Struggling with our Shadow

In every liturgical year the Church brings us in the first Sunday of Lent to reflect on the Lord’s being led into the desert to struggle and be tempted. 

We are reminded of the very real humanity of Jesus. We are reminded that, like Jesus, we need to struggle in the process of knowing who we are in relation to God and one another.

Father Richard Rohr teaches that “Human consciousness does not emerge at any depth except through struggling with your shadow. I wish someone had told me that when I was young. It is in facing your conflicts, criticisms, and contradictions that you grow up. You actually need to have some problems, enemies, and faults! You will remain largely unconscious as a human being until issues come into your life that you cannot fix or control and something challenges you at your present level of development, forcing you to expand and deepen. It is in the struggle with our shadow self, with failure, or with wounding, that we break into higher levels of consciousness.” 

In order for us to make real progress in this inward journey of self realization, we need to take the spiritual desert seriously. Many people are afraid to be alone with themselves. That is to say, to face themselves, along with their pain and trauma. Lent is an invitation to open up to and face the inner barriers that keep us from being more fully human.

Jesus calls us individually and corporately to go into the desert with him to learn to trust God, to be present to God in the power of the Holy Spirit, and to struggle with the enemy within us.

The spiritual desert is a tough place where we learn to recognize and work with the pain and distractions that keep us from a deeper life in God, a deeper life in Love.

St.Augustine of Hippo says “we progress by means of trial. No one knows himself except through trial…we can only grow when struggling against temptation and challenge.”

The interior life of struggling with self and more habitually centering on the Love that is Christ is something we must simply practice and do. The spiritual practices of prayer and meditation, of reading sacred scripture, of participating in intentional community, of service to the poor and those in need are foundational practices in Christian living, and can be renewed in Lent. 

Praying that during this Lent, in your silence and solitude, that more space will open up inside of you as you notice the Indwelling Presence filling you with a Love and Compassion that will change and heal the world.