Looking in the Mirror

Yesterday I attended a one day retreat. The topic was the Holy Cross and how to make the best use out of the suffering we endure in our lives. The talk was very good. But in the conversation after the talk, there were some of the group who turned the conversation to weak priests, the devil and his spread over the earth, and holy water (or lack of it) in the church during lent. I found myself trying to pull the conversation back to the topic, of how we witness as Christians by our actions, our attitudes, and especially the way to deal with suffering. But my attempt seemed a lost cause.

This got me thinking. How easy it is to bypass our role as Christians by looking at others, their roles, and their failures. And this brings me to believe that we often concentrate on others failures, or perceived failures because it takes the attention off of our own relationship with God and where we are in that relationship.

May this be a sign of our inability to accept our own failures and weaknesses? Why would we want to take a beautiful talk about suffering and turn it into a rant against others? What happened to accepting the cross when it comes into our lives?

Let's face it. All failures humiliate. But failure is nothing more than our struggle here on earth. We are, after all, made up of spirit and flesh. To fail is human. But we have our spirit to lift us up. And, even more importantly, we must guard against making our failures bigger than they are. We didn't keep a particular resolution. So what? Try again. Don't give that failure an importance it doesn't deserve. That will only paralyze you. Because if you do, well, looking for others who failures are bigger than yours will just come naturally. When we do that, we have turned from looking into the mirror of God to worrying about others. And that is the biggest failure of all.