June 27, 2011, The Spider Column

Deliver me, O Jesus . . .

I’m not into spiders. Not at all. There are some--the little, innocent-looking ones--that I can easily overpower, eliminating them without fear (Hey, I never claimed to be St. Francis.) But others, like the one I saw sitting in my family room the other day, I simply cannot even think about approaching.

I had just gotten up from my morning devotions, and as I stepped across the floor I had to suppress a scream (everyone else was sleeping), because this big (and when I say big, think too-big-to-suck-up-in-the-sweeper big) spider was resting on my carpet, looking at me with glowing eyes. Big, glowing eyes.

Well, I wasn’t going to squish him into my new carpet, even if I would have had the nerve to try, so I stood there, at 5:30 in the morning looking at him. What am I going to do? I asked myself, knowing it was MUCH too early to wake up my dear husband to save me.

As I stood there, paralyzed, the spider began to move. He crawled onto our wood floor in the kitchen. Well, that’s better, I thought, at least he won’t mess up my carpet--if I were to actually do something about him. Then, with all the brain cells one can muster that early in the morning, I looked around and saw a pile of newspapers from Sunday. Wondering if they might be heavy enough to suit my needs, I grabbed a bunch of them, and, tossing them from a safe distance, I flattened that little guy like there was no tomorrow. Which, of course, there wasn’t, for him.

I stood there looking at the pile of papers and didn’t see any movement, so I lightly stepped on the pile, just to be sure, and then went about getting my breakfast. (I’m really not as heartless as I sound, okay?)

When my husband got up a little later, as I was walking out the door to work, I casually said, “Oh, and there may be a flattened spider under that pile of papers, could you take care of it for me?”

Pathetic, I know, right? But I just can’t help it.

Anyway, the next day, our exterminator came into work. “Was it hairy? he asked me.” How would I know? Do you think you can see the hair on a spider from four feet away? I said. He laughed and went on about how he likes to play with those little jumping spiders and that I was lucky the spider hadn’t taken me back to its lair and eaten off all of my flesh.

Funny, very funny. He must be a stand-up comedian in his off hours, I thought, as I stood there debating whether spiders really have lairs.

Anyway, the thing I’ve come to realize lately, is that fear can be very paralyzing. It can stop us from doing what we need to be doing. Like speaking the truth, or moving forward without fear of being ridiculed or rebuked.


There’s a prayer in a little book I have (Mother Teresa, Meditations from A Simple Path) that begins, “Deliver me, O Jesus, from the desire of being . . .”

The first half of the prayer lists all of our temptations to pride, like the desire of being “extolled, honored, praised, preferred, consulted,” and so forth, and the second half of the prayer is a prayer to be delivered from fears, such as the fear of being “humiliated, despised, wronged, suspected,” etc. I’ve come to realize while meditating on this prayer that fears can actually become an obstacle to our discipleship, because when we are afraid that someone is going to ridicule us for speaking the truth, we may choose to be silent. When we are afraid we are going to be suspected, or humiliated, our very human tendency is not to act at all.

But the truth is, the Gospel message of salvation for all cannot be spread by people in fear, because, while it is a wonderful message of hope, it can also be a challenging message to deliver. If we can learn to live right in the middle of that prayer, between the pleas for deliverance from pride and fear, I believe we will find the freedom to act as a disciple of Christ, where the spirit of love can flow effortlessly through our words and deeds, without any concern for self.

If you would like to read the complete prayer, I have posted it on my website, where, I can assure you, you will not find any further reference to spiders.

Blessed Teresa of Calcutta

Deliver me, O Jesus,
Deliver me, O Jesus,

From the desire of being loved,
From the desire of being extolled,
From the desire of being honored,
From the desire of being praised,
From the desire of being preferred,
From the desire of being consulted,
From the desire of being approved,
From the desire of being popular,
From the fear of being humiliated,
From the fear of being despised,
From the fear of suffering rebukes,
From the fear of being calumniated, *slandered
From the fear of being forgotten,
From the fear of being wronged,
From the fear of being ridiculed,
From the fear of being suspected

(Mother Teresa, Meditations from a Simple Path)

The Bathroom Scales

We had to buy a new pair of bathroom scales this week because we outlived the lifetime lithium battery in our old set. I guess that should be good news for us, but it didn’t really feel that great.

Armed with a screwdriver, my husband removed the back of the scales and made his best effort to replace the battery. Unfortunately, you also need to know how to calibrate scales once you’ve torn them apart. Wisely, he decided not to spend anymore of his lifetime battery on this problem, and we ended up buying a new set online.

Now, normally, I would have just run up to the store and bought a new set, but our daughter had purchased hers online and really liked them. They didn’t cost as much as those in the store—and with her two-day free shipping (an entitlement through her college—worth every penny of her college tuition for sure)—it seemed like the thing to do.

The big box arrived and I opened it with delight, trying to ignore the true cost to the environment that surely accompanied the personalized delivery, packaging and so forth. I rationalized that if I didn’t order it, I still would have had to drive to the store, and it still would have been packaged for its delivery there. But, that’s another column . . .

Anyway, I held my breath as I stepped on my new scales, expecting shock and horror, because over this two-day, scale-less period, I embraced a new mentality in regards to calories. With wild abandon, I entertained a few extra calories, and the following mantra:

If it can’t be seen, then it must not exist.

Those extra calories were not visible because they could not be measured, so I knew--I just knew--that they didn’t exist. What freedom! What joy!

But then the day of reckoning arrived with the big brown delivery truck . . .I saw it as my chance to prove my mantra---if it can’t been seen, it must not exist. Surely, extra calories that cannot be measured simply do not count.

As I had secretly hoped, everything went well. There was no major shock. In fact, I was delighted to discover I had actually lost weight! (I chose to totally ignore the fact that the calibration may have been off a little.)

So, in my mind, I proved my thesis.

But then, I started to wonder, was this only true for calorie intake?

Coming back down to earth, I quickly realized that people who believe that mantra are also those who do not believe in God and miss the proof of his existence all around them. If you can look at the beauty of this world and think it accidentally fell together without a Divine Creator, then you could easily believe that extra calories don’t really count just because they are not being measured.

But, the truth is, I personally chose to live with the illusion that I would be fine without a standard. To believe that I could act without self-discipline, without consequence. To dismiss my purpose and to undermine my goal; to forget my motivation. You don’t have to be a rocket scientist to know that living within such a fantasy is usually very harmful.

The reality is, sometimes we need to be re-calibrated and the only measure that will accurately reflect where we are, and where we are going, is Jesus Christ himself. Jesus is not an illusion and those who believe in Him are not living in a fantasy, pretending He is real. Our believing doesn’t make Him real. His existence does.

The next time you encounter Jesus in the Eucharist, remember that it is through God’s revelation that we have come to know His Real Presence--it is not because we closed our eyes and hoped really hard.

Janet Cassidy
The Catholic Times