Jesus, our safe harbor
The human heart is capable of enormous sanctity - think Maximillian Kolbe, the saint of Auschwitz. But the human heart is also capable of unspeakable cruelty - think Adolf Hitler, the mastermind of Auschwitz. The difference is Jesus Christ.
When we allow the Lord Jesus to infiltrate our hearts and sink his truth into every nook and cranny of our souls, we become capable of great holiness. But when we reject God’s gift of love and choose to go our own way, we cut ourselves off from the flow of divine grace, and there’s no telling where we may end up. In short, we become empty and restless, much like a boat adrift at sea, with no moral compass to guide us. Jesus is our north star. He is the way, the truth and the life. He is the steady hand that calms the storm within. He is our safe harbor.
I’ve been reading an insightful book by Bishop Barron called, And Now I See, which takes readers on a journey into the inner workings of the human person. What motivates us? Why do we do the things that we do? Why is change so difficult? If you’d like to better understand yourself and others, I’d highly recommend this book.
One of the key points BB makes is that no matter how holy we may become, we’re always battling the tendency toward sin (aka originating sin), which is the spiritual “limp” we’re all born with. Meanwhile, no matter how morally depraved a person may become, nothing can finally extinguish the divine spark that is innately there (kind of like the pilot light on a stove that never goes out). This divine spark is the imago Dei - the image of God that is present in every human being from day one. No evil, no matter how pervasive, can ever extinguish it, because “being” (God’s presence in us) is always greater than “non-being” (the state of deprivation we call evil, which is like a cavity in a tooth).
How do we navigate these competing forces always at work on the human soul? How do we reach safe harbor and avoid being tossed about like a dingy in a roiling sea? Christ! Prayer! The sacraments - especially Reconciliation and the Eucharist! Pursuing holiness one day at a time! Leaning on the infinite power of the Holy Spirit! Confronting the demons within and entrusting them to the Father! Reading God’s Holy Word - the Bible! Imitating the sanctity of the saints! Asking fellow believers to pray for us! These are the tools in the Christian toolbelt, and I’m happy to report that they work!
I like how BB says that Christianity isn’t a self-help program, it’s a salvation religion: once we confront our tendency toward sin and give our lives over to the Divine Love, there’s no limit to the level of sanctity God can achieve in any of us - even to the point of martyrdom, like St Max Kolbe. So let’s ask Christ and his Holy Mother Mary to guide us on this journey and give us the strength we need to make it to the other side, where Jesus, our safe harbor, awaits.