When are difficulties a sign of Grace?
God loves us and it is still possible for you to reach out for His love. No matter what you think about yourself. Peter thought the worst of himself - he had a bad opinion of himself, he felt like an unworthy sinner.
The Bible talks about it, even though he was thrown between self-contempt and pride in elevating him above others. He once said to Jesus, throwing himself at His feet: "Depart from me, Lord, for I am a sinful man." These are our words, your words.
[media=https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=7EWVphp5GEM]
I'm Piotr, that's my name, and I feel that it also applies to me. Sometimes I felt so weak and so unreliable, so mutilated by myself, that it seemed to me that God should delete me. I even said to Him, “Why did you create me? I'm just a nuisance to you, a burden to you.
Delete me and you will have all the relief in the world. This is very bad thinking. He didn't do it and I know He won't.
Perhaps there are people here who think, have thought, maybe they will be tempted just like Peter, like me - that we are so weak, so unreliable, that the Lord should give up on us. Maybe externally we are physically healthy people, maybe even mentally healthy, but spiritually we are often handicapped and paralyzed.
Besides, to tell the truth, everyone has some problem, some weakness, something that makes him imperfect, incomplete, not what he should be according to his imagination. But whose image is more important - God's image of you, or your image of you?
Fortunately, God imagines us differently than we do. This is great hope. At the beginning of the 20th century and even at the end of the 19th century, strange images appeared in museums and exhibitions. The creators did not paint beautiful, shapely women or strong men. They did not paint realistically, perfectly, academically precisely.
They painted ugly people, distorted figures, sometimes completely unlike humans. Expressionism, cubism, surrealism provided new works, and it turned out that they were all very beautiful. What's more, these unreal images revealed something more - spiritual truths about man.
The despair reflected in Picasso's paintings, the tension emerging from the paintings of Ernst, Munk and van Gogh, were more real than the joy on the canvases of realists such as Szymiracki or Makart.
Peter felt that way too. I think he felt like an image of God that did not resemble Him - it seemed so to him, an unreal, imperfect, non-academic image of man. He did not feel perfection in himself, he was not a perfect man, he was not a realistically precise academic work.
He felt that he was not worthy of God's calling and presence in his life. He threw himself at Jesus' feet and begged Jesus to leave. It was already despair. He said: "Go away, Lord, for I am not worthy of your love for me."
Jean Vanier wrote that Jesus turns the world upside down. Jesus washing the disciples' feet. Peter is right - this is madness, pure madness: "I will wash your feet, but you do not wash mine." This is the moment when Jesus turns everything upside down.
How can we understand the fact that disabled people can be saints? How can we bear in mind that people with serious disabilities make Christ present? Vanier said this about his players. What is the connection between the Eucharist and poverty? This is the point we cannot grasp, the mystery of faith. This is why foot washing is so rarely practiced in the Church.
It looks funny. It is interesting that bishops are supposed to wash priests' feet. Why shouldn't it be the other way around? Isn't it a coincidence that foot washing has become a privilege and that the hierarchy decides who washes whose feet? What is wrong with the mystery of the incarnation? There's something wrong with the cross. Vanier writes: with the cross of Christ.
That's why Peter couldn't stand it. He couldn't stand the idea of a weak Christ. God, as in the Jewish tradition, must be strong and powerful. But the weak Christ who cries to the Father: "My God, why have you forsaken me" - this amounts to madness.
I remember such a scene from my childhood. Back then, there were no computers, games or toys like we have now, so I played with toy soldiers - little people with guns. I had many of these little soldiers that I played with.
I spread almost 200 little figures on the carpet in a small room. I divided them into two armies. One army always consisted of the better, newer, well-made warriors, usually presenting some sort of uniform formation. The second one was the weaker, mixed group, often mutilated, with broken arms and legs, no weapons, and the paint was worn off.
They were Indians and Scots, scythemen from Racławice and Teutonic Knights - a mixture of soldiers without bases who could not stand on their feet, whom I found in the sandbox, rejected by other children. Orphan soldiers. This group was smaller in number and less armed.
Of course, it's easy to guess which army has always won in my world. In my world, the weaker army has always won, because in my world, in my soul, there is the same reflection that is in the heart of God.
I think about God who is now looking at this carpet of our world, at us, soldiers without bases, from various formations, mutilated, found in a sandbox. Who do you think he gives victory to? Is He worse than me, this Lord of ours?
Just think that He truly has not only a merciful but also a just heart. It gives victory to those who may not even deserve it. When Moses talked to God in Exodus 33, they were talking like friends on Mount Horeb.
Moses complained a little that he felt so alone on this journey, and God said to him: "Am I not enough for you that I am with you?" God said this with a little reproach. Moses replied: "Yes, Lord, that is enough, but I would like to see You again and get to know You better."
