5.Aug.2014

C.S. Lewis Daily

TO MARY WILLIS SHELBURNE: On whether we dare hope that dying is like having a
tooth extracted; on purgatory; and yet more on forgiveness and the feeling of
being forgiven.

7 July 1959

. . . You seem to have had a very nasty experience. I can see why you describe
it as ‘looking into the face of death’: but who knows whether that face, when
we really look at it, will be at all like that? Let us hope better things. I
had a tooth out the other day, and came away wondering whether we dare hope
that the moment of death may be very like that delicious moment when one
realises that the tooth is really out and a voice says ‘Rinse your mouth out
with this.’ ‘This’ of course will be Purgatory. . . .

You surely don’t mean ‘feeling that we are not worthy to be forgiven’? For of
course we aren’t. Forgiveness by its nature is for the unworthy. You mean
‘Feeling that we are not forgiven.’ I have known that. I ‘believed’
theoretically in the divine forgiveness for years before it really came home
to me. It is a wonderful moment when it does.

Scripture

Psalm 119:130

Access to your words gives light, giving simple folk understanding.

Observation

Keep it Simple Stupid

Application

Am I a fan a believer in theory but with no outward appearance or change of heart?

Prayer

Lord God of heaven soften this hardened soul lead my not into temptation but provide your holy spirit as a moral compass and guide to convict me when I stray