SPIRITUAL
WEIGHT LOSS
Mario
D’Couto
“For
the just one will fall seven times and he shall rise again”
Proverbs 24:16
It’s been about a week since we have celebrated Easter
and today we celebrated another great feast in the Church, the feast of the
Divine Mercy, which lays emphasis on God’s love and mercy for us. In as much as
we can’t do anything to
‘earn’ our salvation (because it is a free
gift from God who chooses to love us despite our failings and shortcomings), we
have all have a responsibility to reciprocate that love by the lives we live.
Hence it would be absurd or even non-sensical to think that it was enough to
just accept Jesus as Our Lord and Personal Saviour and continue to live as we
were living before.
The funny thing is during the season of Lent, many people
choose to give up various things like whether it is drinking, smoking and so
on, only to pick it up once again after Lent is over. It kind of reminds me of
people who go through a crash diet and exercise regime only to gain back the
pounds later. Imagine this for a moment: there is a fat person who is looking
to go on a date and so in order to create an impression, he works out
vigorously in the gym, follows a prescribed diet and achieves a decent
physique. He gets to go on the date and manages to win the affection of the
person he is trying to impress. But as the days pass and the relationship
progresses, he starts to become lethargic, does not take his exercise seriously
and binges on junk food which leads him to gaining back all the pounds he once
lost. As a result, he tends to focus more on himself and his relationship
suffers, eventually leading him to become single once again. It seems like as
though it came full circle. Being fit is not just a one time thing. It is a
lifestyle and like fitness, holiness is a way of life. This is not to say that
we are to spend long hours in prayer or take on vigorous penances from time to
time to the extent we become physically weak although in the history of the
Church, there have been quite a few saints who would spend long hours regularly
in prayer and would undertake harsh penances. We don’t have to go to such
extremes obviously but sometimes exposing or undertaking some form of penance
helps mortify our spirits. We don’t necessarily have to wear a hairshirt or
fast for hours but the ordinary instances in life can become small acts of
penance whether it is working alongside that annoying colleague in the office,
doing something for someone else to help them even though it could affect our
own schedule and so on, are some small ways of mortifying ourselves.
With our busy lives, we can sometimes get lost or even
drowned in the things we do, to the extent that we lose sight of some of the
bigger things in life. There can be days when we may feel dry and not want to
pray and yet it is in those moments where we need to maintain our discipline,
the discipline to show up even when we don’t feel like it.
The important thing is to show up, to maintain the
discipline and while sometimes, the trap of being attached to the routine so as
to get a psychological kick or satisfaction from it can lurk around,
eventually, if we learn to purify our motives for the things we do, with the
help of God’s grace, we can be assured we are making progress. It is not
important about how many times we fall but are we ready to get back up whenever
we fall and learn to pick something up when we fall which could either be a
lesson, an advice or an admonition in the right spirit so that we don’t repeat
the same mistakes, eventually leading us to become a better version of
ourselves as C.S. Lewis explains in his book,
“Mere Christianity”,
“People
often think of Christian morality as a
kind of bargain in which God says, ‘If you keep a lot of rules, I’ll reward
you and if you don’t I’ll do the other thing’
. I do not think that is the
best way of looking at it. I would much rather say that every time you make a
choice, you are turning the central part of you, the part of you that chooses,
into something a little different from what is was before. And taking your life
as a whole, with all your innumerable choices, all your life you are slowly
turning this central thing into either a heavenly creature or a hellish
creature.”
After the Human Genome Project which lasted about 13
years approximately, it was discovered that the human person has between 20,000
to about 25,000 genes roughly when the expected number was supposed to be
around 150,000. So if such were the case, where were the remaining genes? On
further research, it was found that a single gene can create 2000 or more
variants of proteins depending on the different signals it receives from
outside. This observation was the beginning of a new revolutionary field in
biology called
Epigenetics.
Epigenetic research has established that the DNA is a blueprint
and the information passed down through one’s genes are not predetermined and
therefore not our destiny. Environmental influences including lifestyle,
nutrition, stress, emotions can change those genes without changing their basic
blueprints and can pass on to the future generations.
