Self-knowledge is fundamental to Carmelite spirituality. This new self-awareness is accomplished in an openness to life that is guided by prayer and a reflective attitude.
Often this pursuit of self-knowledge is not a pleasant process. We come face to face with our personal darkness in a slow, gradual process. Our addictions, attachments, illusions and prejudices bubble up to reveal a false self that has been steering us away from walking with Jesus. The temptation is great to forsake the serious and difficult issues and move on to the superficial. When we reject the call to face up to ourselves truthfully, we become the source of our own evils and our own suffering because the heart is disoriented. It is on a pathway to nowhere.
Once again we need to turn back to Jesus
Despite the evidence of evil that is so pervasive in our daily experience, Carmelite spirituality testifies that God’s love is always present even in the debris of life, the time of our deepest trials.
Eventually, it becomes clear that we have to change our approach. We have to accept God on God’s terms rather than trivializing our faith journey by thinking of God as someone who is there primarily to solve our problems. This change is no small task.
A great insight comes when we finally realize that the problems are not the problem. Our approach to life’s difficulties is what needs to change.
The three great Carmelite Saints and Doctors of the Church are St. Teresa of Avila, St. John of the Cross and St Therese, the Little Flower. They each arrived at a point in their lives where they accepted God on God’s terms. This acceptance led them to great wisdom. The result in their lives and in their message is a passionate love story. They are very real. They recognize the depth and the consequences of the struggle between good and evil, the weeds and the wheat. They reject the shallow and deceitful “make me feel good Jesus” approach of much of today’s organized religion. In seeking only the comfort of religion and avoiding the challenging part we create a world based on the crumbling foundation of our personal, social and cultural illusions. What is real is real, however, and our little world will never be free of the universal consequences of the human condition. The Bible is clear that the weeds are there until the end. The answer is in how we deal with this broken situation.
Most people eventually come to awareness that they need a spirituality that addresses the tragic and broken elements of life. Jesus was clear about this in his call to join him on the road to Jerusalem.
We are creatures, limited but called to the infinite. We are called beyond our little dreams to a God of unlimited and unconditional love. We have incredible energy and creativity to deny that we are sinners, even though we are loved and saved and called as sinners.
God’s mercy is always on the prowl, always seeking us. A mystic of the Middle Ages, Julian of Norwich, put it beautifully when she said: “First comes the fall and then the recovery from the fall. Both are the mercy of God.” Her message is clear. Even in our sin God finds a way to love us.
The grace is in the struggle. Life is never complete. It is always messy. It is the nature of things that all relationships are incomplete. There is a built in change factor. We cannot stop the clock. The kids grow up too quickly and even more rapidly, middle age passes on to old age.
John of the Cross has good counsel for these inevitable crises of life. He says that God’s love is hidden in the turmoil and one is not able to see or experience this love at the beginning. John lays out a simple response: patience, trust and perseverance.
Things are happening in the midst of the unrest. The false gods are slowly exposed for the passing vanity that is there true identity. Our heart gradually becomes free of the deceptions that blinded us and blinded our way to God.
The grace is in the struggle. Enter into the struggle of life. Take life on. Accept no cheap grace or no easy answer. There is gold to be found in our difficulties. The burdens of life open the pathway to God when we persevere in patience. The goal is not simply to evade the problems but to see the problems as an invitation to a true encounter with God. The grace is in the struggle.
