Poor in Spirit

 

Note: This post is meant to replace Sunday's post. This Sunday is very busy for me :)

    This is a pretty picture of a garden and some flowers I took on the outskirts of the urban center of Columbus, Ohio. However, the beauty starts to fade one you zoom in a little. (Tip: if you click on the picture, it zooms in for you.) In the background of the gardens of the Bridgettine Sisters Chapel and Retreat House is a soup kitchen that feeds the homeless, the unwanted, and the needy. It is the grocery stop for those living in homeless camps across the train tracks, in dilapidated houses, under bridges, or in the sewers. The sisters are often the only source of a hot meal and some sandwiches for souls who live in poverty and suffering.

    This will be my mission for the rest of this seminary year. Every Wednesday, all us first-year Propaedeutic seminarians will spend the day making sandwiches, building the Sister's place of refuge, and ministering to the poor of Columbus. This last week, I was privileged to receive a tour of the area and just enough of a culture shock to prepare me in prayer for what will be ahead. The souls I will be working with surely need food in their bellies- but even more surely, many of them need to hear the voice of God. 

    "Blessed are the poor in spirit; theirs is the kingdom of heaven." ~Matthew 5:3.

    To be poor in spirit is to realize that you can do nothing without God- your spirit is useless without the Holy Spirit. This is painfully true. No matter how hard I try, I can bring no soul to Christ without first dying to myself and letting Christ live in me. If I do not humbly live in the love of the Trinity, I have no love within me; it's as simple as that. St. Teresa of Avila taught that as you grow in the spiritual life, your heart will burn with love for souls who have not experienced Christ. This is wonderful- it is the compassion of Christ! However, to think that you can be the salvation of these souls and can fight that spiritual war without surrendering it completely to God is a bunch of baloney.

     If you do not realize this, not only will your soul be jeopardized by pride, but so will the souls of all those you try to minister to. To bear the Gospel is our mission as baptized Christians, but Christ warns...

    "...but whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him to have a great millstone fastened round his neck and to be drowned in the depth of the sea." ~Matthew 18:6.

    Now, if not before, do you see the seriousness of the call you have been given? And yet, do you not see that you have no power in it? So, what are you to do?

    Surrender. To surrender means to lay down your arms at the feet of the one in power. But look- we do not surrender to an enemy; we surrender to our greatest friend! In laying down all your faculties at the will of God, you may be a perfect and powerful instrument in his hands, and the compassion and ardent desire to bring souls to Jesus will be fulfilled. It may not be fulfilled in your plan, yes, but in time, you will grow to cherish the plan of God above your own.

    Ask Our Lady to teach you to surrender. She will not only bring you to surrender, but to rest, and to be rejuvenated. To learn how to humbly follow her son Jesus and be conformed to him, enter into the joy of her Immaculate Heart: the incarnation, proclaimed in the angelus:

    "The angel of the Lord declared unto Mary, and she conceived by the Holy Spirit." The Lord gives of Himself as a gift- quietly and trustingly enter into this gift of love in the Trinity!

    "Behold the handmaid of the Lord- May it be done unto me according to thy will." Now, surrender yourself, begging the Lord for humility and help through Mama Maria. (After all, you have worldly passions that lead to sin. Truly surrendering is difficult!).

    "The WORD WAS MADE FLESH; and dwelt among us!" You, through the example of the Immaculata, may be a living temple of the Holy Spirit, a stone and member of the body of Christ. The Word will be made flesh by your flesh, and will dwell among you and among the world... among those souls which are far from God.

    Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Now, do you see? If you are truly, painfully, poor in spirit... then the kingdom of heaven is here.