And the Lord God says: "Okay, I will show myself to you in a way that would not kill you, so I will show myself to you from behind", and it is written: "Because I show grace to whom I wish, and mercy to whom I please." " I like God like this. I like a God who pleases me even when I don't like myself.
We talk about extremely difficult experiences - that they can be signs of grace, and that you have nothing to fear. They can be a sign of grace that purifies your love, the species of your love, the quality of your love for God. They can be a test that prepares a person for the approaching presence of God.
Sometimes you complain that it's hard for you, that you feel weaker than ever before, that, for example, your prayer is falling apart and you no longer care about anything. Maybe you feel a strange fear and pressure in your soul, it's hard for you, you don't even feel like praying or looking at these people.
You have to persevere - life and vocation become unclear, hazy, as if covered by a huge black cloud.
Maybe you feel this way because it seems to you that some black cloud has fallen over you and you no longer see anything, you don't understand anything, you don't feel joy, no light - fog, black cloud.
While God's people were receiving the most important words from God, the 10 words, and Moses was standing in the immediate presence of the Lord at Horeb, there was a dark cloud around the mountain that terrified all the people. Although God is light, He made Himself present as a dark cloud.
We see the same paradox when God leads Israel through the desert - he was a pillar of cloud that shed light for Israel and was a dark cloud covering Israel for the Egyptians. For some the same cloud was light, for others it was dark, so says the Book of Exodus.
Depending on what kind of heart one has, this is how one accepts God. If you have an evil heart, God will always annoy you; if you have a good heart, you will glorify God everywhere. If you have an evil heart, you see evil everywhere; If you have a good heart, you can see goodness everywhere.
If you have an evil heart, you accuse everyone, yourself and God; if you have a good heart, you can extend mercy to everyone, and look at your experience in the same way. If a black cloud comes upon you, it may be the cloud covering your mountain Horeb. Let the Bible help you see it this way.
You say: "I'm afraid, I'm afraid for my life." They were also afraid when they were to receive the most important words on Mount Choreb - it was a black cloud and they saw nothing, a black cloud. Similarly, when Elijah was approaching God, first the whole mountain shook, there was lightning, there was a storm, and it was dark.
He entered the cave as if it were a grave - you know that the dead were buried in caves. He entered into the place where the dead were buried, for God was drawing near; he was almost dying, falling apart in his existence.
We talk about extremely difficult experiences - that they can be signs of grace, and that you have nothing to fear.
The Bible talks about it, even though he was thrown between self-contempt and pride in elevating him above others. He once said to Jesus, throwing himself at His feet: "Depart from me, Lord, for I am a sinful man." These are our words, your words.
[media=https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=7EWVphp5GEM]
I'm Piotr, that's my name, and I feel that it also applies to me. Sometimes I felt so weak and so unreliable, so mutilated by myself, that it seemed to me that God should delete me. I even said to Him, “Why did you create me? I'm just a nuisance to you, a burden to you.
Delete me and you will have all the relief in the world. This is very bad thinking. He didn't do it and I know He won't.
Perhaps there are people here who think, have thought, maybe they will be tempted just like Peter, like me - that we are so weak, so unreliable, that the Lord should give up on us. Maybe externally we are physically healthy people, maybe even mentally healthy, but spiritually we are often handicapped and paralyzed.
Besides, to tell the truth, everyone has some problem, some weakness, something that makes him imperfect, incomplete, not what he should be according to his imagination. But whose image is more important - God's image of you, or your image of you?
Fortunately, God imagines us differently than we do. This is great hope. At the beginning of the 20th century and even at the end of the 19th century, strange images appeared in museums and exhibitions. The creators did not paint beautiful, shapely women or strong men. They did not paint realistically, perfectly, academically precisely.
They painted ugly people, distorted figures, sometimes completely unlike humans. Expressionism, cubism, surrealism provided new works, and it turned out that they were all very beautiful. What's more, these unreal images revealed something more - spiritual truths about man.
The despair reflected in Picasso's paintings, the tension emerging from the paintings of Ernst, Munk and van Gogh, were more real than the joy on the canvases of realists such as Szymiracki or Makart.
Peter felt that way too. I think he felt like an image of God that did not resemble Him - it seemed so to him, an unreal, imperfect, non-academic image of man. He did not feel perfection in himself, he was not a perfect man, he was not a realistically precise academic work.
He felt that he was not worthy of God's calling and presence in his life. He threw himself at Jesus' feet and begged Jesus to leave. It was already despair. He said: "Go away, Lord, for I am not worthy of your love for me."
Jean Vanier wrote that Jesus turns the world upside down. Jesus washing the disciples' feet. Peter is right - this is madness, pure madness: "I will wash your feet, but you do not wash mine." This is the moment when Jesus turns everything upside down.
