When I visited Ireland about 35 years ago, I remember seeing ruin after ruin. Ruined round towers, ruins of ancient monasteries, castles, and abbeys. Everywhere there were reminders of ancient Ireland and her long connection to the Catholic faith. Those ruins are a metaphor, I think, for what's happening in that poor country today. The faith is in ruins for many Catholics whose relationship with the Church is fractured and broken.
Reading an article today in Family Studies, I read this about broken relationships which is what triggered my memory of the ruins I saw in Ireland.
It is far easier to blame the other—to villainize their actions and excuse our own—than to honestly examine our part in the conflict. But genuine healing requires a willingness to look inward. ....we must make “a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.” This kind of honest appraisal demands courage and humility: a willingness to confront our own flaws, pride, and, as late philosopher Dallas Willard describes, the “warpedness” within the human will. In short, we must attend to the plank in our own eye before focusing on the speck in someone else’s. Willard reminds us that we cannot grow without first acknowledging the “ruined” places within us—our distorted thinking, reactive emotions, unhealthy patterns, and relational blind spots. Because modern culture is uncomfortable with the language of moral agency, we often focus on external explanations while ignoring the role of choice.
What an invitation this is for meditation during the upcoming season of Lent. Like Ireland, we have many inward "ruins" that affect us. Do we recognize them? Do we try to repair them? Or do we simply blame others for creating those ruins within us, many of which, if we're honest, we created ourselves. I think of my own life and the many bad choices I made in the past, especially during the sixties when all was in upheaval with the sexual revolution, the Vietnam war, the dissent from Humanae Vitae and the expansion of abortion everywhere in the country.
Yes, there were things in the culture, in the Church, and in families that made bad choices easier to make, but not everyone fell into the societal swamp. And when it comes to moral choices, we should all wear a sign that reads, "The buck stops here."
A friend did me a great favor once when I was sharing about a broken friendship. "I know you won't misunderstand me he said, but look to your own sin in the matter." It was a moment of confrontation with myself. How many broken relationships in my own life begin with my own unacknowledged "sin in the matter?"
The article went on:
This posture of self-reflection naturally expands our capacity to listen to understand, rather than listen merely to respond—a habit most of us fall into without realizing it. When we set aside our own defensiveness long enough to consider another person’s perspective, curiosity begins to replace criticism, and compassion softens judgment. Empathy is born. This shift does not erase our own hurt; it simply broadens the frame through which we see the relationship.
One framework that supports this widening perspective is dialectical thinking, a concept rooted in philosophy and later adopted across the social sciences. At its core, dialectics rests on three principles: everything is interconnected; change is constant; and opposing truths can be integrated into a more accurate whole....The ability to hold these dualities—this “both/and” thinking—is vital for personal well-being and relational repair. It allows us to engage in conflict without surrendering our voice, because we can acknowledge that there is truth on both sides. Practicing dialectical thinking is, at its essence, an exercise in cognitive flexibility and compassion. Our stories become thicker, richer, and closer to the truth when we dare to hold complexity with humility.
And there's that word...HUMILITY. It is the gateway to healing almost everything. And yet how hard it is to embrace and practice it. But when we do, each act is like a stone mason working to restore the ruins brick by brick. Even when it seems impossible, we need especially to remember that, "Nothing will be impossible for God."
Let us never get discouraged by the ruins in our little temple of the Holy Spirit. One day, it will be completely rebuilt in the New Jerusalem. In the meantime, may we carry the bricks and stones like St. Francis of Assisi did when he repaired the church of San Damiano. We can begin now what God will complete later.
May Jesus Christ be praised.
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