The first chapter of the Book of Revelation contains a powerful challenge that’s hidden within the overall esoteric language of that book. John, its author, speaking in the voice of God, says something to this effect: I have seen how hard you work; I have seen your fidelity and your hunger for the truth; but I have this against you, “you have less love in you now than when you were young.” Fr. Ron Rolheiser writes that it’s easy to be blind to this inside of ourselves. We change, we grow, we age, and sometimes we don’t look at ourselves closely to see what those changes are doing to us. Hence, we can be dedicated, hard-working, truth-seeking, sincere persons, virtuous in most every way, except that this goodness has become encrusted inside an anger, bitterness, and hatred that wasn’t so evident in us when we were young. As we age, it’s easier to be committed to the right causes than to remain loving and not let bitter judgment and subtle hatred infect our character. Someone once quipped that we spend the first half of our lives struggling with the Sixth Commandment, with the fire of eros, and then spend the second half of our lives struggling with the Fifth Commandment, with the fire of disappointment, anger, and hatred. I’m haunted by an image Margaret Laurence gives us in the person of Hagar Shipley in her novel, The Stone Angel. As Hagar ages, she grows ever more bitter and critical of others, without ever recognizing how much she has changed. One day, ringing a doorbell, she overhears a little girl telling her mother “That horrible old woman is at the door.” Hearing this, stung to her roots, she goes to a bathroom, turns on all the lights, and for the first time in years examines her face in the mirror and is taken aback by what she sees. She no longer recognizes her own face. It has become