The first piece of advice from Blessed Claude de la Colombiere, which I have not heard anywhere else, is remarkable
There is so much beauty and love in the world, and yet we sometimes end up feeling a sense of despair. We lose the encouragement of hope and end up feeling trapped, unable to shake loose from the fear that tomorrow will be no better than today. We fixate on everything that’s going wrong and lose sight of what has gone right.
People often come to me looking for priestly advice because they’re concerned about their sense of despair. They cannot shake persistent doubt that lingers from past setbacks. Life has been challenging and, because of that, they’re concerned that God doesn’t love them anymore or even that they lack the intrinsic value to be loved. Others despair not because of exterior circumstances but interior. They fear for their salvation because they cannot shake a vice and have come to disbelieve that they have the ability to ever change. When a person struggles with bad habits for so long, it’s very tempting to give up.
Despair is more than simply experiencing anxiety or sadness. It represents the voluntary and complete abandonment of hope. A person in the grip of despair might choose to stop going to confession or purposely give up on trying to control a vice. Such a person might stop trying to improve their lives or work hard because doing so has come to seem pointless. Because despair is a positive act of the will that is opposed to the good, it is actually a form of sin.
I have great hope for the people who ask me about despair. The very fact they’re talking to me about it means they clearly have not given up. They’re still in the fight. I encourage them that, although they’re on shaky ground, they are far from lost. No one’s sins are too great to be forgiven, and no one’s vices are too entrenched to ever be overcome. Even when we’re walking in a dark valley, God is with us.
I know this to be true because, at one time, there were a number of things about me that I was worried I would never be able to change. I cannot tell you how many times I promised myself I wouldn’t make a conversation all about me, and chastised myself to actually listen to the other person and show an interest in them, and how, even after doing so, I would leave a social engagement morose that I had broken all my rules. How many times have I reproached myself for saying pointlessly self-aggrandizing, arrogant things? I wanted to stop but just couldn’t. It was a compulsion that left me helpless. I lost hope that I would ever overcome my ego.
How can we avoid falling into despair and giving up? How do we break these bad habits we’ve indulged for so long?
Blessed Claude de la Colombiere, in his book Trustful Surrender to Divine Providence, has some great thoughts. Colombiere was the spiritual director, at one time, for St. Margaret Mary Alacoque, and I imagine that many of his insights spring directly from experiencing the peacefulness and hope of the Sacred Heart.
Re-imagine your sins as gifts
His first piece of advice, which I have not heard anywhere else, is remarkable. He says to approach our sins with an entirely different frame of mind. Instead of despairing over the enormity of past sins, thinking they’re unforgivable, or giving up on overcoming our present sins, Colombiere writes, “At death, when my sins known and unknown trouble me, I will take them all and cast them at Our Lord’s feet to be consumed in the fire of his mercy. The greater they are, the worse they seem to me, the more willingly will I give them to him because the offering will be all the more worthy of his mercy.”
He learns, instead of despairing over the size and severity of his flaws, to think of them as making a bigger and better sacrifice when he finally gets rid of them. Our flaws are not a weight but an opportunity. But only if we don’t give up.
Practice trustful surrender
Trustful surrender is the only path to peace and happiness, says Blessed Colombiere. It’s when we try to control every single aspect about ourselves that anxiety and despair overwhelm us. We cannot control everything, so pretending we can is setting ourselves up for failure. If we surrender control to God, then all obstacles whether internal or external become salutary remedies from a loving Father. All his plans for us are good, so why despair?
Remain hopeful
It makes sense that, if despair is a sin against hope, that purposely working on becoming more hopeful will be the best medicine against despair. Despite our many falls into vice or the struggles of this life, hope firmly maintains that we are loved and valued. There is much beauty in this world and the future will be brighter and brighter. If nothing else, in the midst of our difficulties, we can maintain our hope that God will save us.
Don’t give up. Despair is a spiritual trap that causes us to fixate on failure, but Blessed Claude Columbiere is firm in his belief that even our most difficult experiences are transformed by hope into potentials sacrifices of love we make to God. In the end, those sacrifice are transformational, and what we will one day become is cause for celebration.
