Dear Friends,
First: God loves us as we are, He doesn’t love us for our achievements and He doesn’t love us for our successes, He loves us because He has chosen to adopt us, each of us as His children, and that’s that. His love is unconditional.
Second: We are sure that out of our weaknesses, our limitations, and even our sins, God, in His astonishing wisdom, can draw some good. In His great love for us, He doesn’t leave us where we are. He calls us to be perfected, He calls us to be holy, He calls us to repent and believe in the Gospel. To know and live these two facts attracts God’s grace very powerfully!
I have a story about a woman who forgot these two facts for a time. St. Mary of Edessa was born in 4th century Syria. Her parents died when she was only 7, but she was adopted by her uncle, St. Abraham Kiduania, and from the age of 7 she began to live a remarkably holy life.
For 20 years, Mary lived as a hermit; following the advice of her hermit-uncle she sought a life of deep prayer and sacrifice. One day a monk caught sight of Mary as he was visiting Fr. Abraham. He was not a good monk. And he made it his goal to steal Mary away from her life of prayer. He spent a year befriending her becoming more and more friendly and familiar with her. Eventually Mary gave in, and afterward she was horrified at what she’d done. She was ashamed and hid from her uncle, the one who loved her, “How can I even try to speak with my holy uncle?” She asked herself. “Seeing that I am already dead and have no hope of gaining salvation. I’d better leave here and go to some foreign land where nobody knows me.” And so, she left. She ran from the only way of life she knew. She ran from her uncle, and she ran from God.
Mary of Edessa is one who should have known better. After falling she should have remembered the infinite mercy of God and plunge herself into it. To be a Christian, is to know that we are deeply loved by a God who sees us in all our sin and loves us anyway. After falling Mary had only to turn to the Lord and ask for forgiveness; instead, she gave into despair. Her despair convinced her that having fallen once, she could never again be holy. So, Mary ran away from her home and took up residence in and began working in a house of ill-repute.
Meanwhile, Fr. Abraham was oblivious to all that had happened. But that night he had a vision of a dragon consuming a dove; two days later, in another vision he saw the same dragon with its belly torn open. He reached in to pull out the dove, miraculously unharmed. When he called out to his niece to tell her about it but received no answer, Abraham realized that she was the subject of the vision. She was the dove; the daughter of his soul was gone and all he could do in her absence was to pray for her.
He prayed for two years before a report reached him that his Mary was living and working in a brothel. Fr. Abraham: like the Good Shepherd, was off without a moment’s hesitation, eager to bring his lost lamb home.
Abraham hadn’t left his hermitage in decades, but he disguised himself as a soldier and began his journey. He made an appointment with Mary, who didn’t recognize him until he began to weep, begging her to come home. Moved by his powerful love, Mary returned to her hermitage and began again a life of prayer. Within three years, God testified to her true conversion by giving her the gift of miracles. Through her prayers to God there were many miracles. More than just being returned to her original state of holiness, Mary was brought through wickedness to greater prayer, greater virtue, and greater power in Christ. In His great charity God never leaves us where we are at. He’s always drawing us onward and upward. “Come after me,” he continually says to us.
While he spoke to Mary in her brothel, St. Abraham reminded her, “There is nothing new in falling down in the contest; the wicked thing is to keep on lying there.” St. Mary of Edessa is a powerful witness to what God is capable of when we offer him ourselves and our sin—and what we’re capable of when we don’t.
Fr. Jean Delbee, a French Spiritual author, once wrote, “Even a fall strengthens us if we repent of it, since Jesus brings good out of evil. Go to Him as to a fountain of living water, as many times as necessary, picking yourself up each time more humble and each time more overflowing with confident love. If you make each sin an occasion for you to kiss the wound of His Heart with repentance and confidence, each sin will become a rung in the ladder by which you ascend in charity. From misery to misery, we go from mercy to mercy.”
Remember you are little, little ones are not surprised when they fall, and when they fall they get right back up again, they keep trying and they keep trusting, trusting they will become the saint our Lord calls them to become.
Two things.
First: God loves us as we are, He doesn’t love us for our achievements and He doesn’t love us for our successes, He loves us because He has chosen to adopt us, each of us as His children, and that’s that. His love is unconditional.
Second: We are sure that out of our weaknesses, our limitations, and even our sins, God, in His astonishing wisdom, can draw some good. In His great love for us, He doesn’t leave us where we are. He calls us to be perfected, He calls us to be holy, He calls us to repent and to believe in the Gospel. Over and over as long as it takes.
To know and live these two facts attracts God’s grace very powerfully!
Let us be great Saints,
Fr. Christopher J. Ankley