Be Merciful to Me, a Sinner

Speak of God from the heart.

Take care, then, never to speak of God, or those things which concern Him, in a merely formal, conventional manner; but with earnestness and devotion, avoiding the affected way in which some professedly religious people are perpetually interlarding their conversation with pious words and sayings, after a most unseasonable and unthinking manner. Too often they imagine that they really are themselves as pious as their words, which probably is not the case."
From Introduction to a Devout Life by St. Francis de Sales Part III Chapter 26, as appears in The Catholic Faithful blog

The Pharisee and the Tax Collector

"Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. The Pharisee stood up and prayed about himself: 'God, I thank you that I am not like other men--robbers, evildoers, adulterers--or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week and give a tenth of all I get.' "But the tax collector stood at a distance. He would not even look up to heaven, but beat his breast and said, 'God, have mercy on me, a sinner.' "I tell you that this man, rather than the other, went home justified before God. For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted." (Luke 18:10-14.)

The Just man falleth seven times daily, but rises. The sinner allows his sin to defeat him.

For a righteous man falleth seven times, and riseth up again: but the wicked are overthrown by calamity. (Proverbs 24:16.)

***
In the following, I write for those who tend TOWARD piety, those who are basically good and decent people.

There are so many pitfalls and landmines that Satan sets for us. We need to:
[1] pray;
[2] examine ourselves; and
[3] find a good confessor.

We can do this. We can set aside time to pray, examine ourself with candor and scour the city and countryside far and wide to find a good confessor. If we feel that we are "holy" then we feel that we are "not like the rest of men." When we feel we are holy is precisely when we need to redouble our efforts to seek out that major fault which Jesus wants us to conquer. Many of us who aspire to follow Christ have a tendency to subtly exalt ourselves above others without even realizing it.

Have you ever met a man who claims God's guidance at every moment in his life? Given man's fallen nature, perhaps the Lord would allow us a bit of skepticism about such a claim. I had to smile when I read the line quoted above "Too often they imagine that they really are themselves as pious as their words, which probably is not the case." Have I ever spoke so that my conversation fits St. Francis's gentle rebuke? Most definitely. The paradox of holiness is that one sure way to know if one is not holy is that if he fancies that he is holy. St. Francis de Sales must have been a wonderful man: perhaps we may consider him the patron Saint of common sense. If he were speaking today of our conversation about God, he might say "Keep it real."

Christianity is full of paradox: to be born to life, one must die to sin, Christ uses the weak to conquer the strong, and one must admit one's sinfulness in order to attain holiness. Holiness is to grow in virtue and deny sin, this is surely true. Yet, as it says in Proverbs, the just man falls but rises up again while the sinner falls and is defeated.

Holiness is not about being perfect, it is about becoming perfect - at least for most of us. It is all about getting up, dusting ourselves off and crying to the Lord "Be merciful to me, a sinner." I have the most fervent hope that I will continue to admit my fault, and be among these who once more pick up their cross to follow the Lord. If we speak of Jesus to others, it does not mean that we ourselves do not fall. One must not wait until one has become perfect before imparting knowledge of God's Word to others. We are all in some way called to do this, and we must do it now while we are still imperfect.

There are a few saints who were holy from the time they were born or at least very young. We Catholics believe that the Blessed Virgin Mary was conceived without sin (through the anticipation of Christ's merits) St. John the Baptist was sanctified in the womb as his mother Elizabeth heard the voice of Mary, the Mother of God. (Luke 1:41.) As St. Joseph was destined to be the foster father of Jesus, certain traditions tell us that he was preserved in holiness from a young age.

On the other hand, the annals of mankind chronicle a long list of saints who fell, sometimes into the most dreadful sins, and picked themselves up. The Bible is full of them as well as Christian tradition. We have Moses, David, Mary Magdalene, St. Peter, the first pope who denied his Lord three times, Paul, Augustine, St. Ignatius of Loyola, St. Francis of Assisi, the list goes on and on. The Just Man begs mercy of God and moves up on the road to holiness.

As creatures tainted by original and actual sin, we often waiver. The Lord may give us a grace or an insight, but yet we are weak and we fall. We pick ourselves up. If our weaknesses gets the better of us and we allow ourselves to fall, we must quickly get up. Over and over again. We must resist temptation, but never give up if we fall.

Has our brother fallen? Facing the same frailty, we must all help one another. Perhaps one brother is weaker in one area than we are. We are to bear our brother's weakness, because it is only the grace of God that prevents us from committing most heinous crimes far worse than those we criticize. If we rebuke our brother or sister we must do so with kindness and gentleness, since we are all under the same sentence of death to which our sins condemn us. We are bound to put the most favorable and kind interpretation on our brother's actions. We are all on the same journey, and suffer from the same weakness. Christ Himself commands this. If we truly love each other, if we really do see Christ in everyone, we will treat our fallen brethren with the same charity we would like to be treated. Otherwise - quite frankly - everything we say is just so much hot air - they become the meaningless pious words St. Francis speaks about.

IF I speak with the tongues of men, and of angels, and have not charity, I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal. (1 Cor. 13:1.)

The good news in all this is that Jesus Christ is all-love and all-mercy. If others hate us and malign us, Jesus loves us and waits patiently to forgive us our sins and embrace us once more if we repent. If the world is aligned against us, it matters not. Jesus is everything, and Jesus Christ longs to forgive us and embrace us as soon as we repent. His father looks for us, His prodigal children and anxiously awaits our return. When we awake from our stupor and decide to return, the Father greets us with an embrace. As in the Parable of the Prodigal Son, while we are still a long way off, the Father filled with compassion for us runs to us, throws His arms around us and kisses us. (Luke 15:20.) What a wonderful God we have! What a wonderful Father we have! Our Father, Who art in Heaven!