We are constantly bombarded with information, which are
filtered by our five senses and create our internal representation. Our internal
representation directly affects our state of mind. Our emotions are the
by-product of our state of mind and act as stimulus or signal for our cells to
behave. Our thoughts, belief systems, memory, experiences and so on play a great
role in altering the state of our minds. Our state of minds has direct effect
on our physiology which leads to change in the chemical and molecular composition
of our body. Our cells communicate through molecules and responds to signals by
changing existing molecules or making new molecules.
This therefore disproves the belief that if a person is diabetic,
his children would also be a diabetic because as per the epigenetic research, a
person does not become diabetic until and unless he expresses his diabetic gene.
This depends largely on the signals from the environment. Hence, the type of
lifestyle we lead has a huge impact on our health.
To elaborate further, the codes of our lives are written
in our DNA in chemical letters and are vulnerable to be changed under constant bombardment
of altered signals. When there is a change in the code, it alters the gene into
a ‘mutant gene’ and the produced outcome may or may not be in harmony
with the other cells leading to diseases in our body. When there is a change in
the coding, the body starts producing defective cells and to prevent the damage
by these mutant cells, our defense systems comes into play. Our immune system
immediately tries to destroy those abnormal cells and the self – correction mechanism
of our DNA, also tries to fix the faulty coding. When the assaulting stimulus persists,
for a longer period of time and our defense system fails, we become the victim
of that particular disease.
Thus if we create a favourable environment for our cells,
living a healthy life is possible. Once we understand this fact, the disease
burden will decrease and living a healthy life will become a routine. Dr. Bruce
Lipton explains in his book,
“The Biology of Belief”,
“The new biology
moves us out of victimhood into mastery over our own health”. We now have
the power to alter our genetic expressions by changing the way of thinking,
good food habits and by improving our breathing quality. When we learn to
empower ourselves with the epigenetic model of life, we will be able to change
the course of diseases and live a longer and healthier life.
I know I may have gone off on a different tangent and
probably you may be wondering as to what has this got to do with holiness but I
think it helps to serve the point. Leading a virtuous life does not necessarily
entail huge acts of heroism, although that too indeed can happen. Rather it is
rooted in the little things we do everyday and yes, let’s face it, there are
going to be things that will rub us the wrong way, things which can annoy us,
people who may be talking behind our backs, our own struggles at a personal level,
our vices that we have to battle with, the pain of not being understood, the
pain of sometimes feeling lost and wondering,
‘What’s happening?’ and the
list goes on. It’s in these moments that we have to step-up our game and keep fighting,
to show up even when the odds are against us. If we look at the lives of the
saints and the early Christians, whenever they faced suffering, they did not
say,
‘Oh, it’s unknowable so just forget about the whole thing’ instead
their attitude towards suffering would have probably been,
‘I don’t
completely understand what God is doing or has planned out for me but I’ve had
an experience that I am dying to share with you.’ The saints and the early
Christians had nothing to gain whatsoever. There was no money, fame or power. Instead,
there was more pain, suffering and struggle and despite all that, they were able
to see past all these hurdles and obstacles and commit to God, not because of
what He can do for them but because of Who He is.
To cite one example, take the life of Fr. Alfred Delp
(1907 – 1945), a German Catholic priest who fell into the hands of the Nazis during
World War II. His crime? Simply being a Jesuit. He awaited trial in solitary confinement,
with his hands shackled. During his incarceration, he managed to work one hand free
and to write, among other things, a series of Advent meditations.
Sentenced to death and awaiting execution, Fr. Delp didn’t
indulge in self-pity, recriminations or thoughts of vengeance. He apologized to
those whom he had been unkind. Then he wrote, “I will honestly and patiently
await God’s will. I will trust Him till they come to fetch me. I will do my
best to ensure that this blessing too shall not find me broken and in despair”
(taken from the book, “The Prison Meditations of Fr. Delp” by Fr. Alfred
Delp S.J.). Fr. Delp was executed by hanging on 2nd February 1945. The
Nazis scattered his ashes over a manure field. His beatification process was
begun in 1990.
Here was a man who wasn’t outraged against God. In fact,
he seemed to live out a kind of trust which to the outsider appears borderline
crazy. It seemed he was looking beyond his immediate situation to another realm.
