NEW TEACHING. Unit 3 - More Love

More Love through Purification

Sr Nancy Kellar S.C. continues with the third of her teaching outlines for talks for Prayer Groups on growing in love through purification. Taken from her book "There is always more: Expecting new Fire"

Even were I to walk in a ravine as dark as death I should fear no danger, for you are at my side. (Ps 23.4)

Goals:
1. To learn how to grow through suffering.
2. To recognise purification as a normal part of spiritual growth.

Framing Image: In the world of shepherding, the shepherd must find new ranges for his flock after the "home" period of the winter. In the summer months he takes them to the highlands. This often entails long "drives". This is done in the midst of the danger of sudden storms, wild animals, rockslides and avalanches. But there is no other way to reach the rich pastures of the highlands. The valley is the only road. During this time the flock is entirely alone with the shepherd. They are in intimate contact with him and under his most watchful attention day and night.

Key Points: In the Christian life we often speak of wanting "to move to higher ground with God". We want to move beyond the common ground and move to a more intimate walk with God. We speak of mountaintop experiences and we envy those who have ascended the heights and entered into this more sublime sort of life. It is as though we imagined we could be "air lifted" to "higher ground. In the Christian life this is not so.

As with sheep management, so with God's people, one only gains higher ground by climbing through the valleys.

A. The Truth: Recognise and overcome misconceptions

Some misconceptions about suffering must be overcome before our valleys, our suffering, can be a place where we encounter God.

1. First, the misconception that all suffering is "darkness" and therefore God cannot be found in it.

a. There seems to be an apparent contradiction in Scripture unless we understand the Light- Darkness theme.

In Ps 23.4 we hear, "Even were I to walk in a ravine as dark as death I should fear no danger."

In John, Jesus says, "Anyone who follows me will not be walking in the dark" (8.12)

Is there a conflict here? Not if we understand that we can walk through the "valley of darkness" in the light, if the very darkness leads us to God!

b. The truth is "light is anything that shows us the way to God, and that can include suffering".

c. The Psalm says, "Even were I to walk in a ravine as dark as death." It does not say I die there, or stop there, but rather "I walk in".

d. The words of Ps 139.12 have new meaning; "Even darkness to you is not dark, and night is clear as the day."

e. Any shepherd familiar with the high country knows that the best route to the top is along these dark valleys.

He leads his flocks gently but persistently up the paths that wind through them.

2. Second, the misconception that the only time we meet God in suffering is when we are healed.

a. We can fail to be "with God" in our moments of suffering because we fail to recognise His presence in our cross.

In the past we didn't pray for healing because we thought it was better to suffer than to ask to be healed. Now we often assume that a failure to be healed must mean we are doing something wrong. We assume we don't have enough faith or the person praying with us doesn't have enough faith or we haven't found the right formula for praying.

b. The truth is that healing does not replace the cross. Jesus never promised that there would not be a cross.

He promised that He would carry the cross with us.

Jesus as our good Shepherd has done the same. He has gone before us with the cross and he invites us to follow Him, to walk in His footsteps.

Our God is not limited to what we see as good and beautiful. He chose the excruciating and shameful death of a criminal and made it the way to the Resurrection.

The shepherd never took his flock where he had not already been before. He was familiar with all the dangers and was fully prepared to safeguard his flock under every circumstance. The woman with the haemorrhage was content to stay in the crowd, to simply touch the hem of Jesus' garment. He was on the way to the house of an important official of the synagogue. She believed He could heal her; but she did not think she was important enough for Him to stop just for her.

We can be like that woman saying, 'I believe He loves US but I don't believe I'm important enough for him to love ME, so I'll take a little bit left over from all those really good people or important people that He loves.'

As He did for that woman, Jesus calls us by name out of the crowd and pours out His healing love on us.

B. The Way: Acknowledge and accept that purification leads to maturity.

1. Realise that purification is a normal part of spiritual growth.

Jesus was led by the Spirit through the wilderness, being tempted there by the devil for 40 days. Then Jesus was filled with the Holy Spirit and went to Galilee to preach (see Lk 4:1-14).

a. The Spirit is only fully released in us when we, like Jesus, confront the desert in our lives and persevere through it.

Persevering through suffering in our life in the physical, emotional and psychological problems in ourselves and those we love is responding as Jesus did when he said, "Human beings live not on bread alone" (Lk 4.4)

Persevering through the suffering that comes from trying to live the Christian life, facing misunderstanding, criticism, even persecution is following Jesus who said, "You must do homage to the Lord your God, him alone you must serve." (Lk 4.8).

Persevering through the suffering that comes from not being able to bring our families, especially our teens and our elderly, to follow Jesus is sharing the powerlessness of Jesus who resisted the temptation to ask the Father to show His power over the universe. "Do not put the Lord your God to the test." (Lk 4.12)

2. Recognise the maturing process and grow in the Spirit through it.

Our weakening in the life in the Spirit can simply be a failure to recognise that our charismatic spiritual maturing will go through the same "testing by fire" that the great spiritual masters have told us about down through the ages.

a. God often withdraws the initial fervour. He sustains us by a hidden power that does not have such manifest experiences.

b. One of the effects of being baptised in the Holy Spirit is a new and felt relationship with the Lord.

