by Teresa Monaghen
O the prisons we make for ourselves are many. They are made up of secret sins that we don’t want to let go of or be free of; we love our vices: Luxuria (extravagance, later lust), Gula (gluttony), Avaritia (greed), Acedia (sloth), Ira (wrath), Invidia (envy), and Superbia (pride). Yes, we really want to be free; we cry out the Savior; we turn often to reconciliation, but we are missing something important. The reason we sit in a kind of darkness and wonder why we are not progressing in the spiritual life and why we often feel bogged down and “un-free”is often of our own making We won’t let go because most of all, we want it our way, not God’s way. We want to have our cake and eat it too. We want to let God be God until we want something that God does not want for us. It could be as simple as our pride that says, “Before I go to pray, I have to get all my work done.” We make the rule, God cannot help us because we set ourselves up as the rule maker and then we wonder why we don’t get things done and we don’t get to pray and we become as a result of this dizzying pattern, weak, fainthearted and even more prone to sinful behavior!
O Lord, free us from the prisons we make. Come and set us free especially of our own will. We give it to you Lord; we want you to be Lord of our lives, really! And each time we renege on this promise, come again and open the door so that we may start over again and with your help alone Lord may we never tire of starting over again and again and again. Amen.
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