Lectio
“For the Lord rescues from the pit of concupiscence all who are sunk therein.”
— Saint Bede the Venerable, Priest and Doctor of the Church, quoted in Thomas Aquinas, Catena Aurea on Luke 14:1-6
Meditatio
There is a mysterious paradox in the fact that the Lord’s voice, which never ceases to call us, is often most audible in the pit of darkness and despair. This is not because sin leads to salvation. Nor does it mean that we can actively and intentionally pursue a life of debauchery and excess with the delusion that Christ will save us someday when He is ready to do so, although His mercy is so great that He could save us even then. Rather, the pain of our self-imposed separation from God becomes, by His grace, the catalyst for us to seek Him. In Christ’s hands, our brokenness becomes our motivation to receive the mercy He has always been offering us, even when we were too blinded by pride to see it.
Christ does not exclude anyone from His mercy. He desires that all of God’s children, Christ’s brothers and sisters, turn to the Father to be saved through Him. Through Christ’s love, even our greatest sins do not defeat His mercy. The suffering they cause is drawn into His own, and the fires of purification burn away what binds us. By His grace, suffering united to Christ and love are not two opposing forces pulling us in different directions, but one path, the path of the cross, through which we are transformed according to the Father’s will and purpose.
This is why Jesus ate with sinners, prostitutes, and tax collectors, not because their woundedness gave them a special right to His love, but because Christ opened their wounded hearts to receive it. Without Christ, a wound is just a wound, but with Him, a wound becomes an opening through which love enters us and overflows from us. This is not because love is emptied of itself, but because, by being emptied of ourselves, we are made able to be filled with love to the point of overflowing. Through our brokenness made whole, others may drink of the living water that has saved us from the pit of concupiscence into which, by our own weakened will, we sank in despair.
Oratio
Allowed To Dig
the pit of despair
I dug for myself
was where I met the Lord
who was already there
when I had no way out
He loves me so much
that He allowed me to dig
deeper and deeper
toward my own destruction
a self-imposed
wilderness of sin
He allowed me to dig
as far as I was willing
all the way to the gates of hell
until exhausted
and without hope
He invited me
to put down my shovel
and I dropped to my knees
my tears
pouring into the living water
with which He baptized
my soiled soul
cleansing me of my sins
reaching down
to pull me up
into His loving arms
Contemplatio
Whatever you have wept in secret has not been lost. Every tear has fallen into the hands of the One who is Himself the living water, and He has gathered them all. In this quiet, you do not need to say anything. Sit in His presence, and let Love move in you as Love wills.
Related Scripture
“He drew me up from the desolate pit, out of the miry bog, and set my feet upon a rock, making my steps secure.”
For Further Reading
If you enjoyed this post, you may also like Misery and Majesty: John of the Cross and the Enlightened Soul (Lectio Divina), which sits with the darkness that feels most like abandonment and the God who is quietly revealing Himself within it.
Robert Van Valkenburgh
Grappling With Divinity.
Wrestling With God.
Returning To Love.
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