Regarding the Fr. Arsenie Boca you shared - I’ll be honest; I struggle with the sentiment a lot. Not because I don’t think its wonderful that God is so merciful or that I am a good follower of Christ. But because it feels exhausting trying to be obedient and “perfect” (not that I am) over a long long period of time. I cant help but feel bitter and resentful that everyone isn’t required to follow God’s Word longer, enjoy this world’s vices, and yet are still considered more loved by God. I do want everyone to have God’s mercy and I know shouldn’t be following God’s Word for a reward. But its so difficult to uphold and not have my efforts recognized or appreciated. It makes me want to give in.
Sorry, I don’t mean to rant. But the sentiment is something that comes up both in The Parable in the Prodgial Son (from the the oldest son’s perspective/portion) and The Parable of the Equal Wages. Its been almost 2 decades and I still havent come to terms with it. So I wanted to hear your thoughts from a personal and/or theological perspective.
Hello, anon! First, I do want to clarify the Fr. Boca quote before engaging with you on your thoughts, because I don't think he quite means what I think you are interpreting it; I gather from your comment that you "feel bitter" that there are people who "enjoy this world's vices and yet are considered more loved by God" that the quote is implying that God loves sinners more than the righteous. But the quote is comparing the love that God has towards the sinner with the love that the holiest person has towards God. That even the love that, say, the Virgin Mary has towards God is as nothing compared to the ocean of love God pours over the worst of sinners.
But the issue (I am going to say the temptation) that you are facing is a common one, and I'm not excluded from it either; it seems unfair that others get to do all these things without caring about the consequences, only to repent at the last minute and be saved. When Pope Benedict XVI talks about this attitude of the older brother in the Parable of the Prodigal Son, he actually identifies this as a spiritual sickness in the people who feel this way. He writes (Jesus of Nazareth, p. 207-208):
The older brother now makes his appearance. He comes home from working in the fields, hears feasting at home, finds out why, and becomes angry. He finds it simply unfair that this good-for-nothing, who has squandered his entire fortune—his father's property—with prostitutes, should now be given a splendid feast straightaway without any period of probation, without any time of penance. That contradicts his sense of justice: The life he has spent working is made to look of no account in comparison to the dissolute past of the other. Bitterness arises in him: "Lo, these many years I have served you and I never disobeyed one of your commands," he says to his father, "yet you never gave me a kid, that I may make merry with my friends" (Lk 15:29). The father goes out to meet the older brother, too, and now he speaks kindly to his son. The older brother knows nothing of the inner transformations and wanderings experienced by the younger brother, of his journey into distant parts, of his fall and his new self-discovery. He sees only injustice. And this betrays the fact that he too had secretly dreamed of a freedom without limits, that his obedience has made him inwardly bitter, and that he has no awareness of the grace of being at home, of the true freedom that he enjoys as a son. "Son, you are always with me, and all that is mine is yours" (Lk 15:31). The father explains to him the great value of sonship with these words—the same words that Jesus uses in his high-priestly prayer to describe his relationship to the Father: "All that is mine is thine, and all that is thine is mine" (Jn 17:10).
In the part of the passage that I bolded, Pope Benedict diagnoses this illness: that we misidentify the sinfulness of the sinner with the freedom that we desire, when living in accordance to God's law is actually the true freedom. To use the language of Carson Holloway in his The Way of Life: John Paul II and the Challenge of Liberal Modernity, we treat the Gospel and the imitation of Christ as something that is heteronomic, a law that is imposed on us from without, rather than something that fulfills our nature from within. This is a misconception that we have to constantly challenge, because our fallen nature vigorously resists it: we have to train ourselves to see our obedience to God's word as the source of our deepest satisfaction and flourishing, while the apparent "freedom" of a life of sin (for all its variety of "choices") is ultimately the way of death and languishing. We should treat it the way we should treat maintaining our hygiene or exercising regularly; it may not feel great in the moment, but it is ultimately for our good.
If I may suggest a short prayer to say when you begin to feel frustrated:
Dear Jesus, bless my affectivity. May I come to genuinely rejoice in choosing to do good and avoiding what is evil. Remove from my heart all resentment for abandoning the goods of this world that are only transitory, that I may truly embrace and celebrate that highest eternal Good: right relationship with You. Amen.
This is actually only a third of what I originally wanted to say, but this is already getting long and I have a crying infant in the house now, but God bless, anon, and pray for me as I pray for you? If you want to reach out again, please feel free to.
