A tomato seedling cannot give fruit if it is not supported by a stake. Without that support, it is likely to rot on the ground and to lose its fruits. It is curious to see how much we resemble a tomato seedling…
Like that seedling, we need a stable support. Otherwise, we risk curling up on ourselves, drying up and rotting without giving any fruit. Indeed, since original sin, we manifest an annoying inclination towards low things, taking pleasure in them, rather than elevating ourselves to correspond faithfully to our vocation of free men, of enlightened and dedicated servants of the truth that we know and love.
Dear friends and benefactors,
A tomato seedling cannot give fruit if it is not supported by a stake. Without that support, it is likely to rot on the ground and to lose its fruits. It is curious to see how much we resemble a tomato seedling…
Like that seedling, we need a stable support. Otherwise, we risk curling up on ourselves, drying up and rotting without giving any fruit. Indeed, since original sin, we manifest an annoying inclination towards low things, taking pleasure in them, rather than elevating ourselves to correspond faithfully to our vocation of free men, of enlightened and dedicated servants of the truth that we know and love.
The choice of the right support is absolutely critical and requires all our attention.
We cannot choose what is artificial, because then we would fall into a mortal illusion. Life is not an artificial reality and the combats in which we must engage are quite real. This support can not be too rigid: it would break our fragile nature. It cannot be too soft either: the weight of our passions would destroy it. But if it is not sufficiently flexible, it will not be adequate and we will give up it quickly.
In a word, this stake must be accessible to our entire human nature, in all its diversity and complexity, offering it a real support which will allow us to respect and fulfill our vocation of men, of spiritual and physical beings. The respect of our human condition is the decisive criterion which must govern the choice of that support. It is precisely because we are men – “thinking reeds” as Blaise Pascal called us – that this stake is so necessary for us.
When we reject this human condition, when we lose sight of the nobility of our vocation, when we fail to be vigilant, forgetting the fragility of our nature and the power of the enemies that prowl around us, then we fall, abandoning the safe path between the two chasms on either side of us, between the desire to act like angels and that of taking pleasure in our carnal desires. These two desires, although contrary, lead us equally to our ruin.
We are only men, fragile beings called to an eternal and divine destiny. Before this mystery of our poverty and of the divine love that calls us to an eternal intimacy, our answer must necessarily be one of humility and charity, of vigilance and confidence.
Accepting our human condition and our eternal vocation, we should be attentive to God.
Raising our heads, we must discover God in our humble, daily duties of state, and run towards Him by doing His will, which He has so clearly signified to us. This fidelity to His will requires, on our part, a firm determination not to follow the attractions of our wounded nature, so weak before the dazzling solicitations of this world.
Our determination must be made concrete in our renunciation of self, in our learning how to refuse a glance, how to resists a desire, an inclination. We must learn to mortify ourselves, so as to avoid one day doing what is evil. We must enter into this penitential spirit as one enters into religion, with our whole soul.
If we do not learn to prune the offshoots that drain the sap, we will become spiritually exhausted and, having lost the sense of effort, we will lose the sense of our vocation and of our happiness. We will die of this absence of the spirit of sacrifice, and our souls will wither in a world dominated, tyrannized by the pursuit of comfort.
Slaves to our selfishness, running after all satisfactions that life offers, our souls die. Lent comes at the right moment to bring us back to the spirit of sacrifice, which is the heart of the Christian spirit and which introduces us into the spirit of Our Lord Jesus Christ.
Following in His footsteps, embracing His cross by accepting ours, we enter into the path to Calvary, the path of love which will lead us to the Sunday of the Resurrection.
Thus, let us take the resolution to do penance by fulfilling our duties of state, as faithfully as possible and moved by love. Thanks to this humble, daily fidelity, forgetful of ourselves, we will be sure of doing the will of God.
We will have thus found our stake, our support, so marvelously adapted to our human condition and to our own forces, because the duty of state is nothing else than the concrete figure of the Love of God for us.
In the end, God Himself, in His immeasurable, incomprehensible love, becomes our support. Why are waiting to produce fruits of holiness?
May you have a good and holy Lent.
In Christo sacerdote et Maria,
Fr. Yves le Roux