Pursuing Sanctification.......Within Four Walls Of My House

Last one month has been the most challenging one I can recollect in the recent past. A month ago, I had so many things buzzing in my head that I could just burst if I did not blog them. Then, things started going bad and then from bad to worse and then I hit the low of lows. First, it was the relapse of fever which my children had about a month earlier. They are in that age, when these things just keep repeating in a cyclical way (almost like commodity markets, or may be like our repetitive sins). Then, yours truly also fell sick for a couple of days and then Anna also was down for a day. And then schools re-opened after 2 months of vacation and it was nothing less than hysterical for the two of us right from waking kids up early in the morning & getting them ready for school and all the jazz which goes along with it. Obviously, my priorities as a husband and father took precedence over everything else (incl blogging) and I just had wait out the tough times. Incredible how the Lord carried both of us along during this testing phase. Mission also re-opened after a brief summer vacation and we had an intense pastoral visit from our head office in Rome immediately after vacation. Now we have settled into post vacation mode.

I experienced a very important phenomenon during this phase. Something which all saints have taught over many centuries...that its possible to achieve a union with the Lord irrespective of the calling a given person may be having in his life. Now when I say I 'experienced', I do not mean I experienced that perfect union with the Lord during this phase. What I mean is that, I experienced during this phase, in a renewed way, that all difficult situations in our life can lead to a deeper interior sanctification provided our response to the given situation is in sync with what The Lord's Holy Will says. Simply put, choosing to respond the way The Lord would have responded to that situation. And that mostly is, as St.John of The Cross teaches, choosing the more difficult of the many options which we may be having in front of us. And when we go for the option which is more purgative and offer the resulting purgation for salvation of souls, then our soul moves up a notch, so to speak, closer to that perfect union with Lord (Beatific Vision).

And the situations which bring us closer to us this deeper union with God are not out of the world situations. They are very much day to day situations which happen to us irrespective of our vocation. For a mother, it could be the pressures of raising young, dis-obedient, irresponsible children. The correct response in such a case would be to intercede for them and to continue to love them and correct them in love and most of all to bear with their transgressions patiently. For a wife, it could be dealing with an alcoholic husband. Similarly, for an office goer, it could be responding to injustice or corporate politics or office gossip in a most Christ like manner. All the above difficult yet potentially sanctifying situations, depending on the quality of our response to respective situation. For a husband and father like me, it is usually the household chores which I, if given a chance, would prefer not to do. It is also being patient with my wife at times when she does a mistake in her part of the work. But I realised that this slothful tendency needs to tackled head on, if I were to grow deeper in my life as a disciple and now I try to do as much as possible, the routine & mundane chores of our house. Not because I love doing it but exactly for the contrary reason...so that I can purge my dislike for them. I realise now, after being a husband for more than 8 years, that Charity needs to be exercised firstly & mostly toward my bride and then toward others. Isn't that what Christ does for His bride, the Church, even now? At the mission also, which thankfully gives a lot of scope for physical work as well, I try to do the physical work of cleaning etc. assigned to me to best of my abilities. Again, not because, I love doing it but because each of such sessions causes my soul to be purged a little bit. Interestingly, taking care of children, like bathing them, ironing their clothes, dropping/picking them up at/from school is not that difficult for me. This because, when I think of my children and my love for them while doing the tasks, they become easy. This again gives a key to the solution. It is love which makes all things possible, It is love conquers all things and makes things new. So every time I do something difficult without grumbling or cutting corners and accept the suffering/hardship/purgation which comes with it joyfully, I actually get that bit closer to Jesus.....The ultimate destination of my soul.

Of Kissing Lepers And Failing St.Francis...

Today was my tryst with inner self, one of those moments when I come face to face with my sin. 

After Mass, I went to spend some time in Adoration chapel. I must have been in prayer for not more than 15 minutes, when I noticed from the corner of my eyes that a man had knelt down (not very close to me)  a couple of feet away from where I sat (I was sitting in the front pew and he was outside it). I was distracted by his awkward limb movements and could just about gauge that he was not finding it easy to kneel/sit on the floor. I looked to my side and was a startled to see his face. He was a leper. The infection was not in an advanced stage nor was he as grotesque as some of them look, I thought and yet it invoked the strangest of feelings...predominantly a kind of fear, may be discomfort as well. And though he was at a 'safe' distance, I do not know why I felt like that. The immediate (selfish) thoughts which came into my head simultaneously were "how could such a man be allowed to enter the chapel?", "What is the guard, who sits at the Church gates, doing?", "after all the chapel needs to be kept clean". And then it struck me like a lightening from above. Here I was praying to the God who healed lepers and made them clean, and the same God ate with sinners, was merciful to prostitutes and tax collectors and then I see this leper from a distance inside the same God's house and start having all these weird feelings. I thought to myself, "By the way, how clean am I myself ?". I was reminded of the fact that I am as dirty on the inside as a leper may be on the outside (may be even dirtier). If Jesus were to have the same 'thoughts' as I had about that man, where would I stand? Perhaps, I wouldn't even be allowed to enter the threshold of the chapel. I came face to face with my wretchedness. It was not long before he left and I started reflecting on the story of St.Francis' encounter with leper. How his revulsion towards lepers changed completely after his encounter with the Lord. So much so, that one day he got down from his horse and kissed a leper, who hitherto made him run way in aversion. Actually, it was a bit shamefully embarrassing for me who has been so much influenced in so many areas by the life of this great man of God. I wonder what was the stuff which people like St.Francis and Mother Teresa were made of to reach such great heights in their pursuit of holiness. They are true giants of our faith, beacons in these times of darkness, who shed light of Jesus on us and lead us toward Him.  Two things were clear (though not for the first time, I must say). First, I need to pray more to have that Franciscan simplicity in dealing with various life situations and second, my conversion is far from complete.

                                                 St.Francis kissing his leper friend

For those who do not know this story from the life of this great saint, you may look up the story of  Francis & the Leper .