The Unmasking of Self-love

 

Young Nun at Prayer by Sergio Gribkov

What is self-love but a strong or subtle preference for self over God and others, right? When we consider it, all sin has self-love as its root. One of the reasons for the passive nights of sense and spirit is the putting to death (or the purification) of the self-love that pervades many of our thoughts and acts. Without these passive purifications, there is no union with God. We think we do things for God alone but when God unmasks our true motivations, we find that self-love is secretly at work in us. Even the road to "perfection" is tainted with this love of self. It's difficult when God brings this to light and we may find that we become filled with disgust for ourselves, but this disgust is also a hidden mark of self-love. However, better a hearty distrust and disgust at the crafty workings of self-love than not recognizing that it is at work in us at all. 

St. John of the Cross unmasks this secret preference for one's self in The Dark Night of the Soul. In both the night of sense and the night of the spirit, God slowly reveals to us these sly manifestations of self-love. And I use the word "sly" because they often fool us in their subtlety. We may think we are doing things for the love of God alone, only to be shocked when God reveals that often vainglory is the driver. We prefer to be seen by others as "good" rather than the sinners that we really are. We have a secret preoccupation with ourselves, whether it's our sufferings, our needs and wants, or even our "spiritual perfection". To prove this secret preference for self, we can ask ourselves a simple question: If God chose to bring us to holiness through the path of ignominy instead of as an "upright, holy example" to others, would it disappoint us? Many of us would probably say yes. And yet, to save us, Jesus suffered the painful humiliation of the Cross, was despised and spat upon, mocked, and even his clothes were divided among his persecutors. The ways of the world are not God's ways.  

One of the more secret manifestations of self-love comes through our spiritual pride. The letters of Archbishop Francois Fenelon contain piercing insights into the nature of this self-love and the need for its crucifixion: "There is something very hidden and very deceptive in your suffering. For while you seem to yourself to be wholly occupied with the glory of God, in your inmost soul it is self alone that is the cause of all your trouble. You are, indeed, desirous that God would be glorified. However, you want Him to be glorified by means of your perfection. In reality, you cherish the sentiments of self-love. It is simply a refined pretext for dwelling on self." 

It is predominantly during the dark night of the senses, and later, during the dark night of the spirit, that these more "refined pretexts" are exposed and this exposure often causes us great suffering when it really should not surprise us at all, if we take St. John and numerous other saints at their word. They have stated these truths over and over and it is merely wishful thinking on our part to believe that we  are not affected by spiritual pride, vanity, spiritual gluttony, and the like. Think of our love for consolations and our preference for them over aridity, for example. Think of our focus on the flowery and exciting aspects of the mystical life rather than the heart of it, which is the painful death of self-love and growth in true holiness and the love of God. Self-love does not die easily and usually moans and groans every step of the way. It's one of the reasons why we suffer from desolation so much. What is desolation anyway but the dying of self-love in us? The humble deal with periods of desolation much more easily than the proud. Unfortunately, I am one of the proud, and have had a hard time accepting this sword that slices "even between soul and spirit, joints and marrow" as it discerns "reflections and thoughts of the heart". I come up short more often than not. 

If there is any true consolation underlining all our sufferings on this path to holiness it is this: the understanding that God is the source of all goodness and that this "perfection" is His perfection and ours is but a share in the holiness that is innate to His very nature. It is this understanding of God's perfect love that allows us to willingly abandon ourselves into His hands, trusting in His goodness rather than listening to the constant clamoring of self-love that insists that holiness is our doing. When we begin to grasp this, it becomes easier and easier to trust in the wisdom of God rather than the musings of  the self-love that lead us astray and away from the cross. 

 You cannot escape it, wherever you run. For wherever you go you carry yourself with you, and will always find yourself. Turn upwards or turn downwards, turn inwards or turn outwards: everywhere you will find the cross.                      Thomas A Kempis

Veer Right Off of Ego Central, then Go Straight on Aridity Ave

 Alone and not a drop to drink. The dry, barren desert road of self-love.
(You're kidding, right? RIGHT? This is the CURE?!)

If  Pride is considered the "mother of all sins", it's time to introduce you to a sibling of hers: Self-love. Pride and self-love, are the prime movers of the deadly sins, along with fear. But the reason we have fear is because of pride and self-love.

I mean, let's face it, the ego serves itself. Sometimes we THINK we are doing things for the Lord only to find out later that it was simply a secret supply line to the ego.

And the hard thing is that all these "secret supply lines" that feed self-love have to be cut off. This includes our attachments to spiritual consolations and even our secret attachment to "doing good" if we have it (and which we may not be aware of) - many of these things secretly feed our ego, our pride, and so must be stripped from us for our own good. It's a very painful process but one that helps us direct our hearts to our true end.

Which is God.

Think of it as a purification of our intentions. Of our secret motives. Motives that we aren't even aware of. A purification that will eventually give us that perfect purity of heart which allows us to see God.

You just can't bear good fruit with the water of your own self-love. No, in order to bear good fruit our own water lines must be shut down completely so that the heavenly water lines may open.

