November 15, 2007

The Winepress of God's Love

I have often pondered the role of struggle and temptation in the spiritual life. Everyone struggles. Everyone experiences temptations. It seems to me that struggle and temptation could be the occasion of much damage and ruin in a person. It also seems to me that struggle and temptation could be the occasion of much healing and strengthening. When facing struggle and temptation you can become bitter or better, the difference is the "I".

If you know how to allow it, struggle and temptation can purge out sin and false reliance on self. A false self-confidence does not allow us to believe the truth that we need a savior; we cannot save ourselves; we cannot earn God's love. If we are honest, there is a part of us that does not believe this truth. We need to be purified. God alone! Ponder this amazing quote concerning the purifying power of struggle and temptation:

"You are [to be] a witness to hope also and must not draw it from any other source than God's promise: not from any assurance of your merits or of leading a good life. The conviction that God's gift is freely given must be engraved in your very flesh. In the wine-press of temptation, you will squeeze out the self-confidence filling you, to the last drop" (The Hermitage Within, 46).

If we are emptied of our false self-confidence, then the Lord can fill us with His strength. "But he said to me, 'My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.' I will all the more gladly boast of my weaknesses, that the power of Jesus Christ may rest upon me. For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions and calamities; for when I am weak, then I am strong" (2 Cor 12:9-10). Thank you Lord.

Let us pray for the grace to be strengthened by struggle,

Fr. Luke Mary Fletcher, CFR

St. Joseph Friary, New York, NY

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