The Nine S': Selflessness

As standards of formation, suffering and selflessness are in pinnacle positions among the Nine S': silence, solitude, slowness, suffering, selflessness, simplicity, stability, stillness and serenity.  In the spiritual life a pinnacle is union with Christ. 

Galatians 2:20 is a key Scripture for realizing the death of self, and suffering, as we have discussed in the previous post, is part and parcel of picking up our cross daily and following Christ. I have been crucified with Christ, yet I live, no longer I, but Christ lives in me, insofar as I now live in the flesh, I live by faith in the Son of God who has loved me and given himself up for me.

In order to become one with Christ, we must experience what Jesus experienced on earth because unlike cannot unite.  By becoming as Christ through living in Him in the present moments, we will die to what we are and have been.  We will become as Christ by faith in Him who loves us and "gives himself up" for us.  Two cannot unite unless one becomes like and as the other.

Suffering is one way in which we become as Christ.  We die to self.  We become crucified with Christ.  But the grace inherent in suffering through, with and in Christ is selflessness.  In order to be as Christ, for divine union to be possible in Christ-likeness, we must come to a purity of selflessness.  What is it to be selfless?  We become concerned more with the needs and wishes of others than for ourselves.  Who are the others of our concern?  God and our fellow man.

Jesus gave us the greatest command: love God above all things and love others.  We are to be more concerned with the needs and desires of God the Father, Christ the Son, and the Holy Spirit than our own needs and wishes.  We must hear and know God's will and do it.  Our need must be His need and desire, and He tells us that He wants to love us and for us to love Him.  Remain in My love.  Jesus wants us to unite in Him, become one with Him, by remaining in His love.

When we remain in His love, we learn to love.  We learn love by partaking in holy suffering.  Holy suffering is that which God allows and offers without our having to go seeking suffering, or creating means of suffering.  A holy cross is one given by God, through His allowance in natural means such as illness, accidents, and consequences of sins.  There is no need to act in ways to make ourselves suffer.  God provides us with all that we need in order to be crucified in Christ, through natural sufferings, that I call holy sufferings.  These are sufferings born well for the love of God and souls.

When we remain in His love, we learn selflessness.  We learn selflessness by learning to love as Christ loves, as we experience His love while remaining in His love.  In this embrace of holy love, we experience this divine love enough to desire to love God and others with Christ-love.  Remain in His love, and Christ's love will permeate our bodies, minds, hearts and souls.  Selflessness is generated in Christ's loving absorption of our beings.  Incrementally we grow in holiness by love, in Christ, in His love. 

God is love, and His will for us is to love.  We live yet no longer ourselves, but Christ lives in us and we in Him.  Remaining in His love ensures selflessness, for in Christ we do the will of His Father: Love God and others. To grow in selflessness, is to learn and practice remaining in Christ's love.  We may begin now.  Remain in His love by living in Jesus Christ who loves us and gives himself up for us.  No longer us who live but Christ living in us, and by faith, us living in Christ, we will love and do likewise, as our Beloved. 

These matters can be actualized in our moment by moment temporal existence, as we live in the flesh,  in faith we live in Christ.  Learning to remain in His love will be one and many steps on the stairway to heaven.  Practice remaining in Christ's love.  Practice with acts of faith.  Will to accept with gratitude, suffering.  In His love we learn love of suffering and pure selflessness.  In Him, in His love, we will learn and receive His love, and in Him, to be love.