The Painful Truth

Spring 1979,India

"The readings in the Breviary for today speak so clearly to me and to my gathering to myself what belongs to God! 1Cor. 4:1-16 says, 'Name something that you have that you have not received?'   I have no answer for that. God let me see some of the virulence of my sin, its general buildup over the years until, starting in Theology, it swelled to pride and vanity of great proportions. In embarrassment and sadness, I understood that every ability I have is freely given to me but I've siphoned off much profit to myself over the years....I had to admit to making some people around me feel demeaned and inferior (from my family to my fellow Jesuits to the people God has sent me to 'serve') and the smiling way I manipulated their praise as I lapped it up....

"For the first time I realized how it may be dangerous for my soul to get a PhD if it encourages more of this false pride. I can easily see how, after sharing in the intimacy and thrill of helping God create the Universe, some angels around Lucifer began to balk as God created man and took such delight in him. They were envious just as the Elder Brother in the Prodigal Son Parable was envious...The rebels recoiled at serving these puny creatures because they'd come to believe that the power they had came from themselves and their own worthiness and abilities...They became attached to their Separateness from God and from His creation and they like the taste of it. The result was 'Non serviam!'

"Through the grace of this moment, I'm able to see in myself this well-hidden desire for 'separateness' from who God created me to be and from who God created me to serve. The painful truth is that I like to be a bit above the others. I like to secretly preen and set myself apart, to be seen with the well-off, the well-thought of, as opposed to the poor and needy....Yet during my prayer I marveled at how God kept accepting me and working with me as though nothing were wrong. And I wondered how much has my perseverance and effectiveness in ministry been dependent on the hidden prayers of the hidden pray-ers in my life who never receive so much as a thank you from me...I fasted from breakfast yesterday until breakfast today. What have I done, dear Lord, what have I done?"