Besides how can we dare question the mind of God. Certainly
God is not a tyrant because in His love and mercy, He chooses to accept us as
we are with all our faults and limitations rather than punish and condemn us,
even though we deserve it. For me I find that to ask or if may use the word
‘demand’
for a miracle or a sign is a bit of an act of pride, like we are trying to bend
God’s will. Let
‘God be God’ which is to say that we ought to be
respectful of the mystery of God in our lives. We are nothing but specks of dust
and yet God chooses to share an intimate relationship with us. We who cannot
even deem what tomorrow would be like or what the future holds no matter what
plans we make, in as much as we would love to think that we have control over everything,
there’s quite a lot in life that is not within our control which in essence implies
that the very real gift that we can make to God is the gift of ourselves, our
freedom and the submission of our wills to His commands because that is what
truly belongs to us in which God wouldn’t interfere; everything else can be
taken away by God if He wants to.
No doubt, we will have our failings and shortcomings but
that should not stop us from striving to lead the life that God has called us
to live, a life of virtue. Sometimes God allows such things to happen in our
lives in order that we do not get puffed up with pride, that we stay grounded
and remain humble as St. Paul would speak about the ‘thorn in the flesh’
in 2 Corinthians 12: 7 – 10.
St. John of the Cross in his book
, “The Dark Night of
the Soul”, explains to us about what happens when our motives for doing or
being good can be warped, that is when it springs forth from a place of pride
and not from humility, as is seen in the following words,
“There are those
who are vexed with themselves when they observe their own imperfections and display
an impatience that is not humility; so impatient are they about this, that they
would fain be saints in a day. Such people seek to accomplish a great deal and
make great resolutions; yet, as they are not humble and have no misgivings about
themselves, the more resolutions they make, the greater is their fall and the
greater their annoyance, since they have not the patience to wait for that
which God will give them when it please Him; this is contrary to the spiritual
meekness, which cannot be wholly remedied but the purgation of the dark night.”
Thus Don Lorenzo Scupoli warns us in his book, “The
Spiritual Combat and a Treatise in the Peace of the Soul” that even if it
were for no fault of ours and we find an aversion for spiritual things, we should
still hold on and never give up as he writes, “However barren and insipid
your usual exercises may seem, be resolute and persevering in your execution of
them, drinking cheerfully the bitter cup the Heavenly Father has presented to
you.” Despite the dryness we may experience when it comes to prayer and
despite our best efforts in an oppressive cloud of spiritual darkness, it is
important to not get discouraged. The devil is too shrewd in getting us into
discouragement. When we faulter or sin, he takes up our sin and puts it in front
of our face and starts accusing us that we are never capable of God’s love and mercy.
That is a lie! He is a liar and the father of lies as has always been the case
from the beginning of time.
Brother Lawrence, the author of the book, “The practice
of the presence of God”, was aware of his faults but he was not discouraged
by them. Whenever he fell from grace or did something wrong, he confessed them
to God but did not plead to be excused from them. Whenever such a thing
happened, he acknowledged his mistake, asked for forgiveness and peacefully
resumed his usual practice of love and adoration as he wrote, “When I fail
in my duty, I readily acknowledge it saying, I am used to do so; I shall never
do otherwise, if I am left to myself. If I fail not, then I give thanks to God,
acknowledging that the strength comes from Him.”
It was also observed that in the life of Brother Lawrence,
whenever he had not thought of God for a good while, he did not disquiet himself
for it but after having acknowledging his wretchedness to God, he returned to Him
with even greater zeal and trust. After he had finished his work, he would examine
himself and see how he had done. If he had done well, he would thank God. If he
did not do well, he would ask pardon from God as if he had not deviated from
it. He would say, “By rising after my falls and by frequently renewed acts
of faith and love, I have come to a state where it was difficult not to think
about God.”
We see something similar in the life of St. Therese of
Lisieux who through “The Little Way” tells us that we don’t have to have
some huge charism or talent or gift to do good. We don’t have to be abnormally
virtuous or possess a superhuman capacity or desire for suffering. Her point is
that when everything we do, think or say in the course of our outwardly
unremarkable day has Christ at the centre, our whole life becomes a prayer that
in the Kingdom of God bears unimaginable fruit. Hence she would go on to say, “To
pick up a pin for love is to convert a soul”; it is the little things when done
for God’s glory that makes the difference.
