Today was a day to practice humility! I usually read for a while before my prayer periods to help me relax so I can settle down to pray. Tonight, I was reading F. J. Sheed’s The Holy Spirit in Action when I read him quote Isaiah 63:10, “But they rebelled and grieved his Holy Spirit.” Well, there it was in black and white. We can cause grief in God.

I went to my Father then, and asked Him to help me reconcile this with what He had shown me before that had made it impossible to accept a sorrowing God. I asked Him for the grace to put aside any “need to be right” that I might have, so that I could see the truth.

How good He is to me! He showed me my error. I had listened well enough to what He taught me about the past (the victory of the Cross), and about the future (the final victory of the Kingdom). What I wasn’t listening to was what He was saying about the present. He reminded me that we are still waging the battle of Armageddon. The final victory will be His, but in the matrix of Time, it has not arrived yet. Ultimate bliss is not yet achieved. The wounds of battle are still being felt.

So, I gave Him the concept of a lamenting Heaven. “Silly girl,” He seemed to say and reminded me of the joy at the return of the lost lamb. He also brought to my mind, “Love covers a multitude of sins.” In this context, I came to understand that while many sins cause grief, a single act of love (and there are many of those, too) brings so much more joy that the grief/joy ratio in Heaven is still weighted heavily on the side of joy. For the moment, the joy of the saints is somewhat bittersweet.

But then there was the problem of reconciling this with Julian’s vision of the lost soul being written off in the Book of Life, and his name never being mentioned in God’s presence. That person ceased to exist for all practical purposes and could thus cause no grief. My Father took care of this, too. The writing-off took place, as it were, at that person’s particular judgment. He was dead and beyond hope. There is no sense in grieving over spilt milk, so Heaven doesn’t, but accepts God’s justice, instead. But, until that ultimate situation, the person is still given the grace to repent, which leaves Heaven open to grief because of him.

This grief, this unrequited love, I can now understand and accept. But, grief is not the same as frustration, or disappointment. We may know someone will do something to hurt us, and that foreknowledge will not spare us the pain of it when it happens. But, if we know someone won’t cooperate with what we hope to accomplish, and if we have the power to bring our ends out of their lack of cooperation, how can that person frustrate us? God is both all-knowing and all-powerful. How, then, can we frustrate Him? And how can He be disappointed in any of us when He already knows all that we will do? Disappointment implies, to me at least, a certain element of surprise. How can we surprise God?

These questions remain unresolved for me, but I know I missed something about the concept of grief, so I must admit the possibility of having done so again. I’ll return to these questions tomorrow.

(Perhaps a passage on grieving the Holy Spirit might help with this section of the retreat?) (1)

Obviously, I had cut my Father off short in what He had tried to teach me about grief. And, I did so again last night about Purgatory. While I was typing up the review, what I had written about the prevention of the wheat ear from perishing didn’t ring true, and my Father showed me that I had cut Him off and supplied the details, myself – pride! He wants me to come back to this, too, and I will, so that He can finish and make things clearer. For the moment, please disregard that part, and pray for me that I will become more patient and humble!

(1) Spiritual director: Yes, this might help. Thanks.