Seeking Strength To Continue

It is not uncommon at some stage of life to think that all is loss, and to find fault in every little thing. Anger leads to depression. Anger because of the bad "deal of the cards" we have been dealt. Nothing can console us. Depression results when anger simmers too long. This is both a bad and good time. Bad, because we can easily turn on our closest friends, bad because the emptiness we feel becomes contagious and draws others into a whirlpool of despair. Good, because we are forced to pray from our inmost depths, to beg for the peace we cannot find, to beg for a solution outside ourselves, and thus relinquish our personal independence and sovereignty, and yield in desparation to what AA terms "a higher power", otherwise called God. St. Paul writes to the Philippians of his experience and discovery: "I have learned to get along happily whether I have much or little. I know how to live on almost nothing or with everything. I have learned the secret of living in every situation whether it is with a full stomach or empty, with plenty or little. For I can do everything with the help of Christ who gives me the strength I need." (Phil 4: 11-13). Another more familiar translation reads, "I can do all things in Christ who strengthens me." This attitude of "holy indifference" advocated by St. Ignatius in his Spiritual Exercises provides the key to escaping from the lair if negativism that can paralyze us and prevent us from seeing the glass hal full as opposed to half empty. Full stomach, empty stomach, things going peachy or not, a Church whose wrinkles can discourage, or a Church which is ever being renewed by the Holy Spirit working through its individual members. How else did it survive crises worse than those we face today? We bounce back, the Church bounces back, when we lay aside all false pretenses and turn to Christ as our source of strength. "I can do all things in Christ who strengthens me." Come, Lord, Jesus, make me strong!
Bro. Rene