A Sinner's Meditation
Please forgive the very personal nature of the next piece. If you do not care to meet a sinner, do not read it. If you will pay the admission price (one prayer, brief or long, for strength and salvation for this broken one), then I invite you in and hope that it will in some way edify.
I sit in the quietness of the Church reflecting on the horror of the day, my sinfulness, my selfishness, my lack of direction, my lack of will. I surrender to every base impulse, I give myself over to the things that will destroy me--things that will eat away at me until there is nothing of me left. I do not have to serve these urges--my life is not slavery to sin. But I stray, even slightly, in the routine of prayer and I am utterly lost and swept away on tides of passion. I must mortify the flesh and seek wholeness through union. I must worship the Lord and seek diligently not to vex Him. My love is an empty and rotten shell of what human love can and should be. It is the roasted husk of lust, charred and brittle, unable to hold the life-giving water that flows from the Lord.I fail Him and choose to press the crown of thorns down upon His brow. My passion washes away the efficacy of His own as I choose the jeering of the crowd even over the relatively light task of Simon the Cyrene. And I say in essence, "What a fool You were to die for the likes of me. I certainly would not return the favor."
Can this unregenerate man ever see with heaven's eyes, or is he utterly lost in the labyrinth of self and lies? I cannot know Him if I do not try, if I will not face the blood I have drawn, and which marks the price paid for me. That face, the open door to God, is framed now, doorposts and lintel with the precious blood of the lamb who was slain because of me, and by the power of that blood, the Angel of Death is warned away, and Satan and all of his minions cannot enter through the door. When that curtain was drawn over the sacred face, the thought in His mind and the words on His lips were for me, personally, substantially, intimately. He offered me a clean heart and pure blood that would move the way He moves, and sing in the music of life the mystery He has seen fit to share with me. Thank you O Lord.
