PARADOXICAL

pp. 55-58 http://books.google.com.ph/books?id=EOg19fGyNyoC&pg=PA58&lpg=PP1&hl=tl&output=html_text

This online retreat is heating up, as I find myself poring over the pages breathlessly beyond our 3-page-a-day limit. Fr. DuBay's topic is so gripping that I just have to quicken my pace. Little did I know I was already hitting page 60 and beyond, and I had to curl back up to the intro.

Having cleared that out of the way, let me proceed by focusing on the line I chose for my title today:

"Sin obscures sight." - Hans Urs von Balthasar

This quote grabbed me instantly. I was able to connect to it immediately because I understood it at the gut level. For indeed, many are moments in times past that I don't trust myself fully with regard to judgment on spiritual/moral matters when I know I have not fully surrendered to God at the moment, when I am holding back something -- maybe a little grudge, an unexpressed anger, envy that festered into doubt for God's love for me, and so on.

In times like these, when I am away from God's grace by choice, whether conscious, subconscious or unconscious, I am extra-careful, learning from experience. It's as though I know I have drunk too much so it means that I must not trust myself too much in walking my way home, so to speak.

And how sad that moment always turn out to be, because I know I am not living my life fully, the way God willed it to be. Fortunately, I also know, from experience, how to turn things around right then and there: ask forgiveness from God with an embarassed immediacy, as though I was woken up from a nightmare, then ask for His grace, for Him to intervene. I always revert to one song I learned in charismatic community, whenever I find that my sinfulness has clouded over my better (Christian) judgment:

"O Send Forth Your Light"

O send forth Your light and Your truth.
Let this be my guide.
Let them bring me to Your holy mount
To the place where You abide.

Then I shall go to the altar of God
My joy and my delight
And offer Your praise as a sacrifice
My God, my light, my guide!

From my utterly corrupted state of mind, whew, what a sweet relief it is to be back in the loop, back in the circle of God's influence, back inside God's mind.