Loss of Hope

"As they were going they were cleansed."

One doesn’t even have to go looking much and a fell wind will grip your heart and soul in seconds and knock you off balance. Just look at your phone, TV, computer, and you are taken back by a blow to your sanity. “What is wrong with these people? What are they thinking? Why would people do that? HOW could they do that?”

Couple that with the daft news we hear and see in our parishes, dioceses and especially in Rome. Cut. to. the. teeth and you’re set on edge and blinded by a flood of thoughts of fear, depression and despair: what can we do? What can I do? It’s too much and there you are - alone it seems in the dark. Ideally, the disciplined pilgrim goes to God in prayer - ora et labora - but often, the routine itself when fettered by ill tides makes the exercise meaningless and it is robbed of its effectiveness by a loss of hope, faith becomes weak and charity is dulled to resentment and self-absorption.

This is the cycle for the undisciplined soul, a spiritual leper, isolated from the well-springs of life, from the sacraments, from prayer, from communion with God and man and taunted by the voices of demons screaming “Unclean!” But weak faith is not a loss of faith and the leper often cries, “Jesus, Master! Have pity on [me]!” for which His response is always, “Go show [yourself] to the priest.” The undisciplined soul leaves the confessional whole and cleansed and keeps going oblivious to the next colossal onslaught of disappointment. The saying is true that God will often give us enough rope to hang ourselves.

In the mystery of God’s Providence, it may happen that you, like “one of them, realizing he had been healed, returned, glorifying God in a loud voice; and he fell at the feet of Jesus and thanked him,” and Jesus will respond, “Stand up and go; your faith has saved you.” But that is always the grace of new beginnings. You have a choice to cooperate with sacramental grace or not. Made new by the gift of the priesthood, with authority to forgive sins (John 20.21ff), like your baptism, you are infused with faith, hope and charity. STOP. TURN AROUND and in penance, THANK HIM. MAKE A DECISION and follow St. Paul’s wisdom (1 Cor. 9.27):

I don’t know about you, but I’m running hard for the finish line. I’m giving it everything I’ve got. No lazy living for me! I’m staying alert and in top condition. I’m not going to get caught napping, telling everyone else all about it and then missing out myself.

Consider the warnings of the Parable of the Talents (Matt. 25.14-30) and St. Paul’s catechesis (Rom. 6.12-23):

… sin must not reign over your mortal bodies so that you obey their desires. And do not present the parts of your bodies to sin as weapons for wickedness, but present yourselves to God as raised from the dead to life and the parts of your bodies to God as weapons for righteousness. For sin is not to have any power over you, since you are not under the law but under grace.

What then? Shall we sin because we are not under the law but under grace? Of course not! Do you not know that if you present yourselves to someone as obedient slaves, you are slaves of the one you obey, either of sin, which leads to death, or of obedience, which leads to righteousness? But thanks be to God that, although you were once slaves of sin, you have become obedient from the heart to the pattern of teaching to which you were entrusted. Freed from sin, you have become slaves of righteousness. I am speaking in human terms because of the weakness of your nature. For just as you presented the parts of your bodies as slaves to impurity and to lawlessness for lawlessness, so now present them as slaves to righteousness for sanctification. For when you were slaves of sin, you were free from righteousness. But what profit did you get then from the things of which you are now ashamed? For the end of those things is death. But now that you have been freed from sin and have become slaves of God, the benefit that you have leads to sanctification, and its end is eternal life. For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.

The path to spiritual maturity is self-sacrifice. Alice Von Hildebrand once quipped at a spiritual retreat in a seminary when she saw snack machines that there must be an abundance of immorality among seminarians! Lack of self-discipline leads to vice and a stronghold in the life of a pilgrim leads to the pattern we have described above. Bind the strongman by starving him of his power.