Freedom from Clutter

I hope to find trust serenity, love, faith, charity, joy, health, youthfulness, serious intentions, communion, prayer, humility.

I hope to be free to continue the work we are doing here, without prejudice, but with inner freedom and liberation from spiritual clutter.*


Fr. Faccenda (OVS VI, September 6, 1977 to Argentina)


*literally: junk/outdated stuff of the spirit


How would he find you and your family? How will CHRIST find you this Christmas? 
How do you understand spiritual clutter? Ideas for eliminating it? Here's what I was thinking....



When I was a kid we had a "junk drawer." Strangely enough though, it was the most turned to drawer in the house. I never understood why it was called a "junk drawer" - everything in it seemed so useful. The only difference I could see was that the stuff was shoved into a drawer differently and with indifference.  Rubber-bands, scissors, saint cards, pens, pencils, measuring tape, the rare and coveted safety pins (and better yet, paper clips), a penny or two, sometimes a screw driver, odds and ends that didn't have their own place.  I always thought we had it backwards. There was another shelf full of things we rarely used, primed for use on a holiday or just made of glass - which never lasted long at heights less than five or six feet.  


Every once and awhile we would clean out the "junk drawer." We'd throw away the trash that had crept in at the hands of lazy children, including myself, and we'd reinsert all the wonderful items that proved so useful to a ten year-old.  


We do the same thing in the spiritual life. We shove odds and ends into a "junk drawer" just to not have to deal with it at the moment. But, all that happens is spiritual clutter.  Valuable gifts and traits are lost amid the trash, or undervalued as junk - just because we don't know what to do with them. All the while, things that we've been told are valuable and priceless - remain in view, carefully set in a place of prominence for our edification - and not our nourishment and growth.  


Then, periodically, we sift through the junk drawer of our souls. It is tedious work. It is boring. It takes some discipline and determination. It also takes creativity and a willingness to be honest about how we're using our gifts and talents and how we are not using them. We get rid of the trash - those useless grudges, habits, and obsessions. We restore things to their proper place: relationships, prayer, self-estimation. We leave some things where they are at - and we move forward. 


This, to me is a great challenge and gift when overcome. It needs to happen deliberately and often ---- and we will experience all that Fr. Faccenda wishes: joy, faith, trust, charity, love! Why? Because we can finally SEE what has been there all the time!


Blessed Advent!