The God Slot: When the going gets rough

Medieval artists often depict the saints with serene and tranquil faces looking up to heaven, seemingly enjoying the vision of God, writes Father Declan Boland.

A lot of these images are very unrealistic and very far from the truth when you actually read the lives of the holy ones, who often suffered very grievously in their lives to the point of laying down those lives for the Beloved. So Christianity is not a walk in the park! Far from it. In John 16:33 Jesus tells us, “In this world you will have trouble, but be brave, I have overcome the world.”

Therefore you can sing all the hallelujahs in the world, sway in the aisles as if in a trance, tell everyone you love them in a state of euphoria, but sooner or later you have to live real life and real faith which does not depend on an emotional high.

The real challenge is to bear witness to the love of God in the precise circumstances you find yourself in, the people you live with, the family you have, your neighbours and all those in the workplace.

After Peter, James and John had been led up the mountain to witness the divinity of Christ (Transfiguration) they had to come down again to bear witness to his death and resurrection.

All Masses, services and prayer sessions must lead eventually to the market place, so to speak. Many challenges will come, sickness, loss, disappointment, but it is in ordinary drama of everyday life that we really bear witness. We are told in Luke 6:27-28;35, “But I say this to you who are listening. Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who treat you badly.” This is revolutionary in its challenge and we often water it down or ignore it altogether, dismissing it as being totally unrealistic. Worse still we have heard it so often that we don’t really hear it at all.

Jesus is really telling us to practice not causing any harm to anyone – ourselves or others, never to close down our loving hearts to another, to diminish all those negative internal negative dispositions we have, never to strike out in anger or hurt another through our gossip and chit chat.

We are invited to keep the heart open to what is happening and turn around our well-established habits of striking out and blaming. We have to develop this open attitude instead of acting on automatic pilot.

In the heat of battle when the going gets tough and our emotions are all over the place, one simple practice is to connect with the heart. In times of anger, frustration and upset we can contact the kindness and compassion that resides there through the gift of the Holy Spirit.

We become totally available to the Source within, and we entrust ourselves to the refreshing flow of grace from God. We make space for that to happen.

If you can make all cares into one care, simply being present to the Power within, you will be cared for by that Presence which is nothing other than the power of God’s love. We can develop a heart that is deep enough to bear all suffering, for we are really connecting to the heart of Christ who has overcome all our sufferings.

It is a simple letting go and surrender to something greater than the present drama that afflicts us. Turn your heart towards the Source and offer hope to respond with grace and to gain the strength to carry the burden. Cultivate hope rather than expectation.

Another great help in times of upheaval is to see all difficulties as teachers. Life will provide us with plenty of opportunities in learning how to stay calm in difficulties – how to respond with grace rather than striking out in a knee-jerk reaction. That space between any event and our response is critical.

Often we pray to God to change our situation, but sometimes he will leave us with the situation until we learn the lesson from our predicament. In other words some events are used by God to change us, to change our attitude to what is hurting or annoying us. We learn humility, surrender and acceptance whereas before we were trying to fix everything, change others and outer events while all the time He was asking us to start with ourselves. We can change the world starting with ourselves.

At the heels of the hunt the one basic great basic question is this: “Am I truly becoming more loving?” Many saints have dedicated their pain in physical or mental sickness as a powerful form of intercessory prayer.

At the very least, pain can be a reminder of our desire for love and our need for grace.

Pain is a fact of life, and although we would rather be without it, we can choose how we wish to be with it.