YOUR INNER BEING
06/25/2017
YOUR INNER BEING
Fr. Al Demos, June 18, 2017
Human beings are wondrously fascinating! As a priest for nearly fifty years, well over three thousand souls have given me the privilege and honor to be allowed to enter into their innermost thoughts and secrets. The majority of the time these precious souls opened their hearts to reveal their deepest pains, fears and sorrows. It was usually after closure and healing that they could also display their hopes, desires ambitions, beliefs and expectations.
In the early Church there were two forms of confession. The first was before the priest alone, in that he represented the entire community. The second was openly expressed before the entire congregation, somewhat like witnessing in the Protestant Faith, except this was an in-depth revelation of one’s sins before all the other members of the church. The community could empathize and offer a huge non-judgmental support group to assist the person through their tribulations. Throughout the centuries, however, the first form proved to be far more effective for the individual, and less scandalous to judgmental, nominal Christians.
Whenever these precious souls allow me to be entrusted in witnessing their sacred confession to Almighty God, they touch and enfold my heart with their own. They become my ‘spiritual children’ who I pray will become continually enlightened and eventually healed by the power of the Holy Spirit.
Let’s take you for example. No one knows your true, innermost thoughts and feelings. You alone (with God) know what you have lived through in your life experiences in times of tribulation. Even if you try to express your innermost feelings, no one else, except for God, can know or understand completely what misfortunes and sufferings your heart and soul experience so deeply within you.
All see your outward appearance, while only you can feel your inward concerns, pain and distress. Yes, you believe that God loves you, but that doesn’t lessen the pain. Why do you feel this way; what did you ever do to deserve this anguish; why is it happening to you? Why are you going through this unbearable tribulation?
Please, take a moment to think carefully about the crucifixion of our Lord Jesus Christ. Then tell me, what did He ever do to deserve that? Why did that happen to Him?
I know one thing. God loves you more than you know how to love! God knows your anguish and pain more thoroughly than you do. And whereas we think in terms of years, and decades, God sees the entire expansive picture of the vastness of eternity.
A dear friend of mine suffers tremendously from Lou Gehrig’s disease. She is undoubtedly one of the kindest, sweetest, most devout Christians I have ever met. Totally non-judgmental, she sees every person as a precious child of God. Her life is a life of giving, service, worship and prayer. When asked by a family member why she was going through this suffering, the only answer I could imagine was that God wanted to make her even more perfect! Her example reminds me of the final sentence in Bishop Ware’s book on the Orthodox Church that those who are hurting… “constitute a living testimony to the value of suffering in the Christian life!” As tilling the soil cultivates the land, so suffering cultivates the human soul.
Yes, you see yourself as no one else can see you; while God sees each one of us as a unique and special child, whom He loves singularly and immeasurably. And I, as a man and as a priest, I see each person as a magnificently beautiful creation of the Almighty Creator! Unfortunately, some circumstances have left some people’s lives twisted and distorted. Most, however, when you see beyond the ‘veil’, are precious and beautiful. Every human story is absolutely fascinating!
That is why every person who loves and cares beyond themselves experiences some form of problems in life; whether their own or that of others; and whether to a lesser or a greater degree, every single problem is important to the person experiencing it. No one wants to suffer. No one asks to suffer. But when we do, as Christians, we are asked to endure, to persevere in our Faith in Almighty God, by having confidence in God’s Will in our life, knowing that somehow, in some way, this tribulation, this suffering, will cultivate our spiritual life in a way we cannot and do not completely understand now. It may take some time, even a lifetime, to understand fully…maybe not even until we enter the kingdom of God!
I don’t have all the answers, not even some of the answers. But I firmly believe that God has all the answers! I only know that our one choice, as Christians, is to patiently endure in our struggles, doing our best to live according to God’s Divine Will; knowing that therein is all wisdom and reason for all things, even for our suffering.
Perhaps it can be best stated in my favorite prayer that I have lived by for over 57 years:
PRAYER FOR THE ACCEPTANCE OF THE WILL OF GOD
O Lord, I know no what to ask of Thee.
Thou alone knowest what are my true needs.
Thou lovest me more than I myself know how to love.
Help me to see my real needs, which are concealed from me.
I dare not ask for either a cross or a consolation.
I can only wait on Thee.
My heart is open to Thee.
Visit and help me for Thy great mercy's sake.
Strike me and heal me.
Cast me down and raise me up.
I worship in silence Thy all-holy will and Thine inscrutable ways.
I offer myself as a sacrifice to Thee.
I have no other desire than to fulfill Thy will.
Teach me how to pray.
Pray Thou Thyself in me. Amen.
May God bless, comfort, heal and inspire your most precious and sacred “inner being”!!!