A couple of winters ago, I had to give up my annual Christmastime visit with my parents due to various members of my family coming down with the flu a few days into our visit with my in-laws. And that is why I found myself mid-March, solo-parenting, road-tripping, and car-dancing with my four kids down I-39 in Illinois with a mug of fully caffeinated coffee in my cup holder. Until that moment on the interstate, I had lived caffeine-free for nearly four years. But the Encanto soundtrack on repeat was not going to give me the energy and alertness to bring my children safely into port, and I realized that caffeine was a necessity to get us there.
About a month after this trip, my caffeine addiction was fully set in. Not only was I groggy until my first cup, but I loved the infusion of energy I got from it and often even drank a second one before the afternoon hit. I felt sad and a little humiliated at my loss of freedom from caffeine. Yet, one day in the car after noon Mass, as I gazed at the sunlight streaking between the buildings of Lowertown St. Paul, I realized that there was a parallel between my physical need for coffee and my spiritual need for grace.
Our Weaknesses
I had an experience of naturally not needing caffeine to function at my best during the years I lived without it. I had given it up when I was on a restricted diet to overcome Lyme disease and once I was fully recovered, I never felt the need. Naturally, if I was able to get enough sleep, then I would not need it.
In the pre-fallen natural state, we humans did not need sanctifying grace to make good choices. Had our first parents and those who came after never made the choice to disobey God, we could be blissfully living sin-free without God ever having come to earth to die and bring us this grace.
But sin did enter the world, and God became Man for us, experiencing our weakness. As the author of Hebrews writes: “For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who has similarly been tested in every way, yet without sin. So let us confidently approach the throne of grace to receive mercy and to find grace for timely help” (Hebrews 4:15-16). God knows what it is like to be tempted and be weak, and He offers us his healing forgiveness and help to overcome our sins. He gives us grace to help us be our true and best selves and overcome our temptations.
Coffee does a similar thing for us physically—as it makes up for our failings of not giving ourselves enough time to sleep or for over-packing our days with all the things that must be done. The caffeine gives us an infusion of energy and, at least for me, helps to do it all more cheerfully and well.
It Helps Us Be Little
I did not realize until after I was drinking caffeinated coffee again (I never gave up decaf) how much pride I took in living without it. Accepting my dependence on caffeine helped me have more humility in my daily life, and also helped me grow in my humble attitude towards God’s grace. I have seen more and more how I am incapable of doing good without the help of God’s grace, especially in the trying times of my life.
In a letter to her sister, Saint Thérèse of Lisieux talks about how good it is to be little and poor before God:
[W]hat pleases him is to see me love my littleness and my poverty, it is the blind hope that I have in his mercy. [ . . . ] [Y]ou have to agree to remain poor and without strength and that is the difficult thing. [ . . . ] Oh! so let's stay far away from everything that shines, love our littleness, love to feel nothing, then we will be poor in spirit and Jesus will come to get us, however far we are he will transform us into flames of love. (Letter 197)
I should love how much I need God’s grace to help me in my littleness more than I love the smell and comfort of a cozy mug of coffee each morning.
Saint Thérèse also talks about how she is too small to get to Heaven on her own. Having heard of the invention of the elevator, Saint Thérèse came to the realization that the only way of perfection for someone as little as her was to submit herself entirely to God—to go to Him as a child:
I would also like to find an elevator to take me up to Jesus, because I am too small to climb the rough staircase of perfection. So I looked in the holy books for the indication of the elevator, the object of my desire, and I read these words from the mouth of Eternal Wisdom: If someone is very small, let him come to Me. [see Proverbs 9:4] So I came, guessing that I had found what I was looking for and wanting to know, oh my God! what you would do to the little one who would answer your call, I continued my research and here is what I found: - As a mother caresses her child, so I will comfort you, I will carry you on my bosom and I will rock on my knees! [see Isaiah 66:13, 22] Ah! never have more tender, more melodious words come to rejoice my soul, the elevator which must raise me to Heaven, these are your arms, O Jesus! For that I don't need to grow up, on the contrary I have to stay small, to become more and more so. (Story of a Soul, Manuscript C , 02-03)
I am too small to always get the rest I need—to climb that staircase of getting into bed and turning out my reading light at a reasonable hour. I am too small to have self-control when my hormones shift at the end of my cycle and cause irritability and grumpiness. But coffee can help me in my mood and fatigue. In a similar way, I am too small—like Saint Thérèse—to climb that staircase of perfection.
Accepting Our Dependence
The seventeenth-century French hermit Brother Lawrence wrote, the more we draw close to God, the more we need His grace:
The greater the perfection to which a soul aspires, the more dependent is she upon divine grace, and this grace becomes more necessary every moment because without it the soul can do nothing. The world, the flesh and the Devil together wage so fierce and unremitting a war that, without actual grace and a humble reliance thereon, the soul would be dragged down in spite of herself. Such dependence seems hard to human nature, but grace makes it acceptable and a refuge.” (The Practice of the Presence of God, p. 86.)
As hapless creatures held in existence by a loving Creator, we often overlook that very fact. We are dependent on Him for everything whether we like it or not, whether we realize it or not. He invites us to be mindful of our need for Him in each and every moment of our day. My reliance on coffee is a reminder for me to rely on God in everything I attempt for His glory. And as Saint Paul points out, His grace is always waiting and will never run dry: “God is able to make every grace abundant for you, so that in all things, always having all you need, you may have an abundance for every good work” (2 Corinthians 9:8).
Susanna Spencer holds a master's in Theology from the Franciscan University of Steubenville and is the Content and Theological Editor for Blessed is She. She is a freelance writer, editor, and speaker living with her philosopher husband and four kids in Saint Paul, Minnesota. She loves reading theology, attending beautiful liturgies, cooking delicious food, and casually following baseball. She is the author of the Gospel Studies including Seek His Kingdom: A Meditation on Matthew; narrator for Found: Advent With the Good Shepherd and Rescued: Lent With the Lamb of God; a contributing author to our children’s devotional prayer book, Rise Up; and Theological Editor of the Blessed Conversations Studies. Find out more about her here.
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