Commence your prayers with the posture and mode that you find best. You can say a brief prayer: “Come Holy Spirit, fill the hearts of your children”, or any other that you find good. Try to place all your being in the presence of God.

Topic: attachments–dependencies (II)

Mark 10.22 “…The young man went away sadly. He had many riches.”

At this point of the Exercises, it is good to try and observe your mentality, how you think, how your judge. We all have concrete ideas, some evolve, and others become a part of our personality: how we want to see the world, how we want to be. What I think about health, about money, about sentimental relationships, about my relationships with others. Who is responsible for this programme?

Many of your ideas and behavioral patterns come from your parents, your surroundings, class, circumstances, etc. Also the religion that you profess. All of this is in your and in me, in each person. We can think about that or ignore it if we wish. But it is with me and will always accompany me.

You could ask yourself; “How do I feel”; I can feel pleased or I may be suffering. Each one of us in our own world, in a given moment.

When other people don’t behave as you would like them to, you feel bad, you don’t like it. When things escape from your control, you feel uncomfortable, upset; the train is late, the person doesn’t arrive, the TV. doesn’t work… It is true that some people have a pathetic existence: always at the MERCY of the things, of the people about them. Trying to make them fit in with their own “computer programme”. There are many people who are “programmed”: programmed by their beliefs, by their customs, by their dependencies.

If there a solution? Well of course there is. You won’t be able to change your PROGRAMME at the first try. It is a question of much patience. It may be that you don’t have to change anything. Imagine that you find yourself in a disagreeable situation, with a disagreeable person. Your “computer” starts to work: irritation, anxiety, dislike, annoyance… It isn’t the person or the situation that gives ORIGINE to these NEGATIVE REACTIONS. IT IS YOUR “PROGRAMME”.

The only reason you feel bad about it is because your programme insists that the person, thing or situation fits in with your wishes, with your programme. Try to observe, from outside, a child on his first day at school. He wants the school to change, to be like everything he has always lived with at home. But no, it is he who has to change and adapt to the new reality. I remember a person of “authority”. He had to be present in a lot of official functions; he was always edgy; always uncomfortable. I always used to say to him: do you want everything to be done your way? Year and years of traditions…. Do you want them changed to fit in for you so that you don’t feel edgy? But, stupid as it seems, that is how we are.
If you can understand this truth we will find that peace is born in you; it will be born from your self-control. Look at the world in another way. No, not from the desire to satisfy your “computer”, your programme. You will understand the words of Wisdom “And if someone wants to sue you and take your tunic, let him have your cloak as well. If someone forces you to go one mile, go with him two miles. (Mt v. 40ff)

The real oppression DOES NOT COME FROM PEOPLE, but rather from “my computer”, from my programme, my prejudices. There are people who have been happy, even in a concentration camp. The problem is when I have inner freedom or not.

This if the important subject of “DEPENDANCIES”, we are tied, and we cling to people, to things, to ideas. We believe that we cannot go on without them; we are anxious if we think we are going to lose that think that has become a port of our life.

The anguish that we have when our wishes are not met; a team that loses, a missed bus… a thousand little things every day, many of which keep us tied, have gone on to form a part of our personality.

But, nevertheless, the great truth is that the only thing that can make us happy is to de-programme ourselves, to free ourselves of these ties. Open your eyes and you will see that you don’t need that thing that you are dependant on. You loose someone and you think you will never be happy again??? Whilst I am writing on this subject I am reading a book by an author who is well known throughout the world. He lost his wife to cancer. It was an ordeal, as if the world, particularly the world of sentiments, had come to an end for ever. But now, after a few years, he is going away on holiday with another girlfriend, starting again to have a sentimental relationship. Open your eyes: dependencies are bad for us, they aren’t a reality, a fact, and they are a belief; a fantasy of the mind that “programmes” me. The world doesn’t end with that person, nor with so many other things that sometimes take away our freedom ….and give us sleepless nights!!

Without dependency you can deeply love people. You can enjoy them and all without ties of any kind.

Conclusion: It is also GRACE. May the good Lord and his Mother help us. Pray with n Ave Maria.

Note: And it is a good idea to make a few notes about these things.