Citizen of Paradise

‘On Your Creation, O Master, take pity. Cleanse me by Your compassion,’ over and over again this morning, these words from the memorial prayers for the reposed, those who have died, and other words too, but mostly these, kept streaming through my head.

The thoughtless who examine and criticise the Church for praying for the dead, saying that it is useless since the dead have already gone into eternal life or into eternal damnation and therefore profit nothing by these prayers, miss the point entirely.

Yes, we pray for the dead, but that is, for us, who think we are alive but who are spiritually dead, they are for us, those who are struggling every day, every hour and moment, gasping for a breath of Life while being buried alive by the weight of our sins and the sin of the world.

The modern or post-modern (I can no longer distinguish them) who hear the Christian cry out, ‘Take pity, Lord! Cleanse me by Your compassion!’ observe the scene condescendingly, thinking, ‘He pretends to be a sinner, so he can pretend to be saved.’

But this is no pretense, our knowing and confessing that we are sinners. I know for sure that I am a sinner, and only one thing I know with more certainty—that Jesus Christ came into the world to save sinners, and, whether I believe it or not, I am the first.

People may praise me, and for a second or two I may forget myself and feel glad. Then I remember, and I know that they are giving me bricks to lay on what they think is my foundation, but in me there is no foundation, not even a poor one. I know that; they don’t.

I may sometimes even do worse things. I may praise myself, trying to amass bricks of gold, not to lay on a foundation that isn’t there, but to store in a strong box that has already been plundered and no longer even has a lock. The greatest earthly riches cannot console me.

Faced with the fact of sin, with the temptation to descend into its filth, put a bible in front of me, and some worldly seduction, side by side, the bible gleaming, the seduction luring to shadow, and left to myself, shunning the God who would tear the net, I let myself be caught in it.

The bible is there, right in front of me. I know much of it by heart. Yet my heart treads water, as I stand in a pool of my own blood, grumbling like Israel in the wilderness, refusing to enter a land of delight, even while praying, ‘make me again a citizen of Paradise.’

O God! Your Word, I confess, is Truth, yet I cannot arise by my own efforts. Nothing I can do is any help. Running to You for strength, my weak soul pines for the liberty of hell, as my eyes are captured by its false promises. Run to meet me, as You always do, and carry me.

I have lost everything, only to know that all that I had was and is and always would be worth nothing. In You alone are the riches of freedom, of love and of peace, freely given to all who come to You, through the Opening torn in the veil of this world, Your Son’s Body.

Yes, Lord, I am the one who was made in Your image, though I am scarred by my transgressions. On Your creation, O Master, take pity, cleanse me by Your compassion, and once again make me a citizen of Paradise.