The Cross Walk: Self-Denial - Part 1
So, we have positioned Jesus’ paradigm of authentic discipleship -what I am referring to as The Cross Walk. Jesus Crucified, His Passion and Cross, become a model, a template for us. More than this, The Cross Walk is about a personal, intimate relationship of love with our Lord and Savior.
Previously, we considered the various Gospel passages wherein Jesus, “… summoned the crowd with his disciples and said to them, ‘Whoever wishes to come after me must deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me.’” Here, we see the Cross Walk’s vital dimensions of authentic discipleship beginning with our firm “yes” to Jesus: Self-denial, Self-sacrifice (take up your cross) and Self-giving (following Jesus). For our time together, we are going to go deeper into The Cross Walk dimension of Self-denial.
As we move through each of these dimensions, we will look to draw upon a central account in Jesus’ ministry in the Scriptures and draw upon our reflections to gain a deeper understanding in them along with what is taking place in the spiritual life or the interior life. We’ll continually pull from the wisdom of the Church and her saints throughout. We’ll conclude with a look at key features and virtues involved that suggest application and action along the lines of a Rule of Life or spiritual devotions, practices or disciplines. Again, I want to emphasize that through it all, we are striving for a deepening of and growth in a personal, intimate relationship of love with the Holy Trinity. There is much to be gained from practices of piety, devotion, methods of prayer and more but authentic discipleship is about a response of love - a response to the One who created, redeemed and calls us to union with Him. Also, a golden thread to each of these dimensions is that of prayer and the importance of prayer. Though prayer is not specifically addressed or named, there is simply no way to deepen and grow in our relationship with our Lord without prayer. All the saints are in unanimous agreement here. As the Catechism teaches,
“In the New Covenant, prayer is the living relationship of the children of God with their Father who is good beyond measure, with his Son Jesus Christ and with the Holy Spirit…Thus, the life of prayer is the habit of being in the presence of the thrice-holy God and in communion with him…Prayer is Christian insofar as it is communion with Christ and extends throughout the Church, which is his Body. Its dimensions are those of Christ’s love.” ¶2565
As I mentioned, we will begin with listening deeply to Jesus teaching and exploring a given scriptural text.
A Lesson in Self-Denial - The Rich Young Man, Mark 10:17-23
“17 As Jesus started on his way, a man ran up to him and fell on his knees before him. “Good teacher,” he asked, “what must I do to inherit eternal life?” 18 “Why do you call me good?” Jesus answered. “No one is good—except God alone. 19 You know the commandments: ‘You shall not murder, you shall not commit adultery, you shall not steal, you shall not give false testimony, you shall not defraud, honor your father and mother.’ ”20 “Teacher,” he declared, “all these I have kept since I was a boy.” 21 Jesus looked at him and loved him. “One thing you lack,” he said. “Go, sell everything you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.” 22 At this the man’s face fell. He went away sad, because he had great wealth. 23 Jesus looked around and said to his disciples, “How hard it is for the rich to enter the kingdom of God!”
Exercise:
Take a few moments to recollect yourself, seeking to enter into prayerful listening to the scripture passage. Read the passage very slowly.
As you read the passage very slowly, allow yourself to pause at a word, phrase that comes to you. Capture that for yourself and enter into a loving conversation with Jesus about it. “Why is this capturing my attention?” “How is this speaking to me?” “What am I being invited to pay attention to?” “How might it connect to my spiritual life?”
What really stands out to me about this account in Jesus’ ministry and how come?
What insights or questions does it provide as I consider Self-Denial? Self-Denial and its relationship to authentic discipleship?
What are the challenges to Self-Denial? What enables Self-Denial?
Going Deeper in Self-Denial
Let me offer some additional remarks. First, diving into Self-Denial can be very challenging. On one hand, self-denial can activate deep wounds and even traumatic memories for those who have experienced abuse, rejection, abandonment and other forms of suffering. How does a person deny one’s self when there is no well-formed self to deny or there is such a deficit of self-worth and dignity that self-denial just feels like self-rejection? On the other hand, self-denial can be met with immediate aversion - especially in this day and age in our western culture. We have seen emerge over the past 25 years an inculturated narcissism or self-centeredness. Perhaps with good intentions to advance the importance of self-esteem, the psychological and sociological sciences (informed by a flawed anthropology or understanding of the human person) set dynamics in motion for a “me-centric” milieu within education, family life, counseling, policy and most every facet of society. To add to the inculturated narcissism is the generational impact of divorce along with the demise of marriage and the family. The cumulative impact of these factors can be seen developmentally upon attachment and bonding - not to mention identity and relationship formation. Today, we witness radicalized subjectivism and gender ideology adding to this mix. All to say, promoting self-denial collides with the idolatry of the self so prevalent today.