How can we understand the fact that disabled people can be saints? How can we bear in mind that people with serious disabilities make Christ present? Vanier said this about his players. What is the connection between the Eucharist and poverty? This is the point we cannot grasp, the mystery of faith. This is why foot washing is so rarely practiced in the Church.
It looks funny. It is interesting that bishops are supposed to wash priests' feet. Why shouldn't it be the other way around? Isn't it a coincidence that foot washing has become a privilege and that the hierarchy decides who washes whose feet? What is wrong with the mystery of the incarnation? There's something wrong with the cross. Vanier writes: with the cross of Christ.
That's why Peter couldn't stand it. He couldn't stand the idea of a weak Christ. God, as in the Jewish tradition, must be strong and powerful. But the weak Christ who cries to the Father: "My God, why have you forsaken me" - this amounts to madness.
I remember such a scene from my childhood. Back then, there were no computers, games or toys like we have now, so I played with toy soldiers - little people with guns. I had many of these little soldiers that I played with.
I spread almost 200 little figures on the carpet in a small room. I divided them into two armies. One army always consisted of the better, newer, well-made warriors, usually presenting some sort of uniform formation. The second one was the weaker, mixed group, often mutilated, with broken arms and legs, no weapons, and the paint was worn off.
They were Indians and Scots, scythemen from Racławice and Teutonic Knights - a mixture of soldiers without bases who could not stand on their feet, whom I found in the sandbox, rejected by other children. Orphan soldiers. This group was smaller in number and less armed.
Of course, it's easy to guess which army has always won in my world. In my world, the weaker army has always won, because in my world, in my soul, there is the same reflection that is in the heart of God.
I think about God who is now looking at this carpet of our world, at us, soldiers without bases, from various formations, mutilated, found in a sandbox. Who do you think he gives victory to? Is He worse than me, this Lord of ours?
Just think that He truly has not only a merciful but also a just heart. It gives victory to those who may not even deserve it. When Moses talked to God in Exodus 33, they were talking like friends on Mount Horeb.
Moses complained a little that he felt so alone on this journey, and God said to him: "Am I not enough for you that I am with you?" God said this with a little reproach. Moses replied: "Yes, Lord, that is enough, but I would like to see You again and get to know You better."
And the Lord God says: "Okay, I will show myself to you in a way that would not kill you, so I will show myself to you from behind", and it is written: "Because I show grace to whom I wish, and mercy to whom I please." " I like God like this. I like a God who pleases me even when I don't like myself.
We talk about extremely difficult experiences - that they can be signs of grace, and that you have nothing to fear. They can be a sign of grace that purifies your love, the species of your love, the quality of your love for God. They can be a test that prepares a person for the approaching presence of God.
Sometimes you complain that it's hard for you, that you feel weaker than ever before, that, for example, your prayer is falling apart and you no longer care about anything. Maybe you feel a strange fear and pressure in your soul, it's hard for you, you don't even feel like praying or looking at these people.
You have to persevere - life and vocation become unclear, hazy, as if covered by a huge black cloud.
Maybe you feel this way because it seems to you that some black cloud has fallen over you and you no longer see anything, you don't understand anything, you don't feel joy, no light - fog, black cloud.
While God's people were receiving the most important words from God, the 10 words, and Moses was standing in the immediate presence of the Lord at Horeb, there was a dark cloud around the mountain that terrified all the people. Although God is light, He made Himself present as a dark cloud.
We see the same paradox when God leads Israel through the desert - he was a pillar of cloud that shed light for Israel and was a dark cloud covering Israel for the Egyptians. For some the same cloud was light, for others it was dark, so says the Book of Exodus.
Depending on what kind of heart one has, this is how one accepts God. If you have an evil heart, God will always annoy you; if you have a good heart, you will glorify God everywhere. If you have an evil heart, you see evil everywhere; If you have a good heart, you can see goodness everywhere.
If you have an evil heart, you accuse everyone, yourself and God; if you have a good heart, you can extend mercy to everyone, and look at your experience in the same way. If a black cloud comes upon you, it may be the cloud covering your mountain Horeb. Let the Bible help you see it this way.
You say: "I'm afraid, I'm afraid for my life." They were also afraid when they were to receive the most important words on Mount Choreb - it was a black cloud and they saw nothing, a black cloud. Similarly, when Elijah was approaching God, first the whole mountain shook, there was lightning, there was a storm, and it was dark.
He entered the cave as if it were a grave - you know that the dead were buried in caves. He entered into the place where the dead were buried, for God was drawing near; he was almost dying, falling apart in his existence.
We talk about extremely difficult experiences - that they can be signs of grace, and that you have nothing to fear.
51-55, F
