www.byzcath.org Forums Faith & Christian Life Faith & Theology What does all this have to do with faith?

Altar Boy...
I was thinking about you after the Great Canon yesterday...

I sat and listened to the readings about St. Mary of Egypt. This is the first year that I was able to sit thru the entire reading and while I know the basic story, there was something awesome in listening to the entire thing...Later, as I was driving my youngest to school I suddenly thought, if Mary of Egypt thought herself a wretched sinner in need of forgiveness, what hope is there for me. Don't get me wrong, I have hope that God will forgive..I have hope in His Mercy...what I have doubts about is my own humility...how can I ever come close to the humility that woman showed? The only way that I can see is to actually run off to a desert and just stay away from the world...I got the same feelings as you did when I read one of the commentaries of the Ladder, and I stopped reading Imitation of Christ a few pages in, because it just all seemed so impossible for a housewife and mother...

Vie

Blessed Annunciation!
Christ is in our midst!

A few passages of Sacred Scripture come to mind when ever I read pieces like St. John Climacus' "Ladder," which taken together help put ones concerns into perspective.
Matthew 5:48 "Be perfect as your Father in heaven is perfect" Even our Savior has said that ours is a maximillist faith. God isn't going to allow us to be anything less than what He created us to be-in His image which is perfect. In His likeness, a goal which we are journeying toward.
Matthew 7:21 "Not everyone who says to me, 'Lord, Lord, shall enter into the Kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father who is in heaven.'" Faith, or mere assent to our Lord is never enough. We take up the cross and follow Him. His works must be our works.
Matthew 10:34f "Do not think that I have come to bring peace on earth, but a sword...He who loves father, or mother more than me is not worthy of Me; and he who does not take his cross and follow Me is not worthy of me. He who finds his life will lose it and he who loses his life for Me will find it." The demands of the cross are stifling to our sinful nature. That is why St. Paul said that "to the perishing the cross is foolishness."
Yet let us put alongside that, Luke 18-the Publican and the Pharisee. Who entered as the righteous one into the Kingdom? Was it the Pharisee who supposedly kept the maximum? It was the Publican who repented and who humbly approached the will of God with head bowed. Later in Luke 18:26 the disciples themselves discouraged at the maximalist nature of the faith ask, ""Who can be saved?" And what is the key answer, the answer that ties in with this whole thread?

humbly submitted, seraphim innocent

I response to the original post, I really like what FrDeaconEd wrote.

We don't get to heaven by our own merits. We are all miserable sinners -every last one of us - we are born into sin and we pretty much wallow in it our whole lives. We occasionally crawl out of our sinful muck and manage to do noble and good and unselfish things, when we have the good sense to try to walk in the imitation of Christ - but we tend to slip back into the mud pit.

Fortunately for us, He is our light and our hope and our salvation. He died for our sins and He wants us to succeed. He wants us to be with Him in paradise. He tells us so.

Although I love St. Paul's "run so as to win" exhortation from Corinthians (speaks to me - I'm a marathoner), I really go to two other summary lessons from Scripture:

1) We should examine our lives and our sins and sincerely repent for what we do and try to sin no more- like the Publican - and we should make our peace with our brothers before we appear before the Sacrament of the altar;
and
2) We should remember that the Lord has infinite capacity, including infinite capacity to forgive. Jesus forgives the pentitent thief of Luke's Gospel even as he is dying on the Cross - and promises the man paradise. Imagine that -- Paradise to a criminal. I honestly cannot read that passage without crying. (It got me in the Mel, movie, too.) He can look at us, sinful and disobedient things though we are - and look into us and find that one little grain of justice and sincerity and faith that expresses itself - and say - you're coming with Me to Paradise. Wow.

Despite all that, though, how often do we really look to Him and say, "Thy Will [not my will] be done" and mean it??? Probably not as often as we should. But we probably all say "Thy will be done" once, twice, or three times a day almost by rote.

Dear AB

I feel a lot like you, sometimes I feel opressed, overwhelmed by my sins. But I feel the most important part is not to despair and to have faith, if you don't mind I'd like to quote two thoughts of St. Josemar�a Escriva (please excuse me if I make mistakes on the translation, I'm still working on my English):

"Another fall... and what a fall!... To be desperate for it? No; be humble and go through Mary, your Mother, to the Merciful love of Jesus. - A miserere and... RISE AGAIN!, to start all over.

"Your fall is very deep, it goes all the way to the foundations... but from there be humble, God will never reject a repented and humble heart (Cor contritum et humiliatum, Deus, non despicies)

Let's have faith in Our Lord who said "Your sins are forgiven, now go and sin no more".

Bless you all