“Beware that your hearts do not become drowsy from carousing and drunkenness and the anxieties of daily life…” (Luke 21:34)
Luke uses an interesting phrase when he says “do not let your hearts become drowsy.” Drowsy is a great word. It comes from the Old English drousan, which means to fall. It’s the same word that gives us dreary. Just picture the seventh of the dwarfs, always dozing off and never aware of what is happening.
Sometimes we grow drowsy from a life of dissipation, of carousing and drunkenness, but most often what tires us out are the anxieties of life.
Now everyone worries. It’s a natural part of life. And sometimes worrying about things helps us to face the problems we need to. Worry is a great motivator.
But what Jesus is referring to is not the momentary feeling that I’d better pay the bills before the due date, or wondering how your granddaughter is doing in school.
No, Jesus is warning us not to let the anxieties of life keep us awake at night and depressed during the day, to the point that we forget who is running our lives.
I’m talking about the kind of worries that grow from a belief that we (and not God) are responsible for everything that goes wrong in the world, that come from the conviction that God is not in charge of making everything work, but we are! And then when something goes wrong in life, we wear ourselves out with worrying about it.
Can you imagine how many things a Pope has to worry about. That’s why Pope Saint John XXIII tells us that the last prayer he prayed every night went something like this:
OK, Lord, I did the best I could today with your Church. But it’s your Church. So now I’m going to bed and you can take care of it. I’ll be happy to help again tomorrow, but it’s all yours for now.
Perhaps that is also why Saint Faustina Kavalska, the Apostle of Divine Mercy, wrote this prayer:
From the false idea that I have to do it all, Deliver me, O Lord.
From suspicion of your words and promises,
Deliver me, O Lord.
From the belief that I have to earn your love,
Deliver me, O Lord.
And maybe that’s also what Saint Thérèse of Lisieux was talking about when she wrote so beautifully:
One place alone I long to dwell —
within my Lord’s embrace.
In perfect trust to lie.
No storm there shall I fear.
Slumbering on his breast,
and near to his Holy Face.
