Our “enemies”. Everything that we resist becomes an “enemy,” as does everything we fear, because fear is a certain form of resistance.
We fear and resist a variety of enemies; for example, sickness, failure, loss of prestige… and included in this are those persons who take part in these “enemies.” As a consequence, we may find ourselves always gloomy, fearful, suspicious, aggressive… We feel surrounded by enemies because everything we resist has been labelled “enemy.” Basically, this situation means that the individual is full of attachments and possessions. Now then, in order to enter deeply into God’s presence, we have to be poor and pure.
Emotional resistance, by its very nature, has as its end the elimination of these “enemies,” once the emotion has been acknowledged. There are realities that, when resisted strategically, are partially or totally neutralized; for example, sickness or ignorance.
Nevertheless, the majority of things that we do not like ó and so resist ó do not have a solution; by their nature, they are indestructible. It is what, in common language, we call an impossibility, or fact of life, against which we can do nothing.
If some evils have solutions and others do not, two paths lie before us: that of folly and that of wisdom.
It is foolish to mentally resist realities that, by their nature, are unalterable. With a clear head, we see that a great many of those things that disgust, sadden, or shame us have absolutely no solution whatsoever, or the solution is not within our reach. Why fight it? No one can do anything now so that what happened before might not have occurred at all.
Wisdom consists in discerning what one can change from what one cannot change, putting into action the steps necessary for changing whatever can be changed, and when confronted with insurmountable barriers, surrendering oneself, in faith and peace, into the hands of the Lord.
Experience of freely given love. No one likes to fail or fall from the pedestal of his popularity. No one likes the feeling of being forsaken, of being the subject of rumors or the victim of misunderstanding.
But these and other eventualities may be accepted with peace and a sense of unbounded love, like someone who surrenders into the hands of the Father as a painful yet pleasing sacrifice…
It is a pure love because there is no return of tangible satisfaction. Furthermore, it is a pure love because it is the product of blind faith. Beyond the visible signs of injustice, we look for the will of the Father, who allows this test.
Faced by such a negative thing, instead of violence, we can adopt an attitude of peace, if we opt for the way of offering. In the presence of a painful and inevitable situation, we feel at one with the Father, freely loved by Him; a feeling arises somewhere between thankfulness and admiration for that Father of love; interior violence is calmed; the child takes the painful situation in hand; we deliver it and ourselves to the will of the Father; and resistance is transformed into a desire of pure love, into an offering. This oblation does not produce emotion but peace. This is the experience of freely given love.
Surrender. This word and its meaning are couched in ambiguities. Wherever this word is spoken, it unleashes a wide range of mistaken impressions among those who hear it: to some, it speaks of passivity; to others, it suggests resignation. Resignation was never Christian but Stoic; as a result, a resigned attitude is close to pagan fatalism. What is specifically evangelical is surrender.
In every act of surrender there is a yes and a no. No to that which I wanted or had wanted ó revenge against those who had a part in this mess, shame for being myself, resentment because everything turns out badly for me, or because I wish it had never happened. Yes to that which You, in reality, wanted or permitted, O Father.
If we surrender into the Father’s hands, peacefully accepting
those realities we cannot alter, anxiety dies and the peacefulness
of a calm afternoon is born.
Extracted from the book “Sensing your hidden presence” by fr Ignacio Larranaga, OFM
