Aaron Ralston was a vigorous outdoorsman and he loved to climb mountains and go
hiking and explore nature. One day in May of 2003, Ralston was rock climbing in the
Nevada desert and his footing gave way and he fell into a crevice. He
found himself trapped with a large rock having pinned his right arm. He tried to
get free but was unable to and after two days he was convinced that he would die
of exposure. So finally in desperation he took a pocketknife and and he began to
cut off his arm and in spite of the unspeakable pain he completed the task.
Aaron Ralston tied a
tourniquet around his arm and wandered through the desert until he came to a
road and he flagged down a car and months later he would recount his story.
Well in the gospel, Jesus speaking bluntly about cutting off one's hand, one
one's foot, plucking out one's eyes. If these become a hindrance, a block to
salvation,
better to enter life maimed than to enter Gehenna with all your limbs and
members attached. And you can kind of read that gospel through the lens of the
experience of Aaron Ralston. He found himself in mortal danger because his arm
was pinned beneath that rock and so desperate was his situation that he
judged it necessary to sacrifice an essential part of his body to save his
life.
He knew something drastic had to be done and he was willing in spite of the pain
to do it. We can sometimes be in a similar spiritual situation. Our
spiritual life can be in mortal danger, pinned under some sin that without
drastic action will lead us to death.
And
エ shinej me in item 111 might be the 21st century translation of the gospel might
read that if you can't handle the Internet, then pull the plug. Better to
enter heaven without your PC than to spend eternity clutching your Macintosh.
If cable TV is your trouble, cut it out. Better to lose Showtime, Cinemax and HBO
than to be cast into Gehenna clutching your Macintosh. Okay, now that we know how to keep
clutching your dish, like someone once said that insanity is doing the same thing over
and over again and expecting a different result.
In order to change we kind of need that sense of urgency, that sense that I need to perform
a drastic action, I need moral courage to do it.
One theologian, Father Hardin, says that all the creatures in my life are meant to be channels
of grace, but not all, however, are channels of grace in the same way.
But every creature is meant by God to be a source of grace for me.
Our main task is to examine each creature and to find out how God wants me to use this
creature as a channel of grace.
Father Hardin says,
Some creatures are meant to be possessed and enjoyed, like pizza and ice cream.
Others are to be endured, insects or sickness, and still others put there by God are meant
to be removed.
Those things are what the Gospel, I think, is referring to.
Some finally creatures are put that we might, not necessarily under pain of sin, but that
we might surrender them, in other words, sacrifice them for love of God.
St. Josemaria Escriva speaks about that heroic moment when we wake up in the morning, he
calls it the heroic minute, when, he says, our nemesis, the alarm clock, goes off, and
he says we should immediately get out of bed.
We should immediately get out of bed.
We should immediately get out of bed.
We should immediately get out of bed.
We should immediately get out of bed.
We should immediately get out of bed.
Without pushing the snooze button.
Disciplining our bodies in this way, St. Josemaria taught, was the way of imitating St. Michael's
Serviam.
I'm ready to serve.
I will serve.
Rather than Lucifer's, I will not serve.
So that immediate response to grace, to inspiration, was a way that St. Josemaria described imitating,
I'm ready to serve, putting ourselves in the service of God.
St. Josemaria recognized the importance of small mortifications and sacrifices
as soon as you wake up, because if we could say no to sleep, which is good,
we would be better able to say no to that which is sinful
during the day when we are much more alert.
Another Jesuit priest, Father William Doyle,
in his notes, he has an examination of conscience,
his own examination of conscience in his notes,
where he talks of his battle to give up butter.
He calls it his butter tragedy.
He says, at breakfast time, today he won, tomorrow he was beaten.
I didn't take butter, I took butter.
It's a wonderful story.
We all have these battles.
Some are on the grand scale, some are on a lesser scale.
And we are also cautioned against imitating the saints too precisely,
too much in their external actions rather than their spirit.
One spiritual writer says,
the armor of Goliath would hamper David.
We're not all called to imitate the exterior.
We're not all called to imitate the external actions of the saints,
just their interior virtues.
The armor of Goliath would hamper David, okay?
There are many of those who elaborate prescriptions and details and
regulations would only strain and cause worry, okay?
And these can best find the peace of God in a childlike,
thankful acceptance of the gifts that God has given to us without careless indulgence or
self-pity.
And so, I think it's really important for us to understand that God has given us this gift.
And so, I think it's really important for us to understand that God has given us this gift.
And so, I think it's really important for us to understand that God has given us this gift.
We pray for prudence, the grace to know
what things in my life I need to amputate.
We pray for prudence, the grace to know
what things in my life I need to amputate.
And for the moral courage to break with those things.
The moral courage to break away.