Holy Trinity & St. Anskar

I have heard a decree of destruction from the Lord God of Hosts upon the whole land.

+ In the Name of God the holy and Undivided Trinity

Ah yes! The wicked liars getting what they deserve. The scoffing rulers brought low, the contractors with death put to shame. Contractors. Sounds familiar. We know who they are, don’t we? How precisely this prophecy of doom applies to us and our nation right now! And how satisfying to see it coming true. Deliciously satisfying. Ay, there’s the rub! It is TOO satisfying, because it is SELF-satisfying. The schadenfreude I feel at the disintegration of the Bush Régime is a nasty, naughty pleasure. By which I mean not to minimize or trivialize the GRAVITY of the temptation, for it is very grave; but to recognize that this pleasure itself leads to disintegration, to nothingness, to naught. To rejoice in another’s downfall or suffering ~ however stupid or arrogant they may be ~ is the cardinal sin called ENVY. A very ugly thing. It is naughty indeed, because it submerges me in the nothingness of illusion that is self-congratulation.\

Again today, the Gospel warns us and reminds us of what we must do to be saved, distilled in the dictum of that ancient desert father, who recommended three practices that correspond to faith, love, and hope:

TRUST IN GOD

GIVE TO THOSE WHO ASK OF YOU

NEVER CONDEMN ANYONE

Do that, and you WILL be saved. Guaranteed. Someone asked our Lord a similar question in today’s Gospel. His answer shows that the one who asked Will only a few be saved did not ask out of a humble sense of his own unworthiness (if that were his attitude, Jesus would have reassured him). Instead, Jesus spoke in a most threatening way. The asker, it seems, was altogether TOO confident and pleased with himself. He needed to be jolted out of his delusional self-satisfaction, torn away from his diet of delicious condemnation, if he were ever to get in to the real Banquet. Untold numbers would get in, but not HIM, if he continued the way he was going. For him, the entrance was narrow and difficult ~ maybe even impossible for him to pass ~ because he was so sure of himself and his won worthiness, and so delighted at the prospect of seeing the wicked get what he thought they had coming.

TRUST IN GOD

GIVE TO THOSE WHO ASK OF YOU

NEVER CONDEMN ANYONE

NEVER. No exceptions: not even The Worst President in American History. Not even the fatuous George W. Bush. What would I condemn him for? His arrogance and stupidity? His insufferable self-righteousness? But to do so would be to jump into the mire I scorn him for wallowing in. I had better look out, lest I drown in the very illusion I see so clearly is sinking him. This does not mean that I am required to approve his calamitous policies or to think that he is NOT The Worst President in American History. It means that I must not condemn him. That is for another Judge, not for me. I must not imagine that I am in, while he is out.

This, indeed, is a narrow door. Those who have grown as fat as I on the naughty delicacies of condemnation will never fit through it! We will, at long last, be forced to diet, to fast even, our noses pressed against the glass, shut out and gnashing our teeth, while all those we have condemned sit down in laughter at the Feast of Abraham and All the Prophets.

Never condemn anyone. Insist on justice ~ for justice is love, and the downtrodden all over the world are asking for it, and we must give to those who ask. Our insistence on justice is part of our duty of almsgiving. But I must never condemn anyone or delight in anyone’s downfall. That is a failure of hope: to believe that there is no hope for another. And that is the most terrifying, impious kind of delusion. The only person I am in a position to judge is myself. I KNOW that I don’t deserve salvation. I don’t deserve to get in to the banquet. As far as I know, everybody else does, but not me.

And here is the straitest of all gates, the narrowest of all doors. The old desert father said “Never condemn anyone.” Anyone. That includes myself. While I must not kid myself that I deserve to get in to the feast, still I must “trust in God and never condemn anyone” not even myself. My starets, Sophrony, sat at the feet of St. Silouan of Athos, to whom God said “Keep your mind in hell, and despair not.”

TRUST IN GOD,

INSIST ON JUSTICE,

NEVER FORGET YOUR OWN UNWORTHINESS

That is the narrow door.

AMEN

MARANATHA

COME, LORD JESUS!