Am I being selfish by denying help to my family or friends? Part II of II

Q: Dear Father John, if Christians are called to charity, and we assume that our charity must cost us something (like time, comfort, or money), is there a time when we can justifiably deny a request without being selfish? I’m an at-home mom and my friends often ask me to babysit for their children.  I always say “Yes”, but only because it is difficult for me to do so, and I wonder if God is increasing my capacity to give.

In our last post we laid the groundwork for balance in self-giving. In this post we will dig into a few practical ideas.

Saying “No” and Saying “Yes”

With those distinctions in mind, I think we can answer your question: “Is there a time when we can justifiably deny a request without being selfish?”  Absolutely!  The ultimate goal is not to go around looking for things that are hard for us to do and to do as many of them as possible.  The ultimate goal is give ourselves to God and our neighbor, out of love, out of a sense of what would please them and be good for them.  This provides us with a hierarchy of values that enable us to discern when to say “yes” and when to say “no.”

For example, as a married woman your first arena of love is in your friendship with God himself.  That friendship requires you to hold dear what God holds dear, and so you will never disobey his commands.  If someone asks you to babysit on Sunday, when you know God wants you to be with him at Mass, you can say, “I am so sorry, I am not available.”

Your second arena of love is your relationship with your husband – that is your sacrament.  Through that bond God promises to send his grace into your lives and, through you, into the world.  If you and your husband have instituted a weekly or monthly date-night in order to help keep your communication channels healthy, you won’t be able to babysit that night – you will have to deny that request.  You might actually enjoy the date-night more than the babysitting, but that doesn’t mean you are being selfish.  You are actually being faithful; you are loving as God wants you to love; you are saying “no” to one very good thing in order to say “yes” to an even better thing.

Vanity Disguised as Love

In some cases, it is actually a sign of selfishness NOT to deny a request.  Let’s take a radical case.  Your girlfriend is having an affair.  She wants to get together with her lover while her husband is at work.  She asks you to babysit her kids so she can have her tryst.  Part of you may want to say yes to this request, because you don’t want to alienate this friend (who is popular and influential in your social circles).  But you know that you should not encourage her in her infidelity.  If you were to babysit to help cover up her adultery, would you really be showing her Christ-like love?  Or would you be putting your own social status ahead of your responsibility as Christ’s follower to help people leave sin instead of dive into it?

Discerning God’s Path

The principle underlying these examples is always the same.  It has to do with keeping God first in our lives, with loving him by finding and following his will for us.  That is the true measure of love.  Sometimes that path will be steep and painful, just like Christ’s path to Calvary.  But even then, in the depths of our soul we will find a spiritual resonance, an interior peace and assurance that comes from the Holy Spirit.

If we don’t, if we only find turbulence and confusion even in our hearts, it could actually be a sign that we are making a wrong turn, that we are operating out of vanity or pride instead of Christ-like love.  How can we tell the difference?  Usually it is clear.  When it isn’t, we need to turn to God in prayer (and it’s much easier to do that if we have already developed a healthy prayer life), and get solid advice from someone we trust, like a spiritual director.  And, like all things in the spiritual life, practice makes perfect: the more we engage in Christ-like love, the more easily we discern the real thing from its distracting counterfeits.

“How” vs “How Much”

As a final comment, I would like to make an observation about St. Paul’s “Hymn to Charity,” which we find in 1 Corinthians 13.  This passage summarizes the characteristics of Christ-like love (which is why it is so popular as a Reading during wedding Masses).  Notice that St. Paul is much more interested in how we do things and how we treat each other than he is in how much we get done.  In our world of maniacal overachievers and merely material standards of success, that is a very, very important distinction to keep in mind.  If we say yes to so many things that we end up doing them all angrily, resentfully, and bitterly, we have probably lost the balance somewhere along the line and need to pull back.  It may be costly to decide to give of ourselves, but once we have made the decision, we should be able to let our trust in God banish the emotional resentment: “Each one should give as much as he has decided on his own initiative, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver” (2 Corinthians 9:7).   Let’s let St. Paul have the last word:

Love is always patient and kind; love is never jealous; love is not boastful or conceited, it is never rude and never seeks its own advantage, it does not take offense or store up grievances.  Love does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but finds its joy in the truth.  It is always ready to make allowances, to trust, to hope and to endure whatever comes. Love never comes to an end. (1 Corinthians 13:4-8)

Am I being selfish by denying help to my family or friends? Part I of II

Q: Dear Father John, if Christians are called to charity, and we assume that our charity must cost us something (like time, comfort, or money), is there a time when we can justifiably deny a request without being selfish? I’m an at-home mom and my friends often ask me to babysit for their children.  I always say “Yes”, but only because it is difficult for me to do so, and I wonder if God is increasing my capacity to give.

A: I know for certain that you are not the only reader of this blog who struggles with this issue.  We all experience the limitations of time and space (and energy!), and yet we believe we are called to be limitless in our love: “Therefore you are to be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect” (Matthew 5:48).  How can we reconcile the apparent contradiction?

