Sixth Sunday in Ordinary Time

http://www.usccb.org/bible/readings/021212.cfm

Whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do,
do everything for the glory of God.
Avoid giving offense, whether to the Jews or Greeks or 
the church of God,
just as I try to please everyone in every way,
not seeking my own benefit but that of the many,
that they may be saved.
Be imitators of me, as I am of Christ.


Can one be conscientious about doing "everything for the glory of God" without  being scrupulous? Is it possible to be aware at every moment of God's sovereign will without continually, anxiously looking over one's shoulder? 


Awareness has become a new watchword in the health movement. Yoga strives for awareness of the body. Meditation searches for awareness of the mind. Psychology awakens awareness of one's feelings and attitudes. And, of course, the Sacrament of Penance accentuates awareness of guilt, forgiveness and reconciliation. 


Evelyn Underwood, a modern pioneer of the contemplative movement, described the progress of mystics through enlightenment and considered scrupulosity one of its early stages. The seeker first discovers a personal calling to holiness. She has been culled from the congregation and called to follow the Lord as his personal friend and confidante. 

During that initial moment she is overwhelmed with joy. She has met the Savior as Lover and feels overwhelmed with grace. As someone has said, "Falling in love is the happiest ten minutes of your life." 

And then comes anxiety; "What if I lose God's favor?" 

The self reasserts itself between the lover and beloved and she must go off in search, like the bereft woman of the Song of Songs: 

Upon my bed at night
   I sought him whom my soul loves;
I sought him, but found him not;
   I called him, but he gave no answer. 
‘I will rise now and go about the city,
   in the streets and in the squares;
I will seek him whom my soul loves.’
   I sought him, but found him not. 
The sentinels found me,
   as they went about in the city.
‘Have you seen him whom my soul loves?’ 

Half-mad with longing the soul -- often described in mystic literature as female -- is liable to torture herself with guilt and remorse and shame. Her longing makes her feel unworthy; she feels abandoned. She may be tempted to suppress the impulse as something untrustworthy and diabolical.


But gradually she comes to understand her longing is itself a sign of God's love. The darkness becomes a light, and absence becomes presence. She might never again feel that initial rush of ecstasy. Perhaps I may dare say she suffers a kind of post-traumatic stress about an isolated incident that must somehow reshape her entire life. 


Wiser heads will encourage her to forget the incident and the daily rush of experience might try to smother it among life's lost moments. But she dares to believe it is the most important thing that has ever happen to her. Her searching turns to the practice of waiting, even as she daily drinks from the more predictable streams of grace -- the sacraments, prayer, and pious conversation. 


She might be tempted to overdo her penances with bodily mortification: fasting, sleeplessness, isolation from others, mad interpretations of religious phenomena and so forth. Hopefully she will find a spiritual director who will encourage her to practice healthy self-discipline without self-abuse. One of the greatest instructors, Saint Theresa of Avila, encourages her disciples to put small twigs on the fire of love until it grows larger. Later it might be ready for the logs that would smother a newly kindled flame. 


Forgetting herself she learns to do everything for the Glory of God. It really doesn't matter whether I am saved or not. Who am I in the grand scheme of things? What is my name compared to the Holy Name of Jesus? It is only a scratch on a tombstone which must inevitably disintegrate into gravel, sand and clay by the forces of time. I will trust the Lord to call me by name from the dust as he called Lazarus out of his grave, in his own time, and as he chooses. 

Saint Paul surely did not expect his letters to endure until the end of time. Had he thought so he might have finished all of his sentences, and deleted some of his cruder expressions. When he exhorted his followers to "Be imitators of me, as I am of Christ." he urged them to follow the Crucified Lord into obscurity where only the Eternal and Ageless God might find them.