Through all the ages, those who watch and pray constantly, those whose outlook is spiritual, supernatural, and not imposed by fallen nature, and who live by faith, have not been deceived by appearances. Things that seem great to the man in the street often seem small and insignificant to the spiritual man, and things that seem small to the ordinary person may be seen to be very great when seen through the eyes of faith or with the vision of a prophet. Such spiritual men discern the signs of the times whether the historical time or the liturgical season.
The Israelites had had a prophecy given to them, and they formed a picture in their minds about what its fulfillment would look like. It was a prophecy about the coming of the Messiah for whom they so longed. The words of that prophecy were these: “The Lord whom you are seeking will suddenly enter his Temple. . . . Who will be able to resist the Day of his coming, who will remain standing when he appears? For he is like a refiner’s fire.” . . .
Each of us is a temple of the Lord, and we are seeking Him, wanting Him to enter this temple and take possession of us and to purify us like a refiner’s fire. We are seeking to be taken over by God through His Son and by the burning, purifying power of the Holy Spirit. And as we picture how this growth in holiness will take place in us if we succeed in really becoming holy, we probably form an idea that is nothing like the truth. Our conversion into men and women of deep and constant prayer will almost certainly take place, despite the miracle that it is, in a way that to ordinary consciousness seems very insignificant and almost despicable in appearance. God takes possession of His Temple as a poor helpless baby dependent on His Mother for being there at all and in a way noteworthy only in the sight of people who live by faith, live in hope for what they have not, and who love God. [Fr. Keep refers here to the Presentation of the Child Jesus in the Temple; only Simeon and Anna recognized the true import of the occasion] . . .
We can, if we will, draw a good lesson for ourselves about the attitude we should have to our own reception of Our Lord and of what we may expect in the growth of our interior life if we are faithful to God. We must not be deceived by appearances and think that nothing much takes place in our souls, even if we see and feel ourselves to be far from the fervor and purity that are proper to a temple of God. We have got to receive Our Lord with great poverty of spirit, and the refiner’s fire, which purifies us, is not a glamorous feeling of uncontrollable love or an intense urge to do great things for God, as a rule. What has to be strengthened in us is the virtue of hope, because it is that virtue which looks to God alone and does not base itself on our own possessions, virtues, or success. . . .
If you have been wanting to become very close to God . . . and if you keep up your mental prayer regularly and try to live a good Catholic Christian life, it may be that you feel that you are failing to become holy, failing to let God take possession of His temple. If on this account you have a kind of background feeling that you are not getting anywhere in your spiritual life, it may well be that you are deficient in the virtue of hope, a virtue which allows Simeon and Anna and all little souls to see great things under insignificant appearances when God acts. It is a virtue that looks so hard at God and His goodness and His mercy that it hardly sees itself at all.
When you come to God in prayer and in the liturgy, it may be that you are aware of not being able to concentrate, or not being able to feel great devotion, or not feeling on fire with love for God. You may feel almost dead spiritually. Instead of letting these things depress you and make you think that our Messiah has not come to take possession of His temple, I suggest that you consider whether He is not in fact so present and so guiding the course of your life by His providence that all these defects that you still have, despite your prayers and desires, are left there to refine you, a refiner’s fire. They are just the material that the virtue of hope feeds on. Use these unsatisfactory things about yourself, your spiritual poverty, as food for trust in the mercy of God, the virtue of hope, and do it in the arms of Mary, the Mother of God and our Mother.
