We meet, at the bottom, the mercy of God.
(This is adapted from a homily given on New Year’s Day 1962. Apparently, the preceding year had been a difficult one in MH.)
If we consider the past year, I think we could say that what the Holy Spirit tried to do was to make us understand our own personal poverty, so that we might be ready to experience the mercy of God. This is what he tried to do within us individually and collectively, and it has been a tremendous experience.
Certainly it has been a tremendous experience for me — to see how simple the spiritual life is in its essence — to see how the movement towards God is basically a movement down — not a movement up as we had thought it was, perhaps, in our own spiritual lives.
For it is by going down into our nothingness, by experiencing that we are creatures, by experiencing that without God we can do nothing, that we meet, at the bottom, the mercy of God. And this mercy sustains us.
When we experience who we are and how much we need God’s mercy, we glimpse how immense that mercy is! When we see and appreciate all that God is doing for us, and how we are truly loved by him, how grateful we must be, and how joyful our hearts! For he truly takes care of all our needs, way beyond our desires and dreams.
The Way
The way to God is the way down — not the way up. It isn’t the way of strength. It is the way of weakness. It isn’t by becoming the top person that we will find God. It is by becoming little children. It isn’t by trying to be good. It isn’t by trying to control others. It isn’t by trying to prove that we are greater than someone else.
It is by realizing that within us are the seven capital vices and that, without the grace of God, we are capable of any sin. It is by realizing that we are creatures and therefore incapable of even keeping ourselves in existence one moment without the pulsating activity of God — unable to flick an eyelash, unable to move a little finger.
Within the Dust
The way to God is the way down. It is when we are lying flat on our faces that we will experience his mercy. It is within the dust that dust is transformed, and like the mythical bird, the phoenix, which rises from its ashes, we, too, rise transformed. We become new creatures.
And this is the simple truth, my dear brethren. May you, this year, look at these two things: on the one hand, your own misery, and on the other, the mercy of God. And I pray that daily your misery will meet his mercy — and not your pride and your “greatness” meet some other god.
I pray that you come to know your poverty so that you may experience a little more fully the joy of God’s mercy.
[Calligraphy by ©Pat Probst, Madonna House.]
