DAS FALSCHE SELBST UND DAS WAHRE SELBST-3

This is the third of eleven reflections on Thomas Merton’s teaching on the True Self/False Self dynamic. This conflictual but enlightening relationship permeates Merton’s huge quantity of writing on the spiritual life. The basic point of the conflict is the individual’s pull toward and away from God, one’ true and ultimate destiny. Merton’s exposure of the consequences of original sin is ruthless in its intensity. This is the task of the False Self. At the same time, the pull of the True Self, the ever-present call of God’s personal and passionate love, is even more powerful. The human heart is the battlefield of this seemingly endless confrontation.

Thomas Merton’s teachings on the True Self and False Self are very helpful in understanding the spiritual life. They offer great insights on how we experience God. Theses insights are evident in the Gospel stories and parables.

It is clear that Jesus is the perfect expression of the True Self, a total and complete openness to God’s will. The Blessed Mother was protected from the False Self in her Immaculate Conception.

Other individuals portrayed in the Gospels offer us the opportunity to see the basic conflict of good and evil, the weeds and the wheat take place in several different ways.

We have very positive expressions of the True Self in the Good Samaritan and the father of the two problematic sons. We have moments of significant choice for the True Self in the persons of the widow and her generous offering (Lk 21:1-4), in Zacchaeus (Lk19:1-10), in the Gentile woman (Mt 15:21-28) and her faith and determination to challenge Jesus for her daughter’s freedom. Then there was the woman with the twelve year hemorrhage (Mt 9:20-2), the grateful leper (Lk 17:11-17), the many other individuals who turned to Jesus for healing and plentiful other examples. All of these individuals offer a clear example of the True Self holding sway. No doubt, they all shared in the normal lifetime struggle between the True Self and the False Self that characterizes the human experience.

The False Self clearly prevails in the rich young man (Mt 19:16-25), the two sons in the parable (Lk15:11-32), the negative characters in most of the parables, and especially, in the leaders of the Jews who maneuvered the circumstances leading to the Passion and Death.

Then we have the story of the Apostles who display a genuinely revealing struggle with ambivalence. They reveal a heart in the fundamental struggle to make a definitive choice for Jesus. Their experience with the miracle-worker Jesus was an easy option. As the threatening darkness of the Road to Jerusalem rose to front and center, they were engulfed in doubt and confusion. This radical turn of events was frightening and extremely disturbing.

Peter offers a treasure trove of insights to this wavering between a yes and a no to Jesus, between the True Self and the False Self. In the Gospels’ description of Peter, we have a glorious display of our battle with the pull of God’s grace and love in the True Self, ever in the tension of the heart’s hesitation in the very human response of “not yet Lord!”. This is the best-loved phrase of the False Self.

One of the first encounters with Peter is the powerful declaration. “Depart from me Lord, for I am a sinful person.” (Lk 5:8) Yet, in the first of many contradictions, he turns around and leaves his boat, nets and “all” to follow Jesus. After witnessing the multiplication of the loaves and fishes and numerous other miracles, we have a clear demonstration of Peter’s ambivalence. While walking on the water towards Jesus, he surrenders to fear and begins to sink only to be saved by Jesus. (Mt 14:28-30).

In John’s magnificent chapter six on the Eucharist, we have another example of faith by Peter. He states, “Master, to whom shall we go. You have the words of eternal life. We have come to believe and our convinced that you are the Holy One of God.” (Jn 6:68-69)

We then have the road to Jerusalem section of Mark that is as clear a portrait as possible of Peter and the other Apostles’ wavering from the True Self to the darkness of the False Self (Mk 8:22-10:52).

Then, at the Last Supper, we have Peter rejecting the washing of his feet only to turn around making a whole body commitment to accepting Jesus’ invitation to the symbolic cleansing. This is followed by truly contradicting statements of “Master, why can’t I follow you now? I will lay down my life for you.” (Jn 13: 37). A few hours later we have Peter’s denial: “You are not one of his disciples are you? He denied it and said “I am not.” (Jn 18:25)

Then we have the Resurrection stories. These show the journey away from heartbreaking incongruities of the final days before and including Calvary. The Peter of The Acts of the Apostles is the Peter dominated by the True Self. Here we have a picture of a person passionately committed to walking with Jesus in service and love. Ultimately, he surrendered his life generously in witness to Jesus Christ.

These examples from the New Testament have a great message for us on our pilgrimage to God. First and foremost, the message of Jesus comes to us in stages over our lifetime.

Our journey is not straight forward. Our deliverance from the ambivalence of the False Self is a back and forth movement until the end. It is normal to think we are safe and committed to Jesus. In reality, however, our heart is most often dominated by false and hidden values of conventional wisdom.

• We only experience the message and call of Jesus in stages. We think we have it. Then we experience a fresh encounter calling us forward into new and welcoming horizons of life and light.

• We only achieve the full power of the True Self in contemplation or death. For most of our life, we live with the struggle between good and evil in the symbols of the True Self and False Self.

• Humility, our acceptance of the truth of our human condition, will help us to gradually see the pervasiveness of the consequences of Original Sin. Awareness of our sinfulness and brokenness is a moment of freedom that helps us turn to our merciful God. This is the essential task of the True Self: knowledge of our merciful and saving God and of our sinful but loved and forgiven condition as a child of God.

• Life is a struggle to be open to God’s call to live the True Self and to reject the inordinate pull of the False Self. This is a clear description for us of what it means to take up our cross and to walk with Jesus.