Unstuck this Soul

This morning I awoke and felt the reality of my own soul. It has memories of the past which are good up to a certain point, and then the painful ones take over. The painful episodes deal with the cruelty of my ex-husband; yet I know it is this very cruelty which caused the most movement and freedom to enter into God's will unhindered.

So, why be downcast, O my soul?

At Mass, the priest spoke about the Gospel reading in which Jesus tells the reality that if we have anger we will not be in Heaven; if we have not reconciled with others, we should not even be in church (come to the altar).

I thought about how I don't want my soul all globbed up with the painful memories for all eternity. Yet, if I died this morning, my soul would feel all full of yuck of these thoughts, with only the physical pain gone. And then I have to wonder if the physical pain has had a lot to do with the way I interact with others.

And this brings me to the thoughts recently read in de Caussade's classic Abandonment to Divine Providence. One statement hit me hard: Be humble and gentle. This means to me to be humble and gentle with other people, with my comments to them, and even more so in my thoughts about them. And it means also to be humble and gentle within my own soul, for in my soul Jesus is trying to take up His rest.

Is there room for Him in there? Yes, there could be lots of room if it weren't for the globbing memories and the insistence of the gnawing physical pain to reside there and entangle much like cobwebs resisting removal.

Am I angry with people? I suppose in a way, I am. I am angry as a form of reaction with others who react to me, or else react in their own lives and that reaction is a kind of action toward others, whether or not we recognize that we are acting upon others by our own reactions.

A wave washes the beach, and the grains of sand rub against each other as reaction, and none are exempt from the forces initiated.

A priest told me Monday morning to pray before the Tabernacle and ask the Blessed Sacrament to help me have the graces of humility and gentleness. I did so.

I do really want to have a humble and gentle soul for all eternity. I do not want to have this present soul, all stuck with cobwebby memories and cloying pains. As I try to imagine my soul without the body, without this physical pain, I still have a soul with many cobwebs. It is quite a reality to experience the soul and how it actually exists and exhibits itself, without the body.

For now, I know that my soul is not unstuck, and I want it to be unstuck. Humbly and gently it can become unstuck of the cobwebs. Jesus can do this, and I must cooperate and be faithful.