This observation is, to a large extent, a simple variation of the teaching of St Teresa of Avila which we have just considered. But there are some additional thoughts worth mentioning. Abhorrence anchors us to the object which is hated, so that our mind can scarcely escape from its influence. This rule applies also to personal animosity: we cannot let the individual against whom we bear a grudge escape our attention. In the worst instances we will expect our friends to share our aversion, being quite angry and feeling decidedly betrayed if they preserve their own allegiance to the person in question. Jealousy has a similarly baneful effect: we cannot take our minds off the unfortunate person, and are secretly delighted if some misfortune befalls him or her.

The Italian psychotherapist and psychiatrist Roberto Assagioli in his book Psychosynthesis cites a fundamental psychological principle: "We are dominated by everything with which our self becomes identified. We can dominate and control everything from which we disidentify ourselves." It is, however, often quite comforting to settle down behind an object of aversion; hatred can be a most relieving emotion, and it can appear to protect us from the necessity of coming to grips with the fullness of our character. This applies especially to faults and vices which we can blame on our heredity or our childhood environment. The secret of progress in such a situation is to cease abhorring anything or anybody, whether close to us or far away. The injunctions of Jesus come immediately to mind, "Love your enemies and pray for your persecutors; only so can you be children of your heavenly Father, who makes his sun rise on good and bad alike, and sends the rain on the honest and the dishonest" (Matt. 5.44-5).

A well-known way out of the prison of aversion is the practice of positive thinking, in which we focus our thoughts on creative attainments while we desist from dwelling any longer on negative qualities. We evoke instead their positive counterparts. Useful as this may be in the short term, it can easily become a mere distraction; the sin is thrust underground where it continues its subversive activities.

There is, in fact, One alone who can deliver us from this savage thraldom, the God of love. The Deity is beyond the polarities of good and evil; in him is the coincidence of all opposite tendencies. This is because his nature is love, which alone can contain all qualities and transfigure them into something of the divine essence. This was seen historically in the resurrection of Jesus, whose disfigured physical body was changed to spiritual radiance, the first-fruits of the harvest of the dead (1 Cor. 15.20). In other words, when we lift up to God our thoughts about our defects and fix our entire being on him from whom all creation proceeds and on whom all life depends, we come to know him more and more and resemble him in his free acceptance. Our sins are gradually transformed by his love into qualities that are useful to us and worthy of the work lying ahead. By identifying ourselves, ever so humbly, with God who showed his nature freely to us in Jesus Christ, we can control our "lower nature" and bring it into willing service for the benefit of our fellow creatures and the world at large.

May I know that trust in the processes of life, Lord, to lie quiet under the burden of my sins. May I know your infinite mercy so well as to offer them up without fear and as often as necessary, as my sacrifice on the altar of life. May I hold my life at all times as a potential sacrifice for my fellow creatures.