After dusting off Monday’s filth Augustine greeted me warmly again. He always seems to know under what rock I was hiding.
“Grant my prayer, O Lord, and do not allow my soul to wilt under the discipline which you prescribe. Let me not tire of thanking you for your mercy in rescuing me from all my wicked ways, so that you may be sweeter to me than all the joys which used to tempt me; so that I may love you most intensely and clasp your hand with all the power of my devotion; so that you may save me from all temptation until the end of my days.”
Van Neste, Baxter and Kelly are right (again). Self-loathing eventually unmasks itself as self-righteousness. It parades as humility, but traps me in arrogance. Monday is the slough of despond and the cross is our ladder out of it. Without it we would not climb our way to grace. The Wednesday air blows briskly, my friends.
“(T)he cross is our ladder out of it.” Yes!!!