Weight

Our Lord once said "come to me all who are heavy burdened and I will give ye rest" (or something to that effect, somewhere around Matthew 11:28). Lately things seem so heavy. I've gained huge amounts of weight since Capernwray and even since last year. I'm 270 pounds. That is downright disgusting, sometimes before I eat, I pray "Father forgive me for what I am about to do" as I make the signum crucis.

Sin also weighs down. I confess my sins to God, but I am constantly haunted by Jn 20:23 and know that I may very likely remain in mortal sin, and the threat of eternal damnation. I try to cry alot, remembering St. Ambrose quote about the 2 regenerating baptisms, that of water, and that of tears (contrition).

I read the promises of Scripture (rom 6:4) I think of St. Paul's rejoicing that we have the Spirit which will save us and lead us into new life, but I feel the dead weight, the death of sin, which haunts me at every turn. The utter inability to do what is good, to love God, to love my neighbour. I often wonder if I am the only student of theology who might think he is damned, even though he believes all the right things, and can extoll and exposit the Word of God and lead others in the path he is too weak to walk himself.

Again the weight of it all carries me down. I know all the verses, I know the theology of liberation, I know about the Cross and the Resurrection, but life seems so far. I feel like a ship stuck on a rock a few miles from a lighthouse, I tell the passing vessels where the light is, I know where the light is, and I want to go where the light is, except I can't, I'm weighed down to much to sail.

I am a great coward. It appears so easy to live right, and it is the just requirement of all who bear the name of Christian. But it seems I am too unregenerate, too burdened, too lazy, too fat, and in truth, alone.