A Gospel Paradox

First, we have to get somewhat theological.  Charity – Christ-like, self-forgetful love – is by nature sacrificial.  We give of ourselves to someone else, for their benefit instead of our own.  And that goes against the grain of the selfish tendencies deep within us, which we inherited with original sin.  Therefore, self-giving is often painful, or, as you put it, costly.  This is what Blessed Mother Teresa of Calcutta meant when she said, “This is the meaning of true love: to give until it hurts.”  This is also what Jesus had in mind when he taught that “the gate is small and the way is narrow that leads to life, and there are few who find it” (Matthew 7:14).  Following Christ, learning to love like Christ, involves a constant battle against our innate tendencies to self-indulgence (of any variety), which necessarily involves self-denial: “If anyone wishes to come after Me, he must deny himself, and take up his cross and follow Me” (Matthew 16:24).

But in a true gospel paradox, the initial pain of self-denial out of love for God and neighbor doesn’t last.  It is transformed into interior peace and deep joy: “It is more blessed to give than to receive” (Acts 20:35), our Lord promised, and again “Give, and it shall be given to you” (Luke 6:38).  Love, Christ-like love, touches a deeper chord in our soul than selfishness.  And so, when we obey the law of Christ-like love, we experience a spiritual satisfaction and tranquility that can actually coexist with the discomfort caused by denying our selfish tendencies.  On the surface, we feel the pain of self-giving, and in the depths, we know we are doing the right thing; we experience interior peace.  In the end, this deeper level outweighs the more superficial, emotional tantrums.

Think of the mother whose young child is seriously ill.  She has to stay up night after night to care for and watch over the child.  At times she feels that she simply can’t go on.  Exhaustion is wreaking physiological and psycho-somatic havoc.  And yet, she would have it no other way.  In her heart she experiences a spiritual peace because she knows that this is what God is asking of her, that this is what a mother should do, regardless of the cost to herself.

Costliness Is not the Essence of Love

And so, although Christ-like love will always be costly, we cannot really equate the love with the costliness.  The costliness is more like a byproduct, which comes from the automatic resistance of our innate selfishness.  And it is not the only byproduct – interior peace and inner joy are also the byproducts of true love.  When we give of ourselves out of love, and not out of vanity or fear, we experience spiritual satisfaction, because that’s what we were made for.  We are created in God’s image, and God is love.

In our next post we will give some examples of our “yes and no” in relation to charity.

When the soul lives in God…

There is a time when the soul lives in God and a time when God lives in the soul. What is appropriate to one of these times is not fitting to the other.

When God lives in the soul, it should surrender itself completely to His providence. When the soul lives in God, it must take trouble to obtain for itself regularly and carefully, every possible means to achieve union with Him. The whole procedure is marked out – the readings, the examinations of conscience, the resolutions. Its guide is always present, everything is by rule, even the hours for conversation.

When God lives in the soul, it has nothing left of self, but only that which the Spirit imparts to it moment by moment. Nothing is provided for the future, no road is mapped out, but the soul is like a child who can be lead wherever one pleases, and has nothing but feeling to distinguish what is offered to it. No more books with marked passages for these souls; often they are even deprived of a regular spiritual director, for God allows them no other support than Himself. They dwell in darkness, forgotten and deserted, in death and nothingness. They suffer distresses and miseries without knowing where to find relief. Keeping their eyes toward Heaven alone, they wait peacefully and without fear for help to come. And God, who seeks no purer disposition in His loved ones than this entire surrender of self-interest in order to live by grace and divine operation alone, provides them with the necessary books, thoughts, self-understanding, advice and wise counsel. Everything that others discover by diligent searching these souls find in self-surrender. What others store up with care so they can find it again, these souls receive the very moment there is need of it, and afterwords they relinquish it again, taking only what God is willing to give, in order to live through Him alone.

Others undertake an infinity of good works for the glory of God, but these souls are often cast aside in a corner of the world like bits of broken crockery, apparently of no use to anyone. There these souls, forsaken by men but enjoying God with a very real, true and passionate, though deeply tranquil love, attempt nothing by their own impulse. They know only that they must surrender themselves and remain in God’s hands to be used by Him as He pleases. Often they do not know of what use they might be, but God knows well. The world considers them of no account, but it is nonetheless true that in mysterious ways and through hidden channels these souls spread abroad an infinite amount of grace on persons who often are unaware of them, people of whom these souls may themselves be unaware.

In these surrendered souls everything effectively preaches the Good News of the Gospel. God gives their silence, their quiet, their self-forgetfulness, their words and their gestures a certain virtue, which unknown to themselves, works in the hearts of those around them; and, just as they are guided by the random actions of innumerable creatures that are unknowingly influenced by grace, they themselves, in their turn, are used to support and guide others without any direct acquaintance with them or knowledge that this is what they are doing.

It is God who works in them in unforeseen and often unknown impulses. In this way they are like Jesus, from whom went out a secret virtue for the healing of others. There is this difference between Him and them: often they are not conscious of the outflow of this virtue and contribute nothing by way of co-operation. It is like a hidden balm which men perceive without recognizing, and which is itself unaware of its own healing virtue.

Father Jean-Pierre de Caussade – Click here to learn more about the writings of Father de Caussade.