You're not junk!

This is a post that appeared in today's iBenedictine Nuns' blog. I think it's so good I'm just going to paste it here. I love the sentence, "that, by and large, I stick with being me, trusting that God doesn't make junk and sees something wonderful in each one of us, even me." Amen, sister! 


That's such an important truth in a society which still rejects people with disabilities (even to the extent of aborting them before they see the light of day. I was moved to read Peter Saunders' piece about a mum's bitter regrets at being persuaded to have her Down's baby aborted). God doesn't make junk. We may feel over-the-hill and useless - and yet, think about it, if I were merely a car, I'd be a valuable veteran, getting on for vintage, by now. And visitors would be brought to the garage where I was kept and would say, admiringly, "I must say he looks well, considering." The fact I could only be taken out on a trailer wouldn't matter. Of how much more value are even the most decrepit human crocks! Surely our Heavenly Father cares for us!

On Being Oneself

by Digitalnun on November 12, 2011

A few weeks ago, when I posted some thoughts about online engagement, my friend Tim Hutchings very sensibly asked whether some of my suggestions didn’t cancel themselves out, making us less ‘ourselves’ online than we are offline. I think the specific question he raised was addressed in the comments, but there is a bigger question that concerns all of us, whether we go online or not. How can we be ourselves in a world that, by and large, is always pressuring us to be something other than we are? The world of advertising wants us to be thinner, richer, more ‘stylish’ than most of us could ever dream of being (i.e to buy what it is selling). The world of Church wants us to be . . . what exactly?

I often ask myself what the homilist thinks he is doing (in the Catholic Church, the sermon is always preached by a priest or deacon, who must be male). Do the admonitions to be more prayerful, more generous, more this or that really affect us? When I’m exhorted to act in a certain way ‘because you are a nun’, does it ever change me? I have to say that, by and large, I stick with being me, trusting that God doesn’t make junk and sees something incomparably wonderful in each one of us, even me. That isn’t a pretext for not trying to be more prayerful, generous, etc (see above), I think it is to recognize a fundamental truth: we go to heaven, if we go at all, as ourselves — smudged with sin, only half-understanding, full of contradictions, the person God created and redeemed. Being oneself is ultimately the only way in which to give God glory.