That’s a rather dreary title, but this is a rather dreary time of year, at least spiritually seen. Outside, though, the wildflowers are making their appearance, the air is fresh with new things breaking the bud, and the earth is coming back to life (at least here in California). Everything is rich and bright and wet and fertile, and life conquers death once again in the annual dress rehearsal for the Paschal Mystery.
But let’s get back to our dreary inner discipline. I only use that title since it is the one given for the day’s reflection in the Newman anthology I’ve been reading. The passage I’m going to quote from is taken from his Parochial and Plain Sermons. Newman seems to be a rather no-nonsense fellow, quite practical yet a deep thinker as well. He’s something of a bane to people like me, since he cuts through all the excuses we have for not taking up our crosses and simply tells us what is good for us and what is not. So here’s a little reflection from him that is suitable for Lent because it helps shake us out of our indolent self-indulgence and encourages a mature “inner discipline” that is necessary for the long haul of Christian life.
“Our Saviour gives us a pattern which we are bound to follow… condemning the display of strictness or gloominess so that we, His followers, might fast the more in private, and be the more austere in our secret hearts. True it is, that such self-command, composure and inward faith, are not learned in a day; but if they were, why should this life be given us? It is given us as a very preparation-time for obtaining them… There is a bravery in thus going straightforward, shrinking from no duty little or great, passing from high to low, from pleasure to pain, and making your principles strong without their becoming formal.
“Learn to be as the Angel, who could descend among the miseries of Bethesda, without losing his heavenly purity or his perfect happiness. Gain healing from troubled waters. Make up your mind to the prospect of sustaining a certain measure of pain and trouble in your passage through life; by the blessing of God this will prepare you for it—it will make you thoughtful and resigned without interfering with your cheerfulness. It will connect you in your own thoughts with the Saints of Scripture, whose lot it was to be patterns of patient endurance; and this association brings to the mind a peculiar consolation.”
A peculiar consolation indeed—but one that is peculiarly Christian. No one wants to endure pain and trouble, but everyone has to. The problem is that most people try to avoid it as much as possible and not even think about it when it’s not actually in their faces. The end result of this is that when it does inevitably come it seems an irksome intrusion, an untimely hardship, an unwelcome problem dropped on us unfairly and without warning. But the good Cardinal encourages us to make up our mind beforehand to expect these very things, and to accept them, and to endure them patiently as the saints did. This inward composure, discipline, and indeed bravery (as he said) will predispose us to “gain healing from troubled waters.” Trials endured in this way are supposed to sober us without “interfering with [our] cheerfulness.” That’s quite a tall order, but if one is conscious of the presence of the Lord dwelling within, one will be capable of that principled, straightforward advance through life, and not without joy. As for me, trials don’t interfere at all with my cheerfulness, because I don’t have any cheerfulness to begin with! But somehow I don’t think that aligns me with the saints.
I expect better things from you, however. This Lent is a good time to make up your mind to “sustain a certain measure of pain and trouble” for Jesus’ sake and to increase your own capacity for patient endurance, which is a quality that will come in handy on many an occasion. The labors of fasting and penance, not to mention all that life throws at us without checking with us first, can be wearisome and heavy, so we need to be armed beforehand with a resolution to expect it and endure it with the grace of God.
In another sermon, Newman spells out the weariness the “natural man” experiences when he tries to put the Gospel into practice in daily life over the long haul. “It is very wearisome, and very monotonous, to go on day after day watching all we do and think, detecting our secret failings, denying ourselves, creating within us under God’s grace those parts of the Christian character in which we are deficient; wearisome to learn modesty, love of insignificance, willingness to be thought little of… readiness to confess when we are wrong; to learn to have no cares for this world… but to be resigned and contented.”
The selection just ends there, leaving us wishing he had something to say about dealing with that weariness. Articulating the problem is usually not difficult, but discovering an effective solution usually is. But the last word, “contented,” leads me to St Paul’s saying that he would be content with hardships, persecutions, and calamities, because the Lord had just told him that divine grace was sufficient for him. The message we’re supposed to hear: it’s sufficient for us, too.
