Lenten Reflection

“Do not let us be put to shame”

 

Today’s two readings demonstrate how to experience shame and how to work through shame.

 

During Lent, we are called to take stock of our sinfulness, but without losing hope that God will forgive, that our closest loved ones will forgive, and that we will forgive ourselves and others.  And yet, this deep into the Lenten season, with daily reminders that we are sometimes not as good as we strive to be or as others expect us to be, it is all to easy to feel shame, to be ashamed.  It is also all too easy to shame others who do not live up to our expectations. 

 

Shame is more troubling than guilt.  We feel guilt in response to an action that we have performed;  it is an emotional rejection of an action; it is a psychological marker to remind us to avoid those actions in the future.  Shame is deeper, darker, and more terrifying.  We feel shame in response to our selves; shame is an emotion that can lower our self-esteem; it is an emotion that rejects, repudiates, and disdains the self.  If you feel shame, you are ashamed of your self.  Your self. 

 

You feel guilty when you commit an act that you know does not represent your true self.  You feel shame when you commit an act that you begin to believe represents your self.  You yell at someone you love and feel guilty because you define yourself as a patient person; you yell at someone you love and feel ashamed because you begin to believe that you are actually an angry, hateful person, through and through.   Left untended or repressed or suppressed, shame can lead to isolation, depression, and despair.  But shame, like all other emotions, is not meant to be ignored.  We are meant to struggle through shame, to cope with shame, to learn from shame. 

 

The truth of the matter is that our sinfulness “brings us” so “low” that no one but God, and nothing but love and forgiveness, can keep us from shame, or help us through shame.   Jesus’s parable about the servant’s debt has us realize that mercy and grace are from God, yes, but not like manna from heaven.  Love is the answer to shame, and each person is utterly dependent upon the love of others to withstand moments of shame.  The patience, kindness, and compassion that the master feels for the servant are the only ways to lead other people through feelings of shame and towards a true sense of self-worth and dignity. 

 

The master’s servant does not get the message.  He does not love when his time comes to act as master.  Instead of inspiring, instead of giving breath, the master’s servant chokes his fellow servant, deprives him of breath, of spirit, of life.  Love and forgiveness give life and dignity; deprivation and grudges make for shame, self-loathing, and suffering.  Because he puts his own servant to shame, the master’s servant is tortured until he pays back his debt.  In other words, the master’s servant is shamed for his selfishness—he desired compassion when he needed it, but he refused to impart compassion to others when they needed it.  He was selfish.  He lacked empathy.  He was the center of his own universe.  His ego trumped his humanity.  No sinful condition is worse, and no sin is more deserving of shame, Jesus seems to suggest, than this selfishness.

 

We are all sinners, we all suffer shame, we all need love and forgiveness.  These truths must be the touchstones of each relationship, every relationship, between the core of one person and the core of another, in the home and in the board room, in the nursery and in the funeral parlor, in the classroom and in the chapel.  - T.J. Moretti