Therese bore her many shortcomings with patience and
grace. For instance, she often fell asleep during prayer while in the chapel. When
such things would happen, she would let the matter pass by saying, “Doesn’t
a child fall asleep in her father’s arms?” In a letter to one of her
sisters she wrote, “If you are willing to bear serenely the trial of being displeasing
to yourself then you will be for Jesus a pleasant place of shelter.”
In as much as we venerate the saints and can sometimes be
in awe in regard to the level of sanctity they have achieved, they became who
they were because they knew their need for God. The irony is that the more one goes
along the path of virtue and grows in holiness, the more one realizes how much
more they need to work on themselves and need the grace of God. It is like if
you are wearing a stained shirt in the dark, you are unable to see the stains
but as you slowly begin to approach the light, you begin to see the stains and
then you realize how much of washing or cleaning the shirt requires. I guess
the important thing is to come to God in humility with all our brokenness and
messiness and allow Him to work His wonders in our lives which brings me to an
important question, “If God knows what we need before we ask, then why ask?”
The short answer is ‘Trust’. Through prayer, we express our trust in
God. So it is not so much about us trying to twist God’s arm or bend God’s will
to suit our needs but it is about changing us to accept His will. It’s true
that He gives us even if we don’t ask. It’s true that He bestows on us anyway,
all the time, whether we recognize Him as the bestower or not. Asking God puts
in in right relationship with Him and helps cultivate a basic stance of
gratitude, knowing that He is in control over everything even though we may not
fully comprehend His will for our lives as St. Therese of Lisieux would put it,
“For me, prayer is a surge of the heart; it is a simple look turned toward
heaven, it is a cry of recognition and of love, embracing both trial and joy.”
Prayer helps us get ourselves in shape to be available
and kind to whoever shows up; it makes us human if we do it with a genuine
sense of humility which is why we need to be in on something bigger than our self-centred
obsession and fears in order to avoid being overcome by them. We need
community, the sacraments, liturgy, ceaseless prayer. We need all the help we
can get.
When we engage in prayer and begin to reap its fruits, it
increases our ability to discriminate between the true and the false, the
authentic and the fake, the excellent and the mediocre, the vital and the
inert. However a word of caution needs to be observed in regard to this where
we do not get overtly attached to the fruit of the action, which in this case,
is the ecstasy one experiences during prayer. If such experiences do come, there
is absolutely no harm and in fact it is wonderful but if it is not there or one
does not experience any ‘spiritual high’ during prayer, it does not mean
that one should give up on it but must instead strive to maintain the
discipline.
Thus as the American writer, Madeleine L’Engle, once said, “We draw people to Christ not
by loudly discrediting what they believe or by telling them how wrong they are
and how right we are but by sharing with them a light that is so lovely that they
want with all their hearts to know the source of it” which is to say that
until and unless one realizes his or her need for God, no matter how many
sermons are preached or how many adorations one attends or how many times one
has gone for confession, if the need for God and the feeling of true and genuine
repentance is not there, there is nothing much that can be done. But how can we
show them the Light (John 8:12) if we ourselves struggle with it?
Going back to what we had seen earlier about
the
epigenetic model of life where we have the ability to change the course of
diseases and live a longer healthier life by changing our way of thinking,
cultivating good food habits, exercising regularly and improving our breathing
quality, the same can be said about the spiritual life – whom do we hang out
with regularly, what does our friend circle look like, what books do we read,
what kind of movies do we watch, what kind of music we listen to and so on. In as
much as all of these can sound mundane, they all have some impact in our lives,
directly or indirectly, for better or for worse, to a larger degree or a lesser
degree. We are the ones who are solely responsible for what goes into our minds
and bodies, as a saying goes,
“Garbage in, garbage out.” St. Paul speaks
of the Christian life as a great contest and compares the Christian to the
Olympic athlete. Just as the Olympic athlete stives for a crown, St. Paul says
that each Christian must strive for the heavenly reward which only comes to
those who achieve self – control as is seen 1 Corinthians 9: 24 – 27. If athletes
makes all kinds of sacrifices and demands on their bodies in order to achieve
passing glory, a glory that fades away, how much more should we subdue our bodies
for the sake of Christ and eternal glory? In this regard, I am reminded of the
training of the Special Forces and Spartan Training. As tough and gruelling it
was, it was designed to make them strong, so strong that they were able to give
off their best even in extreme conditions. For instance, in the
Agage system
(
‘Agage’ which means ‘rearing’) of Sparta, Spartan boys, right from
birth, were given tough love from their parents. They were not cuddled or shown
loads of affection. Instead of bathing them with warm water, the children were
bathed in wine. Instead of picking them up when they started to cry, the babies
were often ignored.