God is very close and prayer is a joy. People feel elated and enthusiastic for the things of the Spirit. There are good days and bad, but generally we can explain these by our fidelity and infidelity.

After a while, even while being faithful to our prayer time, the enthusiasm passes, the good feelings fade and prayer becomes less satisfying.

c. This normal and common experience can discourage people.

They fail to recognise that God purifies us of whatever attachments would keep us from closer union with Him, not only sin, but attachments to our good feelings that can lead us to think we are holier than we are.

3. Allow the Lord to teach us through suffering.

God purifies us so that we learn that:

a. Love, not exuberance is the essence of the spiritual life (see Mt 7:12)

b. Faith, not spiritual experiences, is the foundation of the spiritual life (see Heb 11).

c. Humility, not spiritual power, is the shield that protects our Christian life (see 2.Cor 12:8-9)

d. Perseverance under trials of all sorts is the test that proves, deepens and confirms the Christian life (see Rom 5:3-4).

If we learn this lesson through purification, He will renew our exuberance, give us new spiritual power and new spiritual experiences.

C. The Life: Embrace the cross and find God in it.

1. We can resist purification and become bitter, or submit to it and become holy!

"It makes me happy to be suffering for you now, and in my own body to make up all the hardships that still have to be
undergone by Christ for the sake of his body the Church." (Col 1.24).

a. God comes to us and loves us and reveals Himself to us just as we are. This includes periods of suffering.

b. If suffering is part of the way we are right now, then suffering is part of the way that the Lord is touching us.

If God is touching us through the suffering then even the suffering is to be embraced, not because in some perverse way we enjoy pain but simply because He is there.

c. We embrace it in order to find Him, and to hear what He is telling us about Himself, and about ourselves.

2. Purification comes in our spiritual lives.

Dryness, a sense of the absence of God in prayer, can be a suffering that means growth, if it increases our desire for God. It is a peaceful desire that is secure in darkness, knowing that the sense of the absence of God is an illusion.

a. Prayer is moving away from the illusion that God is absent toward the conviction that God is present, even when He seems absent.

A crucial point in St Teresa of Avila's example of prayer as drawing water from the well is that water is for the plants. The water is our experience of God in prayer, often called consolations, and the plants are the virtues.

Prayer, even for St Teresa who was a contemplative, is not an end in itself. It is for the plants, the virtues.

b. We do not seek the experience of God in prayer merely for its own sake, but in order that the virtues in our lives may live and grow.

We do not draw water from the well for the sheer joy of drawing it but in order to keep the plants alive and growing.

St Teresa's response to the question, "What should we do if our prayer is dry?" would be: "First pray, "Lord, if this dryness is from something in me that needs to change, show me and I will try to change it. But unless and until You do, I will not entertain vague doubts!" that is, I will not keep probing myself for the cause.

She would say, "Look at the flowers, the virtues, and see how they are doing. If the dryness is from God He keeps the flowers alive without the water!"

3. Some are called to witness to the Lord in redemptive suffering.

"So I persevere for the sake of those who are chosen, so that they, too, may obtain the salvation that is in Christ Jesus"
(2Tim 2:10)

a. By his death and resurrection, Jesus won victory over sin, Satan and death. The final outcome of victory is assured for those who believe in His name. However, He made the cross a condition for following Him.

"If anyone wants to be a follower of mine, let him renounce himself and take up his cross and follow me" (Mt 16.24)

The question is not why Christ's followers suffer. The question is why we so often do not experience that the Lord is "with us" in our suffering.

Paul says, "The temporary, light burden of our hardships is earning us for ever an utterly incomparable, eternal weight of glory" (2 Cor 4.17).

b. Jesus did not promise there would be no darkness. He promised to be a light in the valley of darkness. He promised to be with us.

"God works with those who love him…. And turns everything to their good." (Rom 8.28)

o In Acts 9, Paul is blinded until he can receive new insight into who God is. He got "sick" in Galatia, so he could stay to preach there (see Gal 4:13-15), and he was shipwrecked off Malta so he would go there (see Acts 28:1-10).

4.Purification with Jesus in His Passion

"Let us keep our eyes fixed on Jesus… for the sake of the joy which lay ahead of him, he endured the cross, disregarding the shame of it." (Heb 12.2)

Each one of us has a place in the passion where our suffering corresponds to the suffering of Jesus.

for some, it might be the Agony in the Garden, the experience of loneliness and betrayal by friends ( Lk 22:39-46).

For others, Jesus before Pilate, the pain of false accusation and injustice (see Lk 23.1ff)

For many, the fast of Jesus during his passion, the struggle with self-control especially under pressure (see Mt 27:34)

For so many more, the physical pain of Jesus (see Mt 27:27-29 and Jn 19:17).

For still others, Mary's passion, the death of a child, or a loved one (see Jn 19:25). Doing this we can share intimately in the passion of Jesus and find strength and peace in our own suffering.

Sheep may wander when the sun is shining, but when the sky grows dark and they hear the growling of wild animals they huddle close to their shepherd.

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Sr Nancy Kellar