"The Path Between Who We Think We Are and Who We Can Be"

Dear sisters,

Last week in my blog post I talked about the sin of acedia and that it is the refusal to be oneself.

(If you missed out on last week’s blog post, I would invite you to read it here first)

I’d like to expand a little this week on exactly what it means as a Christian woman to be oneself. I said last week that acedia is really the refusal to be who God created you to be. But who is that? Who did God create you to be? Essentially, what is your God-given identity?

One of my absolute favorite Bible verses is 1 John 3:1-3 and I think it’s really relevant in beginning to answer this question. It says:

“See what love the Father has bestowed on us that we may be called the children of God. Yet so we are. The reason the world does not know us is that it did not know Him. Beloved, we are God’s children now; what we shall be has not yet been revealed. We do know that when it is revealed we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is. Everyone who has this hope based on Him makes himself pure as He is pure.”

Now, there’s a lot in that verse, and I won’t be able to unpack it all in this post, but it’s important to read it so that you have some context.

The main point that we need to take away right now from this verse is that we are God’s children and as women, we are God’s daughters.

Stop. Re-read that if you need to. We are God’s daughters. And you want to know why we are God’s daughters? Because he loves us. It says it, right there, in the Bible: “See what love the Father has bestowed on us that we may be called the children of God. Yet so we are.”

Ladies, you better believe it. At your baptism God adopted you into his family. Need more proof? The Bible gives it to you in Galatians 4:6-7.

“As proof that you are children, God sent the spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying out, ‘Abba, Father!’ So you are no longer a slave but a child, and if a child then also an heir, through God.”

 Ladies, here’s the awesome thing about being God’s daughters: God is a King. In fact, He’s the King. And if we’re His daughters (the daughters of a king), guess what that makes us? Princesses.

Yes, “Shut up” indeed. We are princesses in the Kingdom of Heaven!

There’s a part in so many little girls that wants to be a princess. Perhaps that’s why I am so obsessed with the movie The Princess Diaries. In my childhood I secretly wanted (and still want) Julie Andrews to show up at my door one day and tell me that I am the princess of a small, European country.

But if anything, the Princess Diaries movies tell us that being a princess is not the easiest thing in the world. In fact, you could easily say that Mia’s life got way more difficult after she found out she was a princess. Why? Because that good news demanded a change from her. From now on Mia must “walk, talk, sit, stand…eat, dress, like a princess.” The way she presents herself with her clothing, speech, and actions must change from what is the cultural norm to reveal the fact that she’s a princess. She is now held to a much higher standard than she was before and a higher standard than the people around her.

As baptized Christians we share a similar struggle. When we hear the Good News that we are God’s children, making us heirs to the Kingdom of Heaven, this news should change us! We no longer have the excuse of ignorance. If we’re going to accept our identity as heirs to the kingdom of Heaven we also must accept the responsibilities that come along with it. We might have to change our external appearance to better reveal our Christian identity and dignity as daughters of God (Dare I say it, modesty, Ladies!). We will have to read certain books and study certain topics to be able to speak about matters important to our new-found role. And we have to act with the dignity befitting a Christian princess in every single action that we take. Every day (even bad ones).

It’s not surprising that we struggle with living out our true identity as a princess just as Mia did. The following clip is one of my favorites because of the extremely honest conversation Mia has with Joe at the end of it:

 The beautiful thing about the fact that we are God’s children is that we have freedom. We can choose whether or not we want to embrace and live out our identity as heirs to the Kingdom of Heaven just like Mia can choose whether or not she wants to accept her right to rule Genovia. But we cannot choose to not be God’s children. As Joe says to Mia, we can refuse the job but that doesn’t change the fact that we are princesses by birth. In other words, we are free to refuse to be ourselves but that refusal doesn’t change who we are.

Why do we run from the great things the Lord plans for us? Why do we prefer the mediocre existence we get from this world to the eternal fulfillment that comes in the next?

I think a lot of it has to do with fear. We’re afraid to be great.

This is why Mia planned to run away the night of the ball. She felt like she wasn’t good enough to be a princess. She was afraid of the unknown potential and possibilities that lay before her if she accepted her role as princess. She would instead prefer the safety and security of the ordinary life she already knew. Like she said, her expectations were just to pass 10th grade, not to run her own country!

So what brought her back? The words of her father.

It was her father that reminded Mia that “Courage is not the absence of fear, but rather the judgment that something else is more important than fear.”

The question we must ask ourselves as Christians is whether or not we think union with God in Heaven is more important than our fear of living the life of a saint. As Mia’s father wrote, she must travel the road between who she thinks she is and who she can be, and the important part is “simply, simply trying” to walk that path. Thankfully, Mia chose the greatness of her identity rather than the smallness of her fear.

There is a Christian virtue that I like to refer to as the “forgotten” virtue because it never seems to get mentioned. Yet it is this virtue that counteracts the vice of acedia, which is oftentimes the “forgotten sin.” This is the virtue of Magnanimity.

Magnanimity is nothing more than the aspiration of the spirit to great things. It looks like pride, but it is really the “yes” that we give to God’s desire that we should be like Him. Eve’s sin was not “wanting to be like God” because God wants us to be like Him. Eve’s sin was rather “wanting to be like God” without God. Magnanimity is Mary’s “yes,” not Eve’s “no.” It is the opposite of acedia because instead of refusing the call God gives us to greatness, we accept it.

So be magnanimous and go to the ball to claim your God-given identity! Don't settle for just "passing 10th grade" (or your next midterm)!

And remember that ultimately Mia couldn’t get to the ball completely by herself even after choosing to go because her car broke down. She chose her identity as a princess and went for it, but right after that choice came a moment that we might call a “crisis of faith.” She jumped, and for a moment, it seemed as if she was going to fall.

But then, out of the darkness, comes Joe to her rescue. It may be the words of her father that turn Mia towards her destiny but it is Joe that drives her there.

Remember that while it is necessary to work with God in our salvation by choosing to live the life of a saint, it is not our actions that save us. Rather, we get to Heaven by no other way than the Way Himself.  

In the Fire of His Love,

Alyssa

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Alyssa is a sophomore studying Humanities and Catholic Culture, Theology, and Philosophy. She is a native of Texas where she lives with her family in a blue-roofed house on top of a hill. She is passionate about the Truth of the Lord's Incarnation and loves spending time discovering and discussing ways in which others have incarnated the Gospel in film, history, literature, politics, and art. Her favorite saints are St. Teresa of Avila and St. Catherine of Siena because they both personify St. John Paul II's "feminine genius" in her mind.