Church Voices

Is still surprised that so much of the church struggles far more with being Pharisees than being libertines.

And I think, I think the point is to make us despair; to reject our own humanity, to see ourselves as ultimately bestial as ultimately vile and putrescent; without dignity, ugly and unworthy. And there lies the heart of it, perhaps, in unworthiness. For I think belief in God is not a matter of reason at all. I think it finally is matter of love, of accepting the possibility that God could love us… long ago I despaired of ever loving my neighbor. Certain people… repelled me. How could I love them? I thought. It tormented me, it led me to despair of myself… and from that, very soon, to despair of my God. My faith was shattered

At last I realized that God would never ask of me that which I know to be psychologically impossible, that the love which He asked was in my will and not meant to be felt as emotion at all. Not at all. He was asking that I act with love that I do unto others and that I should do it unto those who repelled me, I believe, was a greater act of love than any other.

I know that all of this must seem very obvious, Damien. I know. But at the time I could not see It. Strange blindness. How many husbands and wives must believe they have fallen out of love because their hearts no longer race at the sight of their beloveds! Ah, dear God! There it lies, I think, possession not in wars, as some tend to believe; not so much; and very seldom in extraordinary interventions such as here… this girl… this poor child. No, I see it most often in the little things in the senseless, petty spites the misunderstandings the cruel and cutting word that leaps unbidden to the tongue between friends. Between lovers. Enough of these and we have no need of Satan to manage our wars; these we manage for ourselves.

- Father Merrin, The Exorcist