Recently I visited a town renowned for its traditional blacksmiths; everything from machetes for farming to replicas of battle-ready medieval swords. The process is long and exacting; spring steel forged at high temperature and hammered repeatedly on the anvil into shape and its cutting edges prepared; tempered and quenched to harden the steel; and sharpening with grindstone and then assembled with hilt and pommel.
All of which reminded me of a confessor I had many years ago. My last visit to him ended with a mysterious warning: “expect a lot of suffering”. As a recent returnee to the Father’s house I was thinking more of unlimited ‘fatted calf’ barbecue for some time to come; but he spotted something else: a rusted chunk of spring steel that would need a lot of work. The only way for God to bring about change in the heart of man is really by means of suffering; there is no other way.
And right on cue it began. I didn’t know the enemy would be given such a free hand (or have a couple of little helpers placed in my circle). I felt like an unarmed, bewildered Hobbit being overrun by an army of ugly violent Orcs as I underwent the beginner’s spiritual warfare training. Analogous to Prometheus having his liver torn out every day; my mind and heart were tormented by whatever deceiving spirit was let loose. The only relief I found were a few minutes per day at Mass during the consecration and a few minutes afterward. Whatever it was had to flee at that point it seems. I could only pray and cling to a God I barely knew (I never prayed so much, so hard or for so long) trusting that the horror would in fact end, which two years later it did. Delivered just as suddenly as it began, at His word, and the aggressors were finally vanquished. Vae victis ! I too had been forged, hammered, tempered, sharpened, hopefully a little more useful by then in the hand of the Maker.
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