Spiritual Mittens

Summer is slowly starting to fade away. Soon it will get cooler and then fall and winter will descend upon us. "It is always winter in New England" is a saying of mine. Summer is too short. Hallmark puts out its Christmas products in July. Winter clothes start coming into the stores in late July too. We are always in a state of focusing on the future and the future is always cold in New England. It is cold in so many souls as well, regardless of the time of year.

It is a challenge to keep the warmth of Christ as our focus isn't it? So many things come against us. We are living in times that are perilous for the soul. We are under attack in so many ways and sometimes it is a struggle to live up to the name of Christian. Thank God for the Sacrament of Reconciliation.

How can we ever merit Heaven? We can't, at least not on our own. We so desperately need God's grace to intervene, to save us. Hence, He sent Jesus to live, suffer, die, and rise for us. Even 2000 some odd years hence, we still struggle with accepting that. The early followers of Jesus were experiencing who Jesus was/is as it went along. But we have hindsight on our side. We have all the facts, the full story, and yet, we are mini-Thomases, demanding proof even though proof has already been provided.

We need God's mercy or we will surely perish into the fiery pit. Lucky for us, God wants to send us His mercy. But we are so stupid that we don't even ask Him for it. He holds out his mercy and grace to us and we don't even see it. We don't acknowledge it. Worse yet, we turn our backs and walk away from it. Why?

Why are we afraid to ask for, to beg for, God's mercy and grace? He is our loving God and we should feel comfortable going right to Him and asking Him for it as a child would run up to a parent in the super market with a package of gum and relentlessly say to their parent " Buy this for me....please?".

Yet, so much more is at stake than a package of gum and yet we don't ask. We don't even think about asking. Many of us are not even aware that there is "gum" to be had. Why?

That is something to think about, isn't it? God gives us SO MUCH and yet we reject it on a daily basis. It is always winter in New England, and it is always winter in our souls. Our souls have an innate desire for summer and yet we get stuck in winter. Why? What are we afraid of?

I will tell you what we are afraid of. We are afraid of letting go of who we are and everything we have in order to surrender to the one Truth of Jesus and who He is. It is easier, albeit colder, to cling to what we do know in this sensuous world. We would rather stay in the mire that we do know, than take a step out of the boat into the raging waters and trust Jesus. We are afraid that we will lose too much of ourselves, our own power, our American individuality, or our sense of control over our lives.

Well....that is true. When we surrender totally to Jesus we take the risk of losing all of that and probably other things that we aren't even aware of. But see....that is the clincher....if we lose our life for Christ, it is then , and only then, that we will find it. We want to hold onto a fistfull of dimes when Jesus wants to give us a billion dollars ! And just because we don't see the billion dollars, we choose the dimes.

It is all about fear, and fear is not of God. I know that first hand because I've struggled with fear practically my entire life. Sometimes it has almost crippled me, but other times I have had the courage given by the Holy Spirit, to rise and walk through the fear. Sure, I've trembled and almost wet my pants (example only!), but with the grace of God I made it through.

Fear is a horrible, horrible thing to experience. (That is one reason why I'll never understand why people like horror movies....why should I pay money to feel fear? That makes no sense to me. Anyway, I digress....) I think humanity will always have to deal with fear because fear is of that little weasel in the fiery furnance and he will chase us and try to ruin us until we enter the pearly gates.

So, we have to fight fear. We have to fight the winters of our souls. We have to plead for God's mercy and grace. We have to pray, pray, pray, pray. We have to surrender and ask Jesus, the saints, and angels to help us. We have to ask Mary to bring us to her Son.

Only by doing such things and focusing on our goal: to be with Jesus in Heaven forever, will we have the courage to weather all the winters of New England and all the winters of our souls.

Jesus is the only one who can give us our "spiritual mittens" anyway. I don't know about you, but I'm getting on my knees and asking for the mittens because it is only going to get colder, and quite soon too, and I'm gonna need my Jesus mittens.