Instead of reading or telling them children’s stories and
singing them lullabies, the Spartan parents would sow seeds in their little
minds that they were not worthy of becoming a Spartan if they did not become
the strongest and bravest men who could protect their city. Spartan boys were
also taught that fear was a sign of weakness. The extreme parenting approach
was known far and wide in ancient Greece which is why elite families outside
Sparta would often hire Spartan women to become caretakers of their children.
At age 7, the Spartan boys would be under the complete control
of the government because the training and education were financed by the state.
The boys were sent in groups and they had to live with a group of older men who
would serve as their mentors.
The children were housed in a dormitory and were educated
in communal barracks. The subjects ranged from academics and sports to hunting
and warfare. Their education was military – oriented because they were being groomed
to become soldiers.
When the boys reached the age of 12, they were given only
one piece of clothing, a red cloak that they had to use no matter what the weather
conditions were. The reason behind this was that they would be able to
withstand even the harshest of weather conditions without being dependent on
clothing, which would turn them into tough soldiers. They would also be
barefoot when they did any kind of sports or physical activities such as gymnastics.
Their food was strictly rationed, much stricter than in a
modern – day prison because the Agage system used hunger and thirst to promote
self – discipline. This can seem a little too much or even inhumane according
to today’s standards. However, keep in mind, that the intention was not to torture
these children or to give them a difficult life but to prepare them for what
they would later face as full-fledged soldiers where scarcity of water and food
was a common occurrence in battle. Feeding them less also made their bodies
leaner and more fit to endure hard physical activities.
They were also taught to make their own beds, literally
speaking. They had to get the materials such as straw and reeds from the banks
of the Eurotas river without using a knife. To bring out the toughness of these
young boys, the elders in the barracks would instigate fights among the young students.
Whomever lost would be made fun of or ridiculed because they were seen as weak
and cowardly. In fact, some records, show that every year, adolescent students
had to undergo an endurance test where many died. To honour those students who
successfully passed the test, they were given wreaths, a symbol of victory in
ancient Greece.
The same thing is seen in the training of the special operations
group where they have 3 options – to quit, get injured, or outlast and of
course, the third option is the only option if you want to become a member of
the Special Operations Group. Considering such is the case, it would seem odd
as to how can an individual survive such training if it is designed to break
even the toughest person? The reason is because they would be assigned to work
in high – risk and high – profile operations that affect not only their county but
the whole world. Hence their training is a lot more difficult than the training
of regular soldiers which are physically, mentally and emotionally intense, demanding
and exhausting.
The human body is more than just a “wonderful machine”.
It can adapt in almost all kinds of situations - heat, cold, pain and stress. Someone
who is tough means that his body and also his mind and emotions are highly adaptable
and who does not easily give up because he knows that it is possible to
successfully complete the training. More often than not, it is mind over
matter.
To a large extent, we can say the same of the spiritual
life. No doubt we definitely need God’s grace in order to become holy but as
seen before, at the beginning of this blogpost/reflection, we need to do our
bit from our end as it is written in the letter of St. James,
“Draw near to
God and He will draw near to you” (James 4:8).
Let it not be the case with us that Our Blessed
Lord spoke of in the Gospels where the unclean spirt departs from an individual
and brings seven other spirits worst than itself into that person causing that
person to become worst than what he was before (Matthew 12:43-45; Luke 11:26). Sure
enough, we may fall down but that’s why we have the feast of the Divine Mercy
which is to remind us of God’s love and mercy, to experience the
‘spiritual weight
loss’, to remove the spiritual weight of sin, guilt and shame each time we
fall, to get back up and walk along the path He has called each of us in our
own capacity as He said to St. Faustina,
“The greater the sinner, the great
the right to My mercy” and to continue to fight the good fight (1 Timothy
6:12) with all our might. God love you! Stay blessed!
