Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl. Instead they put it on its stand, and it gives light to everyone in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before men, that they may see your good deeds and praise your Father in heaven. --Matthew 5:15-16

Thursday, December 21, 2006

DNOTS, part 7

7. Weary with Spiritual Exercises

. The last two sins are the vices of spiritual envy and spiritual sloth. People who consider themselves as spiritual are quite often not pleased to hear about the spiritual growth of others. Their chief concern is to be praised themselves. They are not pleased that such attention is being given to someone else and would prefer to be thought of as the most spiritual of all. This is contrary to love, which, as Paul says, rejoices in goodness.

. Spiritual sloth happens when the pleasure is removed from the spiritual life. Such souls become weary with spiritual exercises because they do not yield any consolation, and thus, they abandon them. They become angry because they are called to do that which does not fit their needs. They begin to lose interest in God for they measure God by themselves and not themselves by God. Such souls are too weak to bear the crosses that are given to us to help us grow, crosses we face in the dark nights of the soul.

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posted by Heather R. at 12/21/2006 04:06:00 PM

1 Comments:

Blogger Heather R. said...

I have to comment on this one here. I can really relate to the spiritual envy paragraph. Sorry, I think this may be longer than usual.

I remember about 2 months ago, when I was REALLY feeling the dispair and longing for God's presence and feeling like my prayers were TOTALLY ineffective, I was in the UNLV library and came across a book called Great Women of Faith (or something like that). I read about one woman (forgot her name... a catholic saint) who was really known for the effectiveness of her prayers. Many people thought, "if she just prays for me, God will hear her!" When I read about the effectiveness of her prayers, I started becoming envious of her...I was thinking, "God, why aren't you responding to me??? Where are you?"

Then I read this (DNOTS,part 7) at home. Bam! It hit me - this was something I HAD to experience. I needed to see the darker regions of my heart in order to learn how to be truly joyful about the spirituality of others, and not be envious of it. If I remained in ignorance, I couldn't do anything about it.

I know this section has to do with being envious of "spiritual growth"... but I think it can be applied to being envious of anyone's spiritual walk --simply wishing to have that level spiritual connectedness with God that others seem to have.

12/22/2006 7:05 PM

 

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