Here’s the truth: God’s grace and faithful love can heal us of all these wounds and more. To the world, this is foolishness but for those who share in the supernatural life of God such is truly the Real Reality. There are levels of self-knowledge and self-worth that can not be obtained without Self-Denial. Self-denial is actually a path of healing and a way of flourishing in self-worth, meaning and purpose. Through self-denial, we come to know more deeply our authentic identities as beloveds of God, created in His image and likeness, possessing inherit dignity and worth. Through self-denial, we discover Self or in the words of Jesus, “Whoever wishes to loose his life for my sake, will [both] find it (eurisko = to find, get, obtain, perceive, see) and save it (sozo = to save, protect, heal, be whole).” Whether I have no healthy or affirmed sense of self or am too full of myself, the discipleship path of Self-denial offers through Christ a way out of hell.
So, as we seek to be conformed to Jesus, we begin to notice how He seeks to transform our thinking, desiring, feeling and acting. In other words, he seeks to transform our entire person or being.
Attachments
As we consider the dimension of Self-denial and Jesus’ work of transformation, we quickly encounter (as the Young Man discovered in our reading) the prevalence and role of our attachments. Self-denial is about addressing those attachments that are impediments or obstacles to our full union with Jesus and being conformed to Him. The greatest attachment Self-denial seeks to address is our attachment to self-trust and self-sufficiency. Ultimately, Self-denial is about growth in Freedom.
Before we go too far down this road, let me make a couple of statements so as to prevent misunderstanding, confusion or error here. First, God created all creation and our humanity. As such, there are Good goods in this world that we naturally gravitate towards and desire: food, drink, relationships, meaning, purpose, work, reputation, self-worth, health, recognition, possessions and so forth. Some goods are necessary for our survival and others for our flourishing. These are referred to as natural or temporal goods. Secondly, when we speak about attachments and the spiritual life, we are addressing any disordered or disordinate attachment to goods. By these two terms I am mean the “striving after, use or relation to goods apart from their created purpose and end” - namely, to direct and enable me to arrive at loving communion with God. The Saints are unanimous in stressing that the presence of things or the absence of things is not the issue. Rather, the issue is the interior freedom we have to put our trust in God rather than in possessing or keeping, striving after or securing what we already have or long to have. Lastly, in the wisdom of the Church and Her saints, those goods associated with sensual gratification and material possession (i.e., wealth) have always been approached with great caution. Why? Because they mostly appeal to our lower nature and therefore are most easily swayed by temptation and the wounds of sin, flesh and the world (i.e. concupiscence) and therefore most prone to disorder and self-delusion (see 1 Timothy 6:7-10). As we saw in Mark’s account, “22 At this the man’s face fell. He went away sad, because he had great wealth. 23 Jesus looked around and said to his disciples, “How hard it is for the rich to enter the kingdom of God!”
These are powerful statements or commentary about the young man that we find in Mark’s account.
“The man’s face fell”: in Jewish thinking, the face represented acknowledgment and recognition. So, we hear often hear in the Psalms various pleas for the LORD not to turn His face away or to turn His face towards. Here, the man’s face is said to “fall”. He is unwilling or unable to “face himself” and to “face Christ”. He has come face to face with his attachment or in Jesus’ words, what he is truly “lacking” - ustereo meaning “to fall short, be deficient, come behind or be the worse”. So, the young man’s face “fell” - stugnazo meaning “be gloomy, cloudy overcast, be sad”.
“He went away sad”: It’s a bit more intense here as the word is lupeo meaning “sorrowful, grieving, to be in heaviness”. This is more than just a bruising of the ego but rather a deep place of mourning.
What we come to realize in this account of Jesus’ ministry is what the spiritual transforming process Self-Denial seeks to bring about in the soul:
A significant confrontation or coming to terms with something - a “hitting home” as it were in our spiritual life - of an obstacle, hinderance or impediment to our authentic commitment and love to Jesus. That is to say, an attachment. Self-denial requires self-awareness and self-honesty and it is an invitation to active purification.
