“The Egyptian Fathers of the desert said that vanity is a temptation against which we must battle our whole life, because it always comes back to take the truth away from us. And in order to understand this they said: It’s like an onion. You take it, and begin to peel it – the onion – and you peel away vanity today, a little bit tomorrow, and your whole life your peeling away vanity in order to overcome it. And at the end you are pleased: I removed the vanity, I peeled the onion, but the odour remains with you on your hand. Let us ask the Lord for the grace to not be vain, to be true, with the truth of reality and of the Gospel.” -
Pope Francis
"Let us ask the Lord for the grace to not be vain, to be true, with the truth of reality and of the Gospel" Thanks you for this, Terry. That sounds like a prayer all of us who choose to post on the internet should be praying every day.
ReplyDeleteMy thinking exactly as I was reading the quote from Papa Francis.
Delete"It’s like an onion. You take it, and begin to peel it – the onion – and you peel away vanity today, a little bit tomorrow, and your whole life your peeling away vanity in order to overcome it. And at the end you are pleased: I removed the vanity, I peeled the onion."
Not without the help of Jesus! He knows how much I love onions! Peeling them away while anticipating the pleasure of their taste is a hard thing to give up.
So it was hard to give up the pleasure of having the last word, of slamming someone else while I hid behind my computer screen. It was hard to give up pretending to be articulate and smart so as to put another person down, it was hard to just walk away and ignore folks. It was hard to let go of the idea that I am always right and everyone else is wrong.
No more!
I knew it was all about my pride and my vanity and a waste of my energy. I am grateful to leave all that behind and to just go outside and enjoy the sunshine and entrust everyone to the Lord in prayer.
I got my sense of humor back too!
Thank you Terry for another post that will help me remember to be a better person today!