Of course, we were made to do this. We were designed so that we'd experience the goodness of created things and through this experience ascend to knowledge of Uncreated Goodness. And then that whole original sin thing happened, and now it's become much more difficult than it ought to be. Rather than submitting to our intellect, the senses and the passions now vie for our attention and try to distract us from God and His Love. We've become disorderly inclined to focus on creation, on the pleasures that surround us.
Because of this disorder in creation, the "world" has traditionally been listed as a source of temptation. Throughout man's history, the culture around him has always provided sources of pleasure that are promised to be the source of true fulfillment (see those famous Egyptian fleshpots). These pleasures have been promoted as ultimate so as to replace God as man's end. Today, through TV and internet, the world makes it very easy for man to become distracted. It makes it so that man can now just sit down and be "entertained" at any time of the day or night and so be distracted from God and those things that truly matter. However, even the higher goods in life, such as providing for a family, can become distractions.
One of the many beauties of Christianity, though, is that we need not be distracted from God for very long. He is always there waiting for us, beckoning us to come closer to Him. At every moment of every day we have the ability to love and serve Him. We can turn our minds away from the distractions and He will run out to us like the father in the story of the prodigal son. All we have to do is turn His direction; or in a word, we must convert.
God, in turn, has given us ways to subdue the senses through acts of penance. By giving up some of the pleasures we are used to, or by turning away from those things that distract us most, we become more able to turn our attention and our heart to love of Jesus. And, providentially, the Church gives us times of the year that are devoted to such efforts. While penances should have a permanent place in our spiritual lives, she gives us the times of Advent and Lent to particularly focus on mortifying our senses so as to turn towards God. This mortification of the senses, though, does not requires us to scourge ourselves or anything of the like. We don't have to go all The Scarlet Letter in order to do penance. Rather, we can simply give up small things. Thirsty at work and want a coke? How about a water instead. Looking for that late night snack of candy? Why not have a simple peace of bread. Don't get me wrong, coke and candy are both goods. But, by giving up these goods, we gain a mastery over the senses that will allow us to turn ourselves more thoroughly to God.
Of course, once we start doing these things, Jesus will pour out his love on us in even greater amounts. St. Therese of Lisieux once compared this process to a small child building a fire with his or her father. In the story, the small child is us, the fire is our love of Jesus, and the father is God. She said that when a child and its father build a fire, it's not uncommon to see the child bring in twigs and very small branches to put in the fire. The child thinks it is helping quite a bit, but of course its twigs are very quickly consumed and don't produce that much heat. However, upon seeing the child bring in twigs, the father, wishing to please the child, heaps large pieces of wood on the fire so that the flames grow large, and the heat is great. He does this out of love for the child, wishing to do more for the child than the child can do for itself.
This Advent, let's gather twigs for the fire.
Great post. Good reminder. Well did!
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