Lectio
“Once there was a meeting of monks in Scetis, and they discussed the case of a guilty brother but Pior said nothing. Afterwards he got up and went out, took a sack, filled it with sand, and carried it on his shoulders. He put a little sand in a basket and carried it in front of him. The monks asked him, ‘What are you doing?’ He answered, ‘The sack with a lot of sand is my sins; they are many, so I put them on my back and then I shall not weep for them. The basket with a little sand is the sins of our brother and they are in front of me, and I see them and judge them. This is not right. I ought to have my own sins in front of me, and think about them, and ask God to forgive me.’ When the monks heard this, they said, ‘This is the true way of salvation.’”
— Abba Prior, The Desert Fathers: Sayings of the Early Christian Monks
Meditatio
One of the great levers for forgiveness is self-examination, specifically daily, prayerful examination of conscience. By looking at ourselves with honesty and humility, by prayerfully reflecting on our thoughts and our actions as a regular practice, we gain a much more magnanimous view toward others. This is not because, through our examination of conscience, they somehow change, or even that we do, but because our perspective changes.
By regularly admitting to ourselves and to God our own failings, shortcomings, and sins, we begin to see that we have no room to criticize or judge others. We have no grounds for arrogance or superiority. With as many flaws as we have, how could we possibly condemn another person for the characteristics we find objectionable in them?
Put another way, through a regular examination of conscience, we come to understand that we have too many sins of our own to cast stones at another for their sins. In this way, an examination of conscience moves our sins from behind us, where they are out of view, to right in front of us where we cannot easily deny them. Likewise, this practice helps us to move our neighbor’s sins out from the forefront of our view to the rear, where, no longer in our sight, they lose their grip on our consciousness.
None of this can or should be undertaken without God’s help. An examination of conscience without prayer — without God — runs the risk of becoming nothing more than self-absorbed morbid reflection, a means of putting ourselves down and denying the forgiveness freely offered to us by God through Christ. This is not humility, but simply pride masked as modesty. With the mercy of Christ in our hearts, an examination of conscience becomes like a sword of love that cuts out from our hearts all that is not love.
Oratio
Your Light
once again
Your light
shines upon me
or rather always
and forever
though I so often
do not see
or feel
or hear You
I trust
that You are there
that You are here
though I so often
forget to listen for You
forget to look for You
forget to be with You
and yet Your light
shines upon me
always and forever
Contemplatio
Whatever you have carried behind you, whatever you have held up before you in judgment — set it down now, if only for these few quiet minutes. You are seen by a light that does not wait for your attention to shine. Rest here a while longer, offering no resistance to His presence, and let Him do with you what only He can do.
Related Scripture
“Why do you see the speck in your neighbor’s eye, but do not notice the log in your own eye? Or how can you say to your neighbor, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ while the log is in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your neighbor’s eye.”
— Matthew 7:3-5 (NRSVCE)
For Further Reading
If you enjoyed this post, you may also like So Soon Fallen Again: Francis de Sales and the Grace After Our Falls (Lectio Divina), which turns from today’s meditation on withholding judgment of others toward the companion practice of receiving God’s mercy for our own repeated falls without shame.
Robert Van Valkenburgh
Grappling With Divinity.
Wrestling With God.
Returning To Love.
Leave a Reply