A DOCILE HEART
All our life is sown with tiny thorns that produce in our hearts a
thousand involuntary movements of hatred, envy, impatience,
a thousand little fleeting disappointments, a thousand slight worries,
a thousand disturbances that momentarily alter our peace of souls.
For example, a word escapes that should not have been spoken.
Or, someone utters something that offends us.
A child inconveniences you. A bore stops you. You don’t like the weather.
Your work is not going according to plan. A piece of furniture is broken. A dress is torn.
I know that these are not occasions for practicing very heroic virtue.
But they would be enough to acquire it if we really wished to.
~St. Claude La Colombière
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CONSIDER
Some of us just aren’t born with a docile heart; we must acquire it. Obtaining it requires acceptance, even submissiveness to inconvenience, which is HARD! Do you feel me? Either it came naturally for St. Colombière, or the Spirit achieved it in him. As we read the quote, do we recognize those thousands of feelings he described? Do we realize the amount of murmuring and complaining we do? Are we quick to let others know how they have inconvenienced us? Do we keep a running tally of offenses?
It was not convenient for God to take on flesh and incarnate himself in our humanity. It was not convenient for our Lord Jesus Christ to be misunderstood, mocked or ridiculed, beaten and bruised. And it was certainly not convenient for him to die the slow death of crucifixion. And yet he did, without complaint, docile under the hand of the Divine Will—heroic virtue in action.
Friends, Jesus sometimes comes to us in distressing disguise. Let’s fast from complaining about this life’s tiny thorns and fleeting disappointments by fixing our gaze on the most perfect example of docile acceptance and heroic virtue, Jesus Christ.
PRAYER
Let us pray with St. Elizabeth of the Trinity:
O my God, Trinity Whom I adore, help me to forget myself entirely that I may be established in You as still and as peaceful as if my soul were already in eternity. May nothing trouble my peace or make me leave You, O my Unchanging One, but may each minute carry me further into the depths of your Mystery. Give peace to my soul; make it Your heaven, Your beloved dwelling, and Your resting place…. Come into me as Adorer, as Restorer, as Savior. O Eternal Word, Word of my God, I want to spend my life in listening to You, to become wholly teachable that I may learn all from You. Then, through all nights, all voids, all helplessness, I want to gaze on You always and remain in Your great light….
~Amen
ACT
Choose one thing you consistently complain about; ask the Holy Spirit to grant you the grace of docility, and resolve to stop complaining about it for the rest of your life!
~I am a freelance writer. This post first appeared in a periodical.
The Maiden Warrior 