The shutting down of our secret supply lines, the ones hidden below the surface, takes a long time. The greater the self-love, the more intense the process will be. Thus we suffer from a great and terrible aridity during these times. There is no longer attraction to the things of the world, nor is there much to things of the spirit when pride and self-love are being stripped from the soul. This isn't even something we can do ourselves because the root of it is beyond our ability to access.

It's like being caught betwixt and between. Our hearts feel like a barren wasteland. No joy in earthly things and nothing but fizzle instead of sizzle when it comes to heavenly things.

Yes, think "desert". A long dry season but one that has a purpose - to bring you out of Egypt and into the Promised Land.

(Ooops... I almost wrote "dessert". You know, one of those Lenten Freudian slips. It's a "chocolate" thing in my case.)

At the beginning of the spiritual life we can do a great deal to help shut down the supply lines feeding self-love but eventually you get to a point where your own power is insufficient (and really just gets in the way) and you must rely on God to do the work in your soul.

Though it does seem as if God took a vacation without you and forgot to tell you when he'll be back.

Humility is THE virtue to pray for as we undergo this stripping. The more I learn about humility, the more I realize the importance of praying for it daily.

Without it, we can't make progress spiritually.

Without it, we can't bear fruit.

Without it, we cannot bear our time in the desert and tend to return to the slavery of "Egypt" (read - "slavery to the world").

Perish the thought.

The plus side of the desert is that it's where we become aware of just how strong our attachment is to self and where God weans us from this attachment.

There is a direct correlation between our ability to surrender to God and our humility. Because, in order to surrender to God we need to let go of self.

You can't cling to God if your hands are too busy hugging yourself.


Accordingly, two cities have been formed by two loves: the earthly by the love of self, even to the contempt of God; the heavenly by the love of God, even to the contempt of self. The former, in a word, glories in itself, the latter in the Lord. For the one seeks glory from men; but the greatest glory of the other is God, the witness of conscience. The one lifts up its head in its own glory; the other says to its God, You are my glory, and the lifter up of mine head. In the one, the princes and the nations it subdues are ruled by the love of ruling; in the other, the princes and the subjects serve one another in love, the latter obeying, while the former take thought for all. The one delights in its own strength, represented in the persons of its rulers; the other says to its God, I will love You, O Lord, my strength.       St. Augustine, The City of God        (The bold is mine)

Your Biggest Cross

Nothing like being caught between a rock and a hard place...of self.

From my archives:


Rumor has it that a newspaper once sent out an inquiry to famous authors, asking the question, What’s wrong with the world today? And Chesterton responded simply:

“Dear Sir,

I am.

Yours, G.K. Chesterton.”



This story about G.K. Chesterton is not substantiated but I sure wish it were true. Why do I wish this?

Because sooner or later every person stumbles upon one of the great truths of life. And "stumbles upon" is the right phrase because this truth sure feels like a huge stumbling block.  God knows this truth, the saints knew it, the souls in Purgatory definitely know it. We may know it as well, but our pride resists it. This truth is:

We are our own heaviest crosses.

There, I said it.

And it's true for all of us.

When I first came upon this realization I thought it was only me. That I, myself, was my own heaviest cross and that this didn't apply straight across the board.

But it does. It applies to all of us. When you read the lives of the saints you see that every single one of them came to this conclusion about themselves. It's a common thread that runs through their writings and one we should take note of.

Those who say, "But my husband (insert person or circumstance of choice here) is my heaviest cross!"

Nope. Not true. You are your heaviest cross. This is a truth about ourselves that we tend to resist in an extraordinary way because pride has taken root in our hearts and we don't want to believe that one of our biggest problems just might be ourselves.

When we believe that others are our "heavy crosses" it may be one of the strongest signs that a virtue we should be praying for in abundance is the virtue of humility and maybe some charity to go with it.

It took me ten years to learn this. And another five to accept it.

It is part and parcel of our fallen human nature.

It's a great lesson though because as soon as we REALLY learn this, as soon as we stop resisting God's efforts to point this oh so hard-to swallow, it's stuck in my throat fact out, we can begin to make quick progress in the spiritual life because our focus is taken off the sins and faults of our neighbor and responsibility is planted squarely on the shoulders to whom it belongs. We stop blaming others for our heavy loads and start seeing that WE are the heavy loads. This is not to say that there are not external circumstances in our lives that do not make our cross heavier. There are. But the reason the *external circumstances* are so "heavy" is because of our *internal circumstances*.

In other words, if you want to lighten your load you have to work on yourself first.

As G.K. Chesterton so bluntly puts it: Not only are we all in the same boat, but we are all seasick.

Funny how some of the most obvious things in life are the most difficult to see. Not only are we seasick, we are "see sick" as well and our biggest blind spot is ourselves.

~ You cannot escape it, wherever you run. For wherever you go you carry yourself with you, and will always find yourself. Turn upwards or turn downwards, turn inwards or turn outwards: everywhere you will find the cross.                      Thomas A Kempis

~ The greatest cross of all is self.       Archbishop Francois Fenelon