Part 4, Chapter 2
When I was little, I had a marionette. It was fun to play with. I would move the holder one way and the puppet would dance and move arms. I was never very good at it, but it would do what I was able to make it do, it never had a choice. It was stuck being my puppet since I was directing what it was doing. Our lives when we are in the world are like being marionettes, even if we don’t notice it. We begin to notice the strings that are attached when we are attempting to leave the world to live the devout life. We notice how entangled our life is and what strings are pulling at us. It isn’t easy trying to live a faith filled holy life, and we will at times be pulled back toward the worldly. Expect this to happen because we have not cut all the strings that keep us hung up in the world.
It will take courage to live the devout life. We need God’s grace and the virtue of courage (fortitude) to leave the world behind. Its strings keep trying to pull us back. The world and its pleasures will tug at our heart strings and we will want to go back. Sin is pleasurable and if it wasn’t we wouldn’t want to go toward it. “Even so…your changed life may be attended with some inward discomfort, and you may feel some reaction of discouragement and weariness after you have taken a final farewell of the world and its follies” (Introduction to the Devout Life, 160). Thus when we are trying to live the devout life and leave the world behind, we are going to be attracted to the things of old. We will miss some of them for a time and we may have questions about if this is really the direction we should go. There will also be inner turmoil as we let go of the attachments to the world.
So go forward with courage asking God to help us live the life He is calling us too. Be not afraid to go forward. He will never leave us alone. And yes, ask God to take out His scissors and cut the strings that keep us attached to the world.