Saturday, October 23, 2010

The Terrible Grace of the Almighty

(This is something I just wrote, after I found myself saved from a sin by the grace of God, now I'm home alone, and clinging to my crucifix. Grace hurts sometimes)




I finished half of my essay, I'd accomplished my goal for the day.
It was my time to relax. The rosary hung around my neck,
and I had kissed the image of Christ like a lover, begging
for help all through the night. I had finished now.
I didn't need him anymore. The God turned idol still hung
upon me as I paced towards my den of sin. I looked at the
places where after long strife, I indulged in the pleasures
of the flesh.

Disgust.

What had happened? Never in my life, had I truly seen what
I did. Never before had I realized that my pleasure palace
was actually a landfill, a mass grave, a wasteland.

I looked back to my saviour. This is what I had asked for,
so many prayers, so many times, a defeat and hatred of sin.

Never before had Lucifer called my bluff, never before had
he failed to answer my dark prayers, seeking always the
disordered joys of lust, gluttony, and selfishness. I felt
for the first time, truly alone. The devils door was locked
and I shakily turned around to see the giant crucifix looking
down upon me. A sinner, caught, saved from his sin. An act
of grace that left me feeling only the emptiness, the loneliness.

Is this perfect contrition? To truly see what you've done, and
utterly abhor it? To take no pleasure in the taboo places where
you used to wander. Perhaps I have finally understood, that
when Christ speaks of the poor in spirit, he meant me. Perhaps
while I felt all of my 'white guilt', my shame at the richness
around me, I was in actuality the poorest of men. Most
embarrassing to think that all this time, I looked down on my
superiors.

So here I am, at 7:13 on a Saturday night. My work for the day
finished. My God hanging from the tree, and looking down upon
my sin-sick soul. In his mercy, he has shown me how empty all
my vanity has been. The question now remains: do I have the
strength to face the overwhelming grace of God. Can I pass this
night realizing that at long last, it is I and Thou, it is Jesus
and Andrew Peter Edmund Campion C-ttrill. There is just the two
of us, me - caught in the act, christ - catching me with his grace.

So here we sit. the rosary hanging from my neck. Grandpa's bible
on the night stand. An empty bag of chips, a photoshopped woman on
the screen who holds no appeal to me. The filthy pagan relics of a
life now spurned. And then there is Christ, always Him, looking
down with the saddest eyes, all the problems of the world, stirring.
There is the Virgin, hanging with her eyes upon her son. Me, her
newest gift, hardly a son at all to be given. A rebel, who must lay
down his arms.

Iesu Christe! miserere mei peccatoris! For truly no pauper you visited
in your sojourn here, was ever as poor as I am in spirit, no man so
sinful as I. No man who ever needed you more, and esteemed you less.

Wilde said, every Saint has a past, every sinner has a future.

As the tears stream, I pray this is the end of my past, and tonight
is the first night of my future.

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.

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