Indifference

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In God's Time

Humility and Obedience

In my father's house, there are many rooms.

Be holy like your Father is holy.

I've heard a priest say in one of his sermons that we wouldn't hesitate to ask God to help us to be good but we do hesitate to ask God to make us holy. After all, we associate holiness with a complete rejection of worldly pleasures.

• Holiness is associated with poverty, depriving ourselves of material pleasures, abandoning all our possessions and giving them to the poor.

• Holiness is associated with chastity, abandoning all our sensual desires.

• Holiness is associated with obedience, giving up all our ambitions and entering religious life or doing social work and dying for the sake of the faith.

We want to do just enough to get us to heaven, holiness we'll leave to the saints.

If we use the language of the Principle and Foundation, our concept of holiness would lead us to think

• that we should choose sickness over health.

• that we should choose poverty over wealth.

• that we should choose failure over success.

• that we should choose a short life over a long one.

But if we read the language of the Principle and Foundation carefully, this is not the case. If current conventions regarding holiness seem to suggest that we should choose sickness, poverty, failure, a short life and everything else that is despicable and goes against our human yearnings then it may be worth emphasizing that the text says

• that we should not fix our desires on health or sickness.

• that we should not fix our desires on poverty or wealth.

• that we should not fix our desires on failure over success.

• that we should not fix our desires on a short life over a long one.

We could expand that list further and it will lead to more unconventional routes to holiness:

• We must not fix our desires on prominence or obscurity.

• We must not fix our desires on beauty versus physical blandness.

• We must not fix our desires on comfort versus discomfort.

We may shy away from prominence for fear of being called ambitious. But for some, prominence may be the burden they are asked to carry. We may shy away from dressing up nicely for fear of being called vain but for some to be effective in God's service, dressing up may be necessary. We may feel guilty about living a life of comfort but the task we may be called to do may lead to comfort.

The basis for our choices then should not be a preconceived notion of what we consider to be holy but the specific call of God for us at a particular point in time.

This form of indifference before all of God's gifts should not, however, lead us to aloofness. We are not indifferent toward the goal of our life: "to live with God forever". We are not indifferent about wanting God to deepen his life in each of us. These are the objects of our action and continued discernment. These are the passions upon which we consciously dedicate our lives.

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The First Principle and Foundation

St. Ignatius

as paraphrased by David l. Fleming, S.J.

from the beginning of the Spiritual Exercises.

The goal of our life is to live with God forever.
God who loves us, gave us life.
Our own response of love allows God's life to flow into us without limit.

All the things in this world are gifts from God,
presented to us so that we can know God more easily
and make a return of love more readily.
 

Our only desire and our one choice
should be this:
I want and I choose what better
leads to the
deepening of God's life in me.

 

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