Pride, Feelings, and Christian Maturity
One
In today’s Gospel reading from Luke, Jesus appears to His disciples in the upper room while they are discussing His appearance on the road to Emmaus. Two of the disciples share their encounter with the other disciples, who listen incredulously. They simply can’t believe their story as the horror of what happened on Good Friday was too real. Suddenly, there He is! Jesus! Present bodily and proves it to them by showing them his wounds and then eating fish, as ghosts have no bodies and don’t eat. He arose as He promised! He appears in the midst of two or three, as He promised! He appears physically in the breaking of the bread or the Eucharist, as He has promised! He opens their minds by His teaching, as He has promised! He has overcome the world, even death, as He has promised! He satisfies every longing, as He has promised! We, too, can encounter Him in the same means presented in this account because He promised! But, for this to happen, we must overcome our doubts, our sins, our pride, and live with faith in His promises.
Two
This account demonstrates to us the very ways to experience the miraculous power of the Risen Jesus in our lives: Encounter Him through conversation and in the breaking of the bread; Share Him and this encounter with others; Receive and study His teachings; and then go preach His name to all the nations as witnesses. This is a daunting task. Our pride and our emotions tend to direct themselves towards comfort and ease. We tend to avoid struggle and pain when it comes to our faith. This is why Jesus gives Himself to us in these ways, so that we have His power to overcome our failings and sins. There have been so many times when I have struggled with doubts and sin and have responded incredulously to the testimony of the Church. Lord help me overcome my doubts and fears by speaking words of wisdom and truth to me in my prayer, receiving the sacraments, and in a small community of faithful people, so that I can succeed in faith.
Three
The apostles struggled to overcome their doubts. First, they were shocked and frightened by what they witnessed at Jesus’ crucifixion. Fear is a natural response to danger, and the greater the danger the greater the fear. However, Jesus told them of His fate, and of His resurrection. This should have quelled their fears but didn’t. Pride certainly played a role. They trusted too much in their own understanding of what they think transpired with their Lord, trusting their senses more than His word. Pride also makes it difficult to admit one’s errors. When we trust too much in self and not enough in God and things go wrong in our life, we tend to doubt, or worse, blame God or others for our pain before we accept responsibility. Finally, pride causes us to cling too tightly to our own self-generated sense of security and our desire to have our feelings validated. Paradoxically, this actually creates insecurity. The disciples just couldn’t accept the reality before them, until the tender patience and Words of Christ dispelled their weakness. Pride is deadly precisely because it ties us to our selfishness and weaknesses. A good first step in overcoming this is to examen ourselves deeply to uncover our predominant faults. In what situations in my life does pride overrule the truth?
Four
Our emotions are not usually logical: we feel things that we shouldn’t feel. The disciple’s fears and feelings seemed valid, invited a certain wallowing in self-pity, but were wrong. Passions are God-given feelings that should respond to reality. This response is supposed to be guided by the intellect and be harnessed by the will. Due to the fall, our passions too easily rule. When this happens, our actions cease conforming to reality and our insecurities grow. When we are feeling emotions, we need to go through the process of asking ourselves some questions: what am I feeling? Is it coming from my own pride, or wounds? Is it rational? Does it conform to reality? Or am I just secretly taking pleasure out of wallowing in self- pity? What is needed is Christian maturity, the kind of maturity that places confidence in Christ and His Church over self.
Five
Maturity is the ability to accept and act on what is true despite how I feel about it. Christian maturity recognizes that the truth comes from Christ and His Church. To follow these teachings is to follow the path of happiness. We cannot be happy if we only and ever follow our own fallen desires and sensibilities. This is why Christ made Himself known to His followers: He had to confirm them in faith, lest they lose it in following their feelings. St. JoseMaria Escriva offers the following ways to grow in Christian Maturity: 1. be formed in the truths of Jesus until they become a part of us. 2. Receive Our Lord in the Eucharist and go to the Sacrament of Holy Reconciliation monthly. 3. Spend time daily in the personal dialogue of prayer with Jesus. Lord, help me to identify the places in my conscience where I need to grow in Christian Maturity.