Totally Wrong About Sacrifice
I continue to desire to both learn how to grow in love, and then to actually do so. My spiritual director suggested I consider making an effort to offer up three small sacrifices each day with the intention of being recollected, and of asking for help to grow in this virtue. He suggested that even very small sacrifices such as skipping salt with my meal or leaving the radio off in the car might be helpful.
I struggled mightily.
My first challenge was even thinking of things to offer. This frustrated me. Failing to think of small things to offer forces me to admit me I am insufficiently thankful for all of the good things I enjoy thoughtlessly.
I had a bit more success when I didn’t try to plan ahead, but instead to remember to pause each time I start to do something to make my life easier or more comfortable to consider whether I might make this an opportunity to make some small sacrifice. If it is cold in the morning, for example, then perhaps as I reach for the heater controls in my truck, I stop myself, then allow the chill to accompany my prayer for those who can’t afford heat, or who don’t have shelter at all, and to meditate upon whether the Christ Child may have experienced cold in the manger, or on the trip to and from Egypt. This effort has not been entirely fruitless, but it’s more a “30-fold” sort of fruitfulness.
A few days ago, @ThinkerCatholic tweeted this “small” quote from St. Therese of Lisieux
I scrolled past, then paused, and went back to read it again more slowly.
“Miss no single opportunity of making some small sacrifice, here by a smiling look, there by a kindly word…”
small sacrifice = smiling look
small sacrifice = kindly word
I see sacrifice exactly wrong.
It isn’t about “giving up” – it is about “giving” and about “giving to.” To the giver, it is about the recipient, not about the giver. The smiling look and the kindly word are of approximately zero value unless offered to another.
This is incredibly obvious, but I am sometimes incredibly oblivious.
It’s not about me. In fact it is exactly about “not me.” I know this, but I’m not living or thinking like I do.
I’m so wrapped up in myself that I even think sacrifices are about me. I think they’re about how I’m affected by the cost to me, and about my feelings associated with the sacrifice. I’m so wrapped up in myself that I think growing in love means I experience a greater emotional response and attachment to others – as opposed to recognizing that this charity, this love that is virtuous, is an action for the benefit of another first, and my emotional response and growth is secondary at best.
There is a giving up, of course. A kind word or a smile means giving up my own preoccupations, and possibly opening the door to a longer conversation for which “I don’t have time.” The giving up portion, however, is the means, not the end.
Jesus addresses this clearly (Matthew 9:16), as he quotes Hosea 6:6 “I desire mercy and not sacrifice.” The Hebrew word here is hesed/chesed/חֶסֶד, and difficult to translate to English. It is something akin to compassion, mercy, and kindness. Some translator invented lovingkindness, Saint Jerome chose misericordia, and the Greek term is mega eleos (great mercy). God wants me to show mercy/compassion/love for others. God, likewise, wants to show love/compassion/mercy to me, not deliver judgment.
This is why Jesus, “for the sake of the joy that lay before him… endured the cross…” (Hebrews 12:2) He was completely consumed with the joy of giving himself to the Father, both for us and to us, having already offered himself “a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God” as we are encouraged to do (Romans 12:1).
For Jesus, it wasn’t about him.
This is my king.
It was kind of him to help me see him more clearly.
