Knowing Your Worth
one
Our first meditation comes from the mystical visions of Bl. Anne Catherine Emmerich of Jesus nailed to the Cross.
The executioners did not allow him to rest long, but bade him rise and place himself on the cross that they might nail him to it. Then seizing his right arm they dragged it to the hole prepared for the nail, and having tied it tightly down with a cord, one of them knelt upon his sacred chest, a second held his hand flat, and a third taking a long thick nail, pressed it on the open palm of that adorable hand, which had ever been open to bestow blessings and favors on the ungrateful Jews, and with a great iron hammer drove it through the flesh, and far into the wood of the cross. Our Lord uttered one deep but suppressed groan, and his blood gushed forth and sprinkled the arms of the archers. I counted the blows of the hammer, but my extreme grief made me forget their number. The nails were very large, the heads about the size of a crown piece, and the thickness that of a man’s thumb, while the points came through at the back of the cross. The Blessed Virgin stood motionless; from time to time you might distinguish her plaintive moans; she appeared as if almost fainting from grief, and Magdalen was quite beside herself. When the executioners had nailed the right hand of our Lord, they perceived that his left hand did not reach the hole they had bored to receive the nail, therefore they tied ropes to his left arm, and having steadied their feet against the cross, pulled the left hand violently until it reached the place prepared for it. This dreadful process caused our Lord indescribable agony, his breast heaved, and his legs were quite contracted. They again knelt upon him, tied down his arms, and drove the second nail into his left hand; his blood flowed afresh, and his feeble groans were once more heard between the blows of the hammer, but nothing could move the hard-hearted executioners to the slightest pity.
The Crucifixion should be The Most Intense Thing we ever think about but it never is - What does the Cross mean to you now?
two
I meditated upon this yesterday and I was horrified…Then I thought, I would never do what God did. I would have looked at those wretched humans and said, “Forget it, they’re not worth it.”
If I was God I would have thrown it all away and started over, because I don’t value myself or others the way God does – In fact, I don’t have any clue how he could. But wait, maybe I do. Then I began to think of my own kids, John, Sara, Grace, Xavier and Teresa. And I thought, I would do, or suffer or sacrifice anything for my kids and if I could go back and time and start over, no way, they are amazing just as they are, with all their gifts and limitations. I wouldn’t change a thing and I would suffer anything for them because of their worth.
Do you see from where your value comes – it has nothing to do with your gifts, achievements, performance, beauty, moral goodness. Your value comes from God! He thought of you from all eternity, then he created you, hand-crafted in single batches, a one-of-a-kind masterpiece. Then he put His divine life in you and made you his kid. Then to save you from eternal loss, he was willing to suffer what was just described above.
Why would God go to such inconceivable lengths? Because of your worth. He thinks you are worth it.
He created you. He is your Father.
It has noting to do with anything more than that.
three
Pride is all the ways we try to validate our existence, prove our worth, apart from God.
Humility, on the other hand is accepting the truth that God looks at you, he sees all your gifts and your limitations and he says, “You are magnificent, I am so happy you exist, you make me smile, you make the world a better place just by being in it.”
When we know this, and only when we do, are we able to rest.
One way or another, everyone needs to be convinced that it’s good that they exist. If they think the goodness of their being is in doubt, they will attempt to compensate by the goodness of what they do. But when self-validation is based on doing, not being, the only way to justify oneself is by ceaseless activity.
However, if you’re standing on the solid ground of existential goodness, and by that I mean that you know God created you, you know He is your father and he loves you, then you can simply rest there. But for a lot of folks the only thing between them and the bottomless void of worthlessness is the net woven of their own achievements. And those cords keep fraying and snapping, their achievements keep getting obsolete and wearing out, which means they must be constantly tending to that net, fixing up the old ropes and adding new ones. They have to make themselves matter, all the time. The most arrogant, self-promoting person you know is desperately trying to save his own existence from slipping into the dark night of irrelevance. That person can’t rest. That person can’t celebrate being.
And self-validation doesn’t work anyway. We don’t know enough about a) our own character and b) the grand scheme of things to know whether, in the big picture, in the long run, it’s good that we exist. Only God knows enough about us and about everything else to give us that assurance. Only the one who gave us existence can validate our existence.
four
Because we don’t have a proper sense of self-worth from God we can’t and won’t admit our sin and it is our sin that causes us to run from our Father, so we need to deal with our sin. In other words, denial of truth is the source of our denial of sin. As Louis Bouyer says, “The devil is the father of sin in being the father of lies. We cannot escape from him unless we have, from the beginning, determined to avoid all lying, and above all, the fundamental lie which consists in deceiving ourselves, in avoiding the sight of what we really are so as not to have to change ourselves.”
five
once we have rested and rejoiced in the Lord, we can take an honest and non-defensive look at our own lives.
And see there’s also work to be done. And now we know what that work is – we know how the world need to be reformed, and what we need to do about it.
We need to be saved from Sin. That’s how we solve the problems of the world: not by endlessly worrying about government or Church politics, or be fretting about “the culture.” All those issues are secondary.
The primary issue, the primary problem, and the one we need to focus on primarily, is the sin that makes us miserable.
We’ve seen that this sin stems from pride, and we’ve talked about acceptance of God’s loving validation as the foundation for overcoming pride – but now it’s time to deal with all the damage pride has already inflicted – all the selfishness, vice, addiction, anger and disordered desire. That’s the real project of this life – overcoming evil in our own souls.
And it’s a really big project. But it’s okay. It doesn’t need to intimidate us anymore. Because we know God loves us and delights in us no matter what our current condition. And we know He’ll give us all the help we need to become holy (even if it takes a long time). And we know that with Our Loving Father’s help, we will be healed and made righteous before God.