I have seen how deep my own selfishness and stupidity can be, and yet I have also tried to love! But my love has been small and inadequate. I have been afraid of the great risks, I have stayed in "the safe lane," I have lived more in fear than in love, and when I invested my love, I always hedged my bets.
This is a depressing reckoning, but I think many people my age are wrestling with this kind of perception of themselves. It would indeed be crushing if I thought it was the last word on my life, if I thought it defined my value as a human being.
But there is something else that is more important than my broken ego, or my inability to "justify myself."
The grace and the calling and the beauty of God have been so abundantly showered upon me in my life. And God’s love has "broken through" the limits of my mediocrity.
When I remember His love, I am astonished, humbled, and grateful. Ultimately, I am not defeated by disappointment. Rather, I am overcome by gratitude. I know that if I have accomplished anything truly well, if I have ever truly given myself in love (in a way that goes beyond the impenetrable murky mess of my own life and the efforts of my own feeble power), it is because of the action of this grace in my soul.
Grace and mercy.
What of all the failures of the past? I bring the whole mess of it to the Lord, with repentance and sorrow. I abandon the past and the future to God, who in His mercy will turn all of it to the good, if only I trust in Him and love Him, now, today.
My love will still (mostly) be tinged with selfishness, but the miracle is the wonder, the fascination, the recognition and response to God that He begins to engender within my poor love by His healing and transforming grace.
The real story of my life is the mysterious story of what His grace and mercy are accomplishing in me as I beg for His presence, as I seek to adhere to Him and trust in Him and let myself be embraced by Him who has become flesh. Jesus Christ.
I am truly sorry for all my years of selfishness, of holding back, of distancing myself, of chasing the vanity of ambitions that lead only to cynicism and bitterness. I "firmly resolve" to "do penance and amend my life," but this is not another self-affirming project. I know that I am poor. I must listen more and let myself be loved by Him. My hope is not in any power that I can give to myself.
My hope is in Him. My hope is in Jesus Christ. By His grace, I hope to adhere to Him whose redeeming love is greater than my weakness, who has loved me from the beginning, who never gives up on me.
