Fifth
Sunday after Epiphany (Resumed)
Given
by Father Scott Archer, November 6, 2016
“But
above all these things have charity, which is the bond of perfection” (Col.
3:14).
With
so many aspects of our spiritual lives, to have charity toward God and neighbor
requires an act of the will; however, as St. Thomas Aquinas taught, charity
also adds a certain union to the beloved. So too, contrition is an act of the
will; we have contrition because our sin has offended God who is all good and
deserving of all our love. The Catechism of the Council of Trent states, “But although contrition is defined as
‘sorrow,’ the faithful are not thence to conclude that this sorrow consists in sensible feeling; for contrition is an act of the will."
When we rely on emotion to judge our faith, our love of God, our contrition, or even our spiritual experiences, we fall into the trap of judging our relationship with God based on that emotion. In prayer, for example, God sometimes gives spiritual consolations to encourage us, but most often He does not. Emotions can aid us in our devotion, but they are only partially under the influence of the will. Love of God, charity toward our neighbor, and contrition are choices based in the will, in cooperation with grace. “It is the will only that God desires,” wrote Saint Francis de Sales, “but all the other powers run after it to be united to God with it.”
Although
J.K. Rowling is neither an Aquinas, nor even a Tolkien, she does hit upon a
useful theme in illustrating my point. In the novel, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, Harry Potter, in his first
year at Hogwarts, accidently finds the enchanted Mirror of Erised. He stares into
the mirror and sees images that appear to be living. He soon realizes they are
his murdered parents, as well as other family members. His mother is smiling,
with tears in her eyes; his father puts his arm around her. He is enthralled
with the vision, as he is seeing his family for the first time. It makes him feel
happy, but it is not real. The Mirror of Erised, “desire” spelled backwards, gives
only the illusion of what the viewer desires; the one who gazes upon his or her
reflection sees what is most wanted, based in emotion. And it is addictive. Dumbledore,
the wise headmaster, discovers Harry using it and warns him, “This mirror will give us neither
knowledge or truth. Men have wasted away before it, entranced by what they have
seen, or been driven mad, not knowing if what it shows is real or even
possible.”
In the
enchanted mirror, people become entranced by their own image, pleased by the
illusion of receiving that which they most desire. Spirituality that is based
on feelings is the same. It can neither give us knowledge or truth. People can become addicted to spiritually emotional experiences.
Their lives can become an endless search for what makes them feel as if their relationship with God
is the best it can be, judging this relationship solely on whether they receive
spiritual consolations. They may even judge the Mass based on whether or not
they feel good afterwards, the priest was engaging, or the music upbeat. They
use their emotional responses as a proof of the holiness of their experience,
but this, alone, is an illusion.
St. Francis
de Sales wrote, "To live in truth – and not in untruth – is
to lead a life entirely conformed to naked and simple faith according to the
operations of grace and not of nature. This is because our imagination, our
senses, our feeling, our taste, our consolations, and our arguments may be
deceived and may err. To live according to them is to live in untruth, or at
least in a perpetual risk of untruth, but to live in naked and simple faith – this
is to live in truth."
We
must always be on guard that we are not trapped by emotional experiences in
regard to our faith; that we are not entranced by an illusion of our own
holiness, and believe we have found the secret mirror that reflects our true
spiritual state, filling us with false spiritual happiness. The reality is that
love of God, contrition for sin, and our spiritual lives are based in the will,
aided by grace.
