Renunciation


 Renunciation of self is perhaps the most difficult of all.
                                                      Elizabeth Leseur
 
It is month four and Leseur is getting really serious.  She is treading in some dangerous territory! If I were a contemplative nun, I might understand renunciation and how it applies more clearly.  I'm wondering if I'm up for this. Perhaps I'm making it harder than it is.

This Lent I coordinated a program once a week after 10 AM Mass in our parish. What I didn't realize was that that particular Mass is the one most frequently used for funerals. Today I want to my third funeral for a perfect stranger in six weeks.

As is often the case I found my mind wandering, fantasizing about my husband's funeral. That isn't quite as morbid as it sounds. He is chronically ill. The first time I almost lost him I was forty, almost thirty years ago and I started planning the funeral as a sort of black humor. My thoughts run not only to hymns and readings, but to imagining who might travel here, what sort of gathering we might have, and what toasts I might make.When distracted in church I've learned to give it over in prayer. The Holy Spirit (object of our Lenten studies) came back with two thoughts. The first had to do with my fantasy of all those we love from our entire extended family gathered in my yard. I realized with delight that what I actually imagined was heaven, the ultimate family reunion. Our destination isn't the funeral celebration, it is God who will gather us all to himself.

I tried to sidestep the second thought, but it kept coming. Why Greg's funeral? What about mine? The inevitability of death isn't a new thought, but it has become more profound in my soul. All of this, whatever "this" is today, is temporary. That, my friend, is renunciation. I can accept that. It puts all things in their proper place.

But what about the meantime? I went back to LeSeur's list.
  • Renunciation of evil. Check. At least I think so. "Of all things that might make me tend toward evil," is a bit dicier and I'll have to rely on the Spirit to point those out.
  • Renunciation of the world. She says "those things that are solely of this world and have no place in the afterlife. She goes on,"I resolve to live for God alone, and for souls and for friendship..." Friendship! It is one of the things that goes on.  She notes also that she "lends" herself to the world to perform the duties of her place in life and of charity. She makes it sound manageable when she puts it that way, but I have work to do.
  • Renunciation of self, she says is perhaps the most difficult of all. Yet, I already know that I can't be filled with Christ if I don't empty of self. Tough, but clear.
  • Renunciation of human desires. She says that can be either for the sake of others or in a spirit of mortification.  I think this means actually embracing every opportunity to let another choose—dinner, which movie to watch, what to do on Saturday, and when to enjoy the blessings of the marriage bed.  Knowing it and remembering on time are two different things.
  • Renunciation of spiritual joys and consolation. I wanted to whine, "That's not fair!" Actually I had just read two passages in The Imitation of Christ that said the same thing. If we cling to the gift instead of the giver we're going to fail.
Leseur recommends obtaining these things in prayer. It's the only way. I was right at the beginning this is hard. It is at least becoming clearer. I'll have to be satisfied with that.


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Poverty of Spirit

Ten years of Franciscan education left me with the concept of poverty deep in my consciousness. It was, to great extent, exactly that, a concept. "Blessed are the poor" "Holy indifference" "Live simply that others may simply live" All those words have swirled around my spiritual and practical adult life. Now in my seventieth year I find myself returning to them again and again and wondering if I ever understood the idea at all. In Light in the Darkness Elizabeth Leseur writes eloquently about silence, humility, and renunciation in ways I've never heard them before. Perhaps I wasn't listening. Perhaps as age takes its toll and losses mount, as they inevitably do in life, I understand them better. She even had me with "mortification," an old-fashioned word that would have made me cringe at twenty, but which begins to make sense in marriage or in any life with others when you look at the things life actually sends you. It comes d
Read more

Winter

And perhaps I shall stay or even spend the winter with you, so that you may send me on my way wherever I may go . 1 Corinthians 16:6 Sometimes you have to begin again. Late winter, just before Lent is one of those times. My journey never stopped but this blog dropped by the wayside along the way. This seems like a good time to pick it up again. This time I hope to reflect on two topics: 1) what I believe and 2) marriage. What do I believe? I'm a Nicene Christian--and  Roman Catholic.  I still struggle with discerning God's will for my future, but less than before. It isn't really necessary to see the entire road map, only to continue the journey, "wherever I may go" and to trust that he is leading one step at a time. His word is a lamp to my path.
Read more

An Open Letter to the Church in the Face of Abuse Scandals

To: Cardinal Daniel N. DiNardo and bishops collectively as the USCCB Denying sin is self-deception. If we say, “We are without sin,” we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.   If we acknowledge our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive our sins and cleanse us from every wrongdoing.   If we say, “We have not sinned," we make him a liar, and his word is not in us. (1John: 1:8-10) This passage slapped me in the face this morning during morning prayer, when struggling, as I have been lately with faith in the governance of my church. Please note I do not struggle with faith in the mystical body, real presence, or the Nicene creed. I certainly do not struggle with faith in our all loving and merciful God. I only struggle with, well, you.  I write in the face of scandals, plural. In spite of revelation after revelation of crime and cover-up, I, like many of the faithful who sit in your pews, have very little evidence of any real change.  Neither slick statement
Read more