Monday’s Reflection
ONE OF THE MOST DIFFICULT challenges we seem to face in the spiritual journey is to love ourselves as we have been loved. There are many interpretations, both present and past, of the particularities of that challenge. I choose to focus on it from one vantage point. I call it the art of “loving our abjections.” . . . The phrase comes from the seventeenth century Salesian spiritual tradition whose chief architects are saints Francis de Sales and Jane de Chantal.
. . . Our “abjections” are those limiting and limited aspects of all of our lives. They are the shadowy side, the weaknesses, the brokenness that is simply a part of who we are. We can kick at it, hide it, deny it; it will not go away. In fact, the more vehemently we ignore or despise it, the more energy we have to expend to convince others and ourselves that it does not exist.
- Wendy M. Wright
The Rising
From pages 47-48 of The Rising: Living the Mysteries of Lent, Easter, and Pentecost by Wendy M. Wright. Copyright & copy; 1994 by Wendy M. Wright. All rights reserved. Used by permission. http://www.upperroom.org/bookstore/. Learn more about or purchase this book.
Today’s Question
What would it mean to love your own weaknesses? Share your reflections.
Today’s Scripture Reading
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