Friday of the Twenty-ninth Week in Ordinary Time

Lectionary: 477

Collect for promoting harmony

For I do not do the good I want, but I do the evil I do not want. Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells in me.



This passage from Romans 7, though rhetorical, sounds intensely personal. Saint Paul speaks for all of us. We know the Spirit of God is in us, inviting us to do the right; but there is another mischievous spirit and "I do the evil I do not want to do." 

In my conversations with the Veterans in the Substance Abuse program I sometimes I ask, "On a scale of one to ten, with one being low and ten being high, how intensely do you want to be sober?" 

This is not an unfamiliar question to some patients in the hospital. They are often asked a similar question about the intensity of their pain, on a scale of one to ten. Their answers are recorded and taken seriously. 

With a bit of introspection we can also answer quite honestly, "How intense is my desire to know and do the will of God?" 

We are creatures of earth and everything about this world is cyclic. Just as there is day and night, we sleep and wake. We are warm in the summer and cool in the winter. Physically, emotionally and spiritually we are cyclic creatures, given to moods and spirits. There is no shame in admitting "My ardor is pretty cool at the moment."

Saint Ignatius of Loyola taught his disciples to expect these cycles of desolation and consolation. We should take advantage of the periods of consolation to prepare for the desolation; and endure the periods of desolation without becoming too discouraged. They pass like everything else. 

There is always a light at the end of the tunnel; and there is always a tunnel on the other side of the valley. 

In the darkness we realize that

An ecstatic Francis and his
howling wolf
at Marytown, Illinois

sin dwells in me. We must remember Jesus is our Savior. No matter how well we might have fared during the good times, we need salvation. 

With the practice of prayer, we learn to "raise the bottom." The desolations need not be so low, nor the consolations so high. We can put away the sinful attitudes and pull out of sinful moods and wait upon the Lord. 

Who will deliver me from this mortal body?
Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord.