Repentance requires an awareness that you are loved

I don't mind admitting that I often have a difficult time looking on the lighter side of life. This is not to say that I don't have a sense of humor. I do. Humor, too, can be heavy or light. Frankly, I usually prefer heavier humor to the lighter stuff. I also have a difficult time just shaking things off, as it were, putting them into perspective and moving on. To a degree, this is just how I am built, part of who I am. Maybe the reason I am kind of stocky is to carry a heavy load.

Being built for heaviness enables me to appreciate those who live more lightly. Far from resenting such people or denigrating them, I admire them and, at times, even envy their seeming ability to live lightly. I sometimes find myself desiring to live with a lighter touch. Once in a while, for a time, perhaps for a day or two, I succeed.

Introspection, a certain amount of which is necessary for anyone in order to have and maintain a healthy self-awareness, can go from being useful to destructive very quickly. I don't mind admitting that, like many people who tend to view life as a heavy load, I am prone to too much introspection. I have to say, at least for me (this is such an important caveat for so many things!), rather than veer away from meaningful self-examination to keep myself from excessive introspection, I find it helpful to engage in it fruitfully.

The most fruitful way I have found to do this is by engaging in a very old and proven method of self-examination: the Examen. It is the Society of Jesus, popularly known as the Jesuits, who practice and teach the practice of Examen, along with some other useful spiritual practices, to others. Since it is not the purpose of this post to teach the Examen, I will point you to two things that I have found most helpful in both practicing and teaching the Examen. The first is Jesuit Fr. Dennis Hamm's "Rummaging for God: Praying Backwards through Your Day." I distribute this whenever I teach about practicing the Examen. The second is a daily podcast: "The 'Examen' with Fr. James Martin."

As I never tire of asserting that spirituality consists of spiritual practices. The spiritual practices that constitute a spirituality are spiritual disciplines. Disciplines are not ends in themselves but means to the end of loving God with your entire being by loving your neighbor as you love yourself. Another spiritual discipline of which I am a big proponent is lectio divina, which, like the Examen, is fruitful and "doable" on a daily or nearly everyday basis. Both are very simple and easy to learn. What is perhaps most lovely about these time-proven practices is that they require healthy doses of silence.

When we consider what we're living through and our inability to gather and worship together, practicing lectio divina and the Examen, along with spiritual practices, praying the Liturgy of the Hours, at least the so-called "hinge" hours (i.e., Morning and Evening Prayer), along with popular devotions such as the Rosary and the Divine Mercy Chaplet, become very important lest you start to feel adrift. For those who undertake these disciplines, I trust that their importance will not fade when the pandemic is over.

If this post is not about the mechanics of praying the Examen then what is it about? It is about the need to engage in the Examen deeply aware that God loves you. Otherwise, the Examen can turn into the unhealthy practice of self-shaming that can lead to self-loathing. To that end, I found this insight by Rebecca DeYoung most helpful: ​

reflec­tion on the vices is one part of the prac­tice of self-exam­i­na­tion, but that prac­tice must first and always be framed by the love of God, which stead­fast­ly holds us. Pro­ceed in the con­fi­dence that when we con­fess our sin­ful nature and die to sin, it is only a pre­lude to God’s cre­ation of a beau­ti­ful new life in us

It is very easy to reduce myself to my mistakes and my vices. When I do this God's love starts to become incomprehensible. I get stuck in the mire of shame. Rejecting God's love makes it difficult if not impossible for me to love others. When I reject or ignore God's love, my ability to love others erodes. "In this is love," we read in 1 John 4, "not that we have loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as expiation for our sins." Hence, it is important to begin my self-examination, which also includes reflecting on the good things of the day, in the knowledge and with the assurance of God's love trusting that in and through Christ Jesus I am always already forgiven.

Brian Morykon stated this well: "When sin is the focus of our self-examination, despair follows. But when we, guided by the Holy Spirit, look honestly at our sin while maintaining focus on Jesus—on his presence and love toward us—genuine repentance and freedom follows." Genuine repentance, which consists of so much more than contrition for sin, is true freedom. I find practicing the Examen with God's love foremost in mind a very fruitful discipline. It is a way Christ relieves me of the heavy yoke and replaces it with his lighter one.