Lectio
“Poor heart! So soon fallen again into the snare! Well now, rise up again bravely and fall no more. Seek God’s mercy, hope in him, ask him to keep you from falling again, and begin to tread the pathway of humility afresh. We must be more on our guard henceforth.”
— St. Francis De Sales, Introduction to the Devout Life
Meditatio
It can be easy to fall into despair in this wounded world that wounds us so. The woundedness in others somehow wounds us in exactly the way we seem to most fear. And our woundedness does the same to others still. Woundedness, then, perpetuates woundedness.
But Christ came to break this cycle. Christ came, that through Him, we may choose to be healed. Through Him, we may choose love and forgiveness over retaliation and revenge. Through Him, we may choose grace over grief, and compassion over cynicism.
This transformation is not an overnight matter, however. Even St. Paul, whose initial conversion experience was sudden, continued to wrestle with the gap between who he was becoming and how he still acted — “I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I do” (Romans 7:19). Like us, in spite of his best efforts and intentions, St. Paul found himself doing and saying things he wished he hadn’t, caught up in the snare of the flesh that ensnares us all from time to time, often when we least expect it.
Though like St. Paul, we will fall in ways we cannot anticipate and often cannot even prevent in spite of our great longing, grace allows us to get back up again with the power of Christ within us. In fact, it may even be by grace that God permits us to fall, for, as St. Paul said of his own thorn in the flesh, God can use our weaknesses — even our failings — as a way of teaching us (2 Corinthians 12:7–9). This is not because God desires that we sin or that we suffer, but because He knows that sometimes only pain will get our attention and cause us to turn back to Him.
And so, even in our sin, through Christ, He gives us the grace to overcome it once we are willing enough to receive it. Like St. Peter who denied Christ three times and was later given three chances to tell Jesus he loved Him, God will always give us another opportunity to say we love Him. It is up to us, however, by grace and through the power of Christ, to accept those opportunities while we still have the breath and the strength to do so.
Oratio
Crucified Love
born of wholeness
returning to its source
yet wounded along the way
my hands
my feet
my side
scarred
disfigured by a world
who would crucify love
who would deny it
reject it
mock it and crown it in thorns
watch it bleed
and give itself over
for those who do not yet understand
Contemplatio
Notice where in you love has been crowned in thorns, and where it still waits to be understood. You don’t have to fix it — only to stay present to it a while longer. Rest here in the quiet, offering no resistance to His presence, and let Him do with you what only He can do.
Related Scripture
“for the righteous falls seven times and rises again, but the wicked are overthrown by calamity.”
— Proverbs 24:16 (NRSVCE)
For Further Reading
If you enjoyed this post, you may also like Quiet Steadfast Repentance: Francis de Sales, Contrition, Confession, and the Sacrifice Already Made, which turns this post’s meditation on falling and rising by grace toward the quieter work of receiving forgiveness without self-punishment.
Robert Van Valkenburgh
Grappling With Divinity.
Wrestling With God.
Returning To Love.
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