Choice and Consequence
Painting: “The Dream” ( of St. Joseph), George Tooker
Choice
On her feast day, I pondered the life of St.Mary Magdalen de Pazzi, particularly the vision of Our Lord offering her to choose between a crown of thorns or a crown of roses. It was her choice to choose either a crown of thorns, which represented abnegation and suffering in the spiritual life, or that of a crown of flowers, which represented a spiritual life of consolation. I couldn’t help but marvel. Not that she chose the crown of thorns, (They all do that - saints I mean.) albeit Our Lord seemed to tempt her with the crown of roses, but I marveled that later, she was tempted to regret her choice. No wonder, I believe she went through 5 years or so of incredible, unrelenting spiritual darkness, and assaults of the demon - without any consolation, not from Our Lord, nor from any self-assurance that she was achieving anything.
(For “normal” persons, this can be equated with spiritual aridity, believing without the consolation of faith as it were, professing one’s faith without ‘feeling’ it - going through the motions, so to speak. The assaults of the demon may be interpreted as temptations, alienation and abjection, while experiencing one’s imperfections and faults, etc. - in some cases, a continual spiritual battle of sorts, sometimes even suffering grave wounds, quickly healed in the Sacrament of Penance. Nevertheless, all the while never ‘feeling’ any relief or consolation in the darkness.)
It is so easy to make generous offerings and heroic choices when bathed in the sweet consolations that sometimes accompany our prayer. Think of St. Peter, insisting he would follow Our Lord to death, and yet pressed in the fearful, hostile atmosphere of that night when Jesus was taken from him, his spiritual edifice collapsed and he denied the Lord 3 times. He sinned, mortally, gravely, when he denied Our Lord…not once, but 3 times. After the Ascension, Peter exhibited the same pusillanimity of spirit and had to be rebuked by St. Paul.
Consequence
Have you ever read Fr. Ciszek? I’ve read his book “He Leadeth Me” about 8 times over the years, and it always has something new to say to me. Mary Magdalen de Pazzi’s regret reminded me of Ciszek’s experiences in a way. While he was in the Soviet prison of Lubianka, he found great consolation in his solitary confinement, later calling it a contemplative experience. When he was exiled to Siberia, he was thrown in amongst the most ruthless and dangerous criminals. At first, he was unable to pray, to practice the recollection he enjoyed in the Moscow prison while in solitary confinement. He had never been exposed to such evil. In these loathsome conditions he experienced a mortal fear and confusion of spirit, as well as abandonment. He wrote:
“I realized almost immediately that I was asking the questions, raising the doubts,that I had promised not to ask in abandoning myself to the will of God. And I realized too that it’s one thing to give up such doubts and questions in a moment of grace and inspiration and spiritual insight, but another thing to prevent them arising spontaneously when the harsh and rough circumstances of a moment of daily life drives from the mind everything except thoughts of here and now.”- Walter Ciszek
When we resolve to follow Christ along the narrow way, when we give ourselves to cling to him in prayer - that prayer which is faith, hope for what is unseen, in love that is not felt; eventually the time may come when the bottom falls out of the sure footing we imagined for ourselves. “When you come to serve the Lord, prepare yourself for trials.” (Is that from Sirach?) Anyway, in today’s Gospel, Our Lord guarantees many good things for those who leave everything to follow him, and yet he kind of “slips in” that other reward, “and persecutions beside.”
Walter Ciszek lived through 23 years of unimaginable suffering in Soviet prisons, without any experience of lofty contemplation, transports or raptures, no visions, nothing extraordinary. It was as if he lived in hell on earth. His life is an astonishing testament and witness of faith, a perfect example of living the way of abandonment to Divine Providence. In one section of the book he writes:
“I thought again and again of the text: ‘The children of this world are wiser than the children of light.’ …The challenge seemed plain. Could my sacrifice, could my total dedication, could my stamina in doing the will of God be less than the children of this world? They knew that in order to survive a long sentence a man had to face and conquer one day at a time. …Each day to me should be more than an obstacle to be gotten over, a span of time to be endured, a sequence of hours to be survived. For me each day came forth from the hand of God newly created and alive with opportunities to do his will. For me, each day was a series of moments and incidents to be offered back to God, to be consecrated and returned in total dedication to his will. That is what my priesthood demanded of me, as it demanded of every Christian.”- “He Leadeth Me”
Trust in God…trust means abandoning oneself to His will, His Divine Providence.