Salvation so uncertain…
Some thoughts.
I like to imagine the Holy Spirit sometimes inspires me by bringing forth spiritual thoughts - especially when they seem to come out of nowhere, while I’m working or engrossed in a project. Yesterday as I was repairing a wall, I recalled these words, “salvation is so uncertain”. I pondered over them, and ruminated… I went to the church to pray before the Blessed Sacrament - and although I knew the words to be true in a sense - I couldn’t recall where the words were from, since I knew very well they came from something I had read.
My first thought was that it was part of a quote from St. Alphonsus in his book “Preparation For Death”. I don’t have the book - and I have never read the entire thing, so I thought it may have been a pull-quote I had seen. This morning the word was with me as I prayed and I realised it was from John of the Cross, and the Canticle. As usual, like some of Edith Stein’s sayings, my mind rearranged the words - although the message and the call remains the same.
Time is so uncertain…
“THE soul, considering the obligations of its state, seeing that “the days of man are short” [Jb. 14:5]; that the way of eternal life is straight [Mt. 7:14]; that “the just man shall scarcely be saved” [1 Pt. 4:18]; that the things of this world are empty and deceitful [Eccl. 1:2]; that all die and perish like water poured on the ground [2 Kgs. 14:14]; that time is uncertain, the last accounting strict, perdition most easy, and salvation most difficult; and recognizing also, on the other hand, the great debt that is owing to God, Who has created it solely for Himself, for which the service of its whole life is due, Who has redeemed it for Himself alone, for which it owes Him all else, and the correspondence of its will to His love; and remembering other innumerable blessings for which it acknowledges itself indebted to God even before it was born: and also that a great part of its life has been wasted, and that it will have to render an account of it all from beginning to the end, to the payment of “the last farthing” [Mt. 5:26], when God shall “search Jerusalem with lamps” [So. 1:12]; that it is already late, and the evening far spent [Lk 24:29]: in order to remedy so great an evil, especially when it is conscious that God is grievously offended, and that He has hidden His face from it, because it would forget Him for the creature, -the soul, now touched with sorrow and inward sinking of the heart at the sight of its imminent risks and ruin, renouncing everything and casting them aside without delaying for a day, or even an hour, with fear and groanings uttered from the heart, and wounded with the love of God, begins to invoke the Beloved and says:”
“Where have you hidden… my beloved!” - Spiritual Canticle
Very often it seems Our Lord can teach us in just a few words what others learn only through years of careful study - and yet everything is a grace, a gift from Him. As St. Paul says in the first reading of today’s Mass:
“What do you possess that you have not received? But if you have received it, why are you boasting as if you did not receive it?” - 1 Corinthians 4
It is so easy to lose our way and withdraw our hearts from God… To account ourselves as something, for as the day’s reading from St. Paul says, “You are already satisfied”. This satisfaction or complacency can cause us to withdraw from our spiritual exercises and seek instead human respect, and vain praise and honors. We become self-absorbed and our judgement obscured as regards truth and justice. As Isaiah says, “Your princes are rebels, and comrades of thieves; Each one of them loves a bribe (or flattery) and looks for gifts. The orphan they defend not, and the widow’s plea does not reach them.” - Isaiah 1:23
“The just man shall scarcely be saved.” - 1 Peter 4:18
