From the desire of being esteemed, deliver me, O Jesus.
From the desire of being loved, deliver me, O Jesus.
From the desire of being extolled, deliver me, O Jesus.
From the desire of being honored, deliver me, O Jesus.
From the desire of being praised, deliver me, O Jesus.
From the desire of being preferred to others, deliver me, O Jesus.
From the desire of being consulted, deliver me, O Jesus.
From the desire of being approved, deliver me, O Jesus.
Cardinal Merry Del Val, the Secretary of State under Pope St. Pius X, is widely considered to be the author of this beautiful prayer but there is not much evidence of this. As with many of our most beautiful gifts of language, there is likely many adapters but the original creator will never be known. I would like to imagine the author so I could look into his or her mind when the prayer poured forth from heart through the pen to paper. Even if Cardinal del Val did not originally author the prayer, the fact it is credited to him strong suggests it was important to him. This devotion to humility by one of the most important princes of the church has caused me to stop and consider that if someone of his stature seeks to ardently to be bent low, what lesson or lessons are there for me to embrace?
Several weeks ago I began to pay attention to when fear and anxiety seeped into my consciousness. Most instances could be traced to something that triggered something that challenged my false self when I was not keeping watch over it. I can almost check them off.
The desire to be esteemed? Of course that is a important to me. If I lack esteem, what purpose to I have to those around me. How about approval? There is a big one. A few weeks ago my wife was walking beside my truck as I backed up to the garage door so we could unload our camping gear. She was looking directly into the sun she had a scowl on her face as squinted to see into the darkened garage with sun directly in her eyes. The scowl, of course, meant I was doing something wrong and I would soon be criticized. Even if she did have something to say, rather than thinking she was giving me important information I needed, a positive communication, I would take the comment as negative because I was doing something wrong and get angry.
When compliments are being passed out or praise given for things I was not even a role in, I get a knot in my stomach because I was being overlooked. Sure those other people richly deserve the acclaim, but what about me? Don’t I count? Am I not valuable? The woe is me reaction is followed by sadness and a period of time spent gazing at my navel wondering what I did wrong.
If a couple of friends or coworkers wander off to get coffee and they don’t bother to ask me to join them, even if I am not there, I immediately convince myself I am not cared about or they would have at least asked me to come with or tell me where they are going.
No matter how many times I remind myself or shout back at the little voices in my head that I am being irrational and unreasonable, the taint or stain of the emotions can take hours, or even days, to fade-away. If I am fortunate, I can distract myself away from the grinding down of my ego by opening up the tool kit I have learned to keep with me and selecting something equal to the emotions. If I am not, I can get caught in a spiral down that gains speed with each revolution and I will spin out of control and end up a days long funk. When that happens all I can do is to hunker down, give into the feelings while avoiding others and they will eventually run out of steam and I can crawl back into the light and start living again.
The endless, continuous, unceasing, unrelenting search for being esteemed, extolled, honored, praised, preferred, consulted or approved of is exhausting, hopeless and ultimately futile. It makes me miserable and it causes me to sometimes make those closet to me frustrated and angry. Notice I left out mention of love. That is a whole other topic to be tackled some other time.
I have taken up the habit of trying to pray the litany everyday. Strangely enough, it can often help. A little. Sometimes. Strangely enough, something burrowed deep down in doesn’t want it to help. Must that part of me that can’t let go of the need to seek external nourishment of a false self that sound be starved to death so the real self might flourish.
Have mercy on me, God, for I am treated harshly; attackers press me all the day. My foes treat me harshly all the day; yes, many are my attackers. O Most High when I am afraid, in you I place my trust.
Who are my foes? Who are those who attack? Who treats me harshly? Who. Is really my only true enemy? Pogo figured it out a decade before I was born.
I am my own enemy.
Wait did I skip that line about trust. The thing that sustains me most during the dark days lost in fear and imagined isolation is trust. Trust that the darkness will pass. Trust that though I feel bereft and totally alone, I am not alone. He is with me. I trust in that.
About this litany? There will be more to come.