A critical point of decision and choice. There is great hope here rather than condemnation for no where does Jesus condemn this young man. He certainly states the truth: sky is blue, grass is green and “How hard it is for the rich to enter the kingdom of God.” Rather, Jesus understands the difficulty of this work, and such transformation around our attachments is a long process - sometimes a lifetime. Some attachments have very strong holds upon us for many reasons - often related to deep wounds. Sometimes transforming an attachment means working through its various disguises and manifestations like finding the right strand in the knot of a big ball of yard that when it is finally located and pulled, the whole knot seems to dissolve. Transforming attachments is more akin to the spiritual life “in the crock pot” rather than “in the microwave”. God’s grace certainly can and as evidence in the lives of some saints, bring instant deliverance or transformation of an attachment. But the normative process is a slow, arduous one. The key here is that of complete dependency upon God and His grace. Later in this same chapter of Mark, Jesus will use this encounter with the rich young man to teach His disciples the necessity of dependency upon God rather than dependency upon self when he says, “For human beings it is impossible, but not for God. All things are possible for God.” What God then desires and what is so key to The Cross Walk dimension of Self-denial is making that resolve in our hearts to address a given attachment and then to cling to God for His graces and help.
This is a battle. The spiritual failure here is not that the young man was attached to his wealth. The spiritual failure is that he “went away”. Notice that Mark says that “Jesus looked at him and loved him.” What a tremendous statement! Jesus through His love would have helped this young man. Jesus had everything this young man needed to find transformation, freedom and more. There is a maxim in the spiritual life: “You only loose the battle if you quit fighting.” Self-denial is contrary to the sin, flesh and the world and it is the hardest work. Because it is hard does not mean it is impossible. Remember what Jesus said, self-denial is impossible for us but not for God.
The Slippery Slope of Attachments
So, how can we honestly evaluate our attachments? How do I know if an attachment I have to a person, place, thing or more is harming my spiritual life or not? Is an obstacle or impediment in my relationship with God or not?
Again, this is where we can draw upon the great wisdom of the Doctors in the Spiritual Life that the Church give us. Let’s look at what Saint John of the Cross offers - he was a contemporary and close friend to Saint Teresa of Avila and partner in reforming the Carmelite order. Saint John of the Cross (clearly a Cross Walk role model!) gives us four criteria, which really represents progressive stages of backsliding spiritually:
First, does this attachment cause a “clouding of the intellect” to the things of God? Asked another way: Does this attachment distract me in my spiritual life, occupy the majority of my mental life and energy and/or lessens my desire for prayer, devotion, etc? Saint John says to think of our attachments at this stage as being like clouds that conceal or interfere with the sun’s rays and light.
Am I noticing an increasingly lenient attitude toward the passing things of this world? In other words, am I finding greater pleasure, joy or gratification in the passing things of this world than I am in the things of God? Am I becoming lukewarm in my faith? Here, we may find ourselves beginning to short God in small or subtle ways so that we can give time, attention, and efforts to pursuing or enjoying a particular good. For example, I begin to trim back my time in prayer so that I can watch more of a favorite morning talk show. I start missing worship so as to play more golf.
Thirdly, Saint John says is the stage of “the complete abandoning of God”. From the carelessness of stage (1) to the lukewarmness of stage (2), we now fall to mortal sin. In terms of disordered attachments, a person can find her or himself returning to the captivity of one of the Capital Sins, especially Avarice or Greed, Envy, Gluttony and Lust.
Lastly, we find ourselves arriving at what Saint John of the Cross refers to as “forgetting God”. This is place of indifference to a hardening or heart or something in-between. This spiritual blindness and deafness results in idolatry of our attachments.
Let’s close this exploration with wise counsel. First from Saint John of the Cross:
“Spiritual persons must exercise care that in their heart and joy they do not become attached to temporal goods. They must fear least, through a gradual increase, their small attachments become great…what is small in the beginning can be immense in the end…And they should never assure themselves that, since their attachment is small, they will break away from it in the future even if they do not do so immediately. If they do not have the courage to uproot it when it is small and in its first stage, how do they think and presume they will have the ability to do so when it becomes greater and more deeply rooted.”
Next, from Fr. Gabriel of St. Mary Mandolin, O.C.D., Divine Intimacy, Meditation #81, “The Way of Nothing”
If you wish to start resolutely on the road of total detachment - the only sure road to divine union-you must put the axe to the root of the tree"; that is, you must break off and pull up the root of your attachments—-that inordinate tendency to enjoy, or to seek satisfaction in yourself, in your pride, or in other creatures. It is true that you were created to enjoy, but to enjoy God. However God is not present to your senses, while your ‘self’ and the things of earth are so close to you. Hence instead of looking beyond yourself and all creation in order to reach God, instead of making use of creatures to help you rise toward the Creator, you pause and seek your happiness in them. You pause with an inordinate desire for pleasure is the thing which turns your desires and affections toward creatures, instead of fixing them on God. This is the root of every attachment, no matter how slight.”
Next week we’ll explore some of the central features and virtues associated with the Self-Denial dimension of Jesus’ Cross Walk. Until then, may God bless the work of your hands, hearts and spirits!
