Luke 1:26-38
While
cruise control might be useful when driving a car, it should never be employed
in the spiritual life. When I was
younger, I struggled to understand how the “Immaculate Conception” could be a
role model for me. I pictured her safely gliding on cruise control over the
choppy waters of temptation. My own
dealings with grace and temptation have made me realize that just as we are
called to full, conscious, and active participation in the Liturgy, we are also
called to full, conscious, and active participation in grace, and Mary is our
model.
We
can glide through life on cruise control, relying on our natural tendencies,
but eventually we meet a struggle that is too heavy for our natural abilities
to carry. When we meet a “Kulturkampf”
in our lives, our “cruise” comes to a grinding halt. It is disorienting and
scary. Only in the full, conscious, and active participation in the life of
grace can we allow God to transform us, to raise us from the natural to the
supernatural. Those who have experienced a “grinding halt” know that it is actually
a blessing. It is often only then that we realize that the “god of ourselves”
is finite and that we must rely on the infinite God to lead the way. Get back
in the car, and, like Mary and Mother Pauline, say “yes” to every road,
whether it leads through “the midst of
thorns, or rather sharp stones, on slippery ground, or steeply uphill,” (First Draft, 8). They are the roads of
the Lord. Full, conscious, and active participation is required. Our fiat can never be on cruise control.
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