“The life of men is
made up of many and varied activities. Deep in the heart of men is the longing,
fitfully glimpsed and but half realized, to gather up all these strivings into
an intense pursuit of one all-embracing objective worthy of the toil and tears
and devotion of the human heart. Such is
the half-shaped dream; but the reality is a picture of heaped-up activities,
where the trivial jostles the less trivial, and the less trivial elbows the
important things, and there is no unity of design, nor any intensity of single,
concentrated purpose.”-Karl Rahner, “On Prayer”
During
this time of lent we are reminded of our brokenness, and dependence on the love
of God. It is often easy, as Rahner
points out, to find ourselves worrying over that which does not matter and
caring little over those things which matter the most. In this way we become broken and fragmented
in various number of activities which occupy our day; trying to search for that
which is meaningful in that which lacks meaning and neglecting that which give
meaning to that which lacks meaning. The
reason we lack the one object which is worthy of the human heart is because we
fail to look at the goal of the human heart, which is to rest within the love
of God. This consists in nothing less than
responding to the love of the cross with our own gift of self. “You stir us so that praising you may bring
us joy, because you have made us and drawn us to yourself, and our heart is
unquiet until it rests in you.” (St. Augustine, Confession 1). This is the ultimate goal of the human
person, to love God with his whole being, “Hear, O Israel! The Lord is your God, the Lord alone! Therefore, you shall love the Lord, your God,
with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength.” (Deuteronomy
6:4-6).
When
we begin to integrate this love for God, which is only possible after we
recognize God’s love for us, it fills every moment of our day with meaning and
purpose. The purpose is to express the fruits of love that flow from the cross,
recognizing it as a gift to all.
Sometimes this dependence can harden up our hearts for we desire to save
ourselves, to give ourselves our own purpose and fulfillment. In short we desire to make ourselves into
gods. This leads us to trying to absorb
the other into our being instead of giving ourselves to the other. This attitude fills the heart with vices
which do not belong to our nature.
“Pride
for instance—even pride apes sublimity, whereas you are the only God, most high
above all things. As for ambition, what
does it crave but honors and glory, while you are worthy of honor beyond all
others, and eternally glorious? The ferocity
of powerful men aims to inspire fear; but who is to be feared except the one
God? Can anything be snatched from his power
or withdrawn from it—when or where or whither or by whom? Flirtatiousness aims to arouse love by
charming wiles but nothing can hold more charm than your charity…Sloth pretends
to aspire to rest but what sure rest is there save the Lord? Lush living likes to be taken for contented
abundance, but you are the full and inexhaustible store of a sweetness that
never grows stale…Envy is contentious over rank accorded to another, but what
ranks higher than you? Anger seeks
revenge, but who ever exacts revenge with grater justice than
yourself?...Sadness pines at the loss of the good things with which greed took
its pleasure, because it wants to be like you from whom nothing can be taken
away.” (St. Augustine, Confessions).
As St. Augustine points
out in this passage, no matter how we act, we must either conform to the will
of God and find rest within him by recognizing who we are, or we must turn away
from God and attempt to take his place.
This is because we are made in the image and likeness of God and we
cannot escape the reality of participating with God or attempting to become
gods.
When
we decide to become gods ourselves the human heart begins to feed upon
itself. “It becomes like the welter of
vanities, a sour well of bitterness and despair, a prison from which there is
no escape.” (Rahner, On Prayer). Some
modern philosophers say that this is the dignity of man, a life of despair as
if they were to say, “I shall calmly despise my whole existence because it does
not make me a god.” (Rahner, On Prayer).
The
dependence of man on God and on others is not something that degrades man but
something that exults his nature. “there is nothing degrading about dependence
when it takes the form of love, for then it is no longer dependence, the
diminishing of self through competition with others.” (Benedict XVI). We are not in competition with God, but we
are to unite to Him. When we think of
ourselves in competition we become full of pride and we love our own ego in
replace of God. We try to make others
love us by making ourselves dominate and fulfilled within ourselves and by doing
so we invoke others to love our characteristics, not us in our entirety. Also we block love off because to accept love
is to respond to love. Without humility
we cannot respond to love because our pride will keep us from expressing
vulnerability necessary to open our heart to love. Therefore our attempt to make others love us
through pride is in vain and leads us to internal isolation. “Amen, amen, I say to you, unless a grain of
wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains just a grain of wheat; but if it
dies, it produces much fruit.” (Jn. 12:24).
It is within this realization of dependence that the power of God can
well up within us. Even within the
situations we find difficult to pray within or difficult to have faith, we must
all the more cry out “Lord I believe help my unbelief or Lord my heart is
heard, please soften it.” There is
nothing insincere in this humble admission of one’s own weakness. It is only an invitation to the power and
love of God.