|
Growing up as a “millennial” and becoming a priest has had its difficulties. One of the hardest things to navigate is how to fit together the way the psychological, self-help world and the Church tell us to think about ourselves.
How do we understand who we are when we hear things like you are the “chief of sinners”, “you are enough”, “struggle against yourself”, and “embrace your imperfection”. We have all this terminology about how to deal with our struggles, mistakes, sins, anxiety, depression, and human weakness. How do we make sense of it all? Can we we be sinful and good? Can we be struggling and holy?
I hope what comes next is a helpful first step in understanding all of this!
It is very clear that we are all very weak. Like dust, we get blown back and forth between pride and insecurity, despondency and overindulgence. We struggle with anxiety and worry. Some of us put on bigger shows than others to mask it, but we are all struggling with who we really are and who we are supposed to be. Which leads to the perfect combination for guilt to enter our lives and paralyze us from real repentance and growth. So how are we to understand and process all of this? How are we supposed to see ourselves and know how God sees us?
The simple answer is we are God’s children - weak, struggling, growing, beloved by Him, who He desires to raise into citizens of His Kingdom.
I think the term “embracing our imperfection” is also a good place to start. It begins by realizing that it is okay to be weak and struggling. This is part of our human story. Where I think the misunderstanding comes is when we believe that “we are enough”. That phrase gets thrown around a lot. I could be interpreting it wrong, but it’s important to know that we are not perfect the way we are. We need to be embraced and nurtured and supported and encompassed in love like a child learning to grow up. And that’s a beautiful thing.
Maybe instead of just turning inward and embracing ourselves, we can also open our arms to God who can then embrace us and bring us to a deep sense of security and unity that only an all powerful God who we call “Father” can do. To be encompassed and embraced is what we really desire and what makes us whole. This is what happens in confession and repentance, in our weakness. It is only in weakness that we unite with God!
Christianity is not achievement. It is surrender! It is then when we can be encompassed by God’s love, the love of the one who gives His life for us in the midst of weakness, betrayal, and human frailty.
One of the first things we ask of God once we are baptized and chrismated is that he preserve us as an “invincible struggler”. You don’t ever see those words put together, but from the very outset of our Church life, that is the reality! We enter the Church to grow, to be changed, and to experience resurrection over and over again until it becomes our reality and eternal joy. We continually stretch out to the wounded open hands of the Saviour, who reaches to us (not to commend our “good job”), but to raise us out of our fallen state!
Maybe instead of “you are enough” we can say “love through the process because God certainly does!” Human beings are good, weak, struggling, children of God who He desires to share eternity with! This life is one of growth, repentance, and the beginning of the unending joy that God is known through his abounding, great, steadfast, and endless mercy and love for mankind!
| 
