I catch myself feeling more and more traditional. Longing for land; for family legacy. There's a part of me that could be "The Man in the Grey Flannel Suit."
However, I am vouchsafed neither land nor legacy nor grey flannel suit. So what then. I can’t see anyway to look forward. So what is there to do. I can look back; and I can find something to do to occupy my time till I too die. Until then I can look forward to misery.
"Peace is in the grave; the grave holds all things beautiful.” Well, maybe not all things. But many or most. My beautiful mother is in the grave. So is the beauty who St Ignatius of Loyala saw and who convinced him to convert.
Today at Mass I felt so horribly, horribly alone, lonely, hopeless. She's gone. And with her, gone are almost any natural ties to this world. My parents are gone; I have no children; I have no Land; my sister is estranged; I have no wife. What is to fill me or my time now?
Yet after Mass I suddenly realized how horribly selfish this all is. And how easy it is once again to misinterpret my Emptiness.
For of course I'm Empty. I am a gaping, empty hole. That needs to be filled indeed, but not with Land or Legacy or Mom or anything mortal at all. I am made to be filled by God Himself; as are we all. And until then I am truly neither more nor less nor other than an incomplete man, more Not Human than Human Being; a Human Becoming rather.
And I am born to die. I live to die. And Loyola is right. The Grave claims all beauty from this world. And I? I am, like Mom, Dead. Only she has been borne across a certain river a little ahead of me. Meanwhile, I am a Dead Man Walking.
Call me Charles the Dead. And Longing. For what? Sehnsucht: for You, Lord.
Much, much more accurate than Charles in Need of Land or Charles in Need of Legacy. Charles the Dead. Charles the Needy, Charles the Empty, Charles the Anawim Yahweh. Poor in spirit not because of any virtue on my part but because that is who Charles the Dead is. Empty, hopeless, thirsty, hungry ... a Not awaiting Your Being to Fill me, Lord.
Oh Lord help me not to get caught up in wishful thinking about Lands or Progeny or Legacy. What I Need is You ... You, Lord Jesus Christ, You and You Crucified.
Oh Hope of the Hopeless, have mercy on me.
Love,
Charles Delacroix
Sunday 22 in Ordinary Time
Eve of the Feast of St Gregory
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