister M. Anastasia, FSGM
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