We are “plague and cholera”

Photo of the Holy Shroud
by Secondo Pia
(public domain)

Versão em português
Version en français

“Hold up my goings in thy paths, that my footsteps slip not.”(Psalms 17:5).

We are "plague and cholera" [1], only the Goodness of God – through Jesus, in Him and with Him, anointed by the Holy Spirit – can lift us, if we will.

“Only the cry of the wretch is heard by God.” [2]. But not an ordinary cry. The core issue is the human misery intuited, assumed and posed before the Grandiosity. God does not choose the wretch who should receive Grace, everybody can surrender to it. What seems to have some effect is the attitude of the wretch, conscious of his/her indigence ("Your faith has saved you") – free will? It is the choice of self-giving.

By reasoning, we can understand the insight of our misery combined with the acceptance of Mercy. However, it is difficult to feel it through the heart. Attaining this feat by perception, viscerally, means to place ourselves on the wave frequency, in the channel through which we can reach God. It is the true finding of our own misery, our emptiness, utterly freed of attachments, with an open heart and surrendered to Divine Grace [3].

I imagine that this must be the capacity prophets and saints have or develop in a more continuous way, and are able to imprint it, even if briefly, in sensitive people who get closer, operating wonders on them.

This misery I am talking about does not mean poverty in material goods, although attachment to wealth makes the posture of spiritual surrender very difficult – Jesus said it to a very rich man advising him to share his riches with poor people and then to follow Him. “Seeing the man’s sorrow, Jesus said: “How hard it is for the rich to enter the kingdom of God. Indeed, it is easier for a camel to pass through an eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the kingdom of God.” (Luke 18: 24,25)

We are “plague and cholera”, as well as everything around us, contaminated and contaminating; we suffer and we make others suffer, our miserable and mean-spirited suffering.

Worthy to consider, though unimaginable, still less reproducible by ourselves – therefore difficult to understand – that, compared to the greatness of God, human sufferings are all on the same human standard level, although among us, we perceive different degrees.

Trying to compare: when we see an ant falling from a flower stem and another one losing a leaf it was carrying, these events are not much different for us, they seem to be at the same level; we know they will try to resume their activities, although these incidents may mean, for them, a huge difficulty in reaching their goals, maybe one more difficult than another. The comparison is grotesque, no doubt. The gap, the disparity that separates us from the ants is immense, but immeasurably greater between God and us.

Another example of this relativity, in another sphere, perhaps tangential, but demonstrating how big measures can be, even beyond our perception; when we are moving on a road and looking at the moon, it seems to be always in the same place in the sky; the distance that separates us from the moon makes our position on the road irrelevant.

From all these thoughts comes the obvious: we really can't see beyond the end of our noses. There is no other way to follow except the One who comes to us, the One who IS: "I am the Way, the Truth and the Life; no one comes to the Father, except through me.”(John 14: 6). That One who has the most meaningful detachment ever, the All-powerful cry of indigence. Without Christ, we are not better or worse, we are nothing.

~~~~~

- Photo of the Holy Shroud, by Secondo Pia, in public domain.

[1] "Plague and cholera": quite convincing expression used by cousin Mariana, in other circumstances; also the name of a novel by Patrick Deville.

[2] Pondé (in Portuguese): https://www1.folha.uol.com.br/colunas/luizfelipeponde/2017/06/1893806-coracao-da-teologia-semita-e-relacao-entre-mal-perdao-e-misericordia.shtml

[3] In Portuguese: https://maviemontfils.blogspot.com/2018/05/consolacao-desejada.html