Have you ever thought about the state of your heart when you enter church for Mass?
There are some days I show up and saunter (in my head) up to our normal pew where we stake out, maybe smile and wave a few waves to other congregants like a chipper bird, square my shoulders, clear my throat, and assume the position on the kneeler. You belong here.
And then there are some days when I slink into the back of the church, afraid to lift my head up, with no desire to see or be seen. I'm not gazing at the parapet like a gazelle, but feeling my nose so close to the tile floor that I feel no better than a worm. I want to get in and get out, and even showing up is hard. Why? Because you don't belong here.
The difference in the inner dispositions is one of outward justification (Lk 18:14) vs. complete inner abjection. I have been in both pairs of shoes, but I think the heart of the Lord is closer to the latter.
Today is the feast of St. Mary Magdalene, penitent. Scripture affirms that seven demons were cast from her, but it was erroneous conflation to equate her with the sexually immoral woman who washes Jesus' feet with her tears and hair in the gospel. Although this is the reading used in the traditional calendar today (Lk 7:36-50), the point stands--those who love much are forgiven much. And those to whom less is forgiven, love less.
Regardless, St. Mary Magdalene is a model of penitence. She spent the last years of her life in solitude in a cave. When the Lord pierces you with the dagger of penitence, solitude seems to be the only worthy vessel to contain the nard seeping out from one's being. Another Mary--St. Mary of Egypt (who was a great fornicator)--found she could not even enter a church where the true cross was being exhalted because of her many sins; an invisible force kept her from entering. After renouncing her former way of life, she crossed the Jordan and lived alone in the desert for 47 years, a model of contrite penitence in proportion to her sins.
I know I have been debased and laid bare when I do not even want to open my eyes or lift my head while in Mass, before the splendor of the Lord. Like the publican standing in the back, "who would not even raise his eyes" but beat his breast and prayed "God, be merciful to me, a sinner." It's a searing mercy, a grace, but a painful one when you have been so attached to feeling that good old "Good Catholic Justification." When you are debased by grace, stripped of that bravado, you can't get close enough to the back wall. You don't belong here.
The difference between the self-justified and the penitent is that the self-justified walk in with their heads raised and their shoulders back, expecting to be welcomed with high honors. But God casts the mighty from their thrones, and the rich he sends away empty; it is the hungry he fills with good things. Those who posture their hearts to the floor, the Lord lifts up. They do not dare lift their heads before His majesty, but in the naked social stripping, he reaches down and draws them up to take their place at the table (Jn 8:10).
You wonder sometimes how someone can spend 47 years of their life repenting of their sins and doing penance in some awful desolate place. Then again, when I think of all my sins, it's a wonder I don't follow suite but instead think I'm an "okay guy," a "good Catholic" or whatever. Just as the Lord fed the Jews with manna in the desert, he feeds the penitent with grace because their hearts are rightly ordered, they have put first things first, they have laid the cornerstone of humility and built upon it.
Pray for the grace of a penitent heart. It will humble you in the best and most painful ways. And if you are to lift your head before Him, make sure it is Christ in his mercy that is drawing you up, not your own self-justification because you think you've earned a place before Him. There is none good, but One.
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