Devotional Tidbits: From the Monastics

"The spiritual consequences of attachments...need to be healed. The spiritual damage we receive from them usually lies in the subtle attractions of power without responsibility. We choose to be greedy, lustful and selfish because we like what these things bring us, but we give no thought (or no effective thought) to their consequences for ourselves or others. Because of the element of choice involved and because our will, as well as our woundedness, maintains our attachments, letting go of them can be like dying. For the attachment itself it is a dying, since it will have gathered psychic energy to itself and can seem almost to take on an existence of its own. When we make our first, feeble attempts at liberation, this energy will rear up to defend itself. To let it die is part of what Christ meant when He spoke about losing our life in order to save it. We must lose the things we fasten on to because we think them essential in our lives, so that we can save the true life which we live in God."

            --Frances Teresa, OSC (Order of St. Clare)

God help us in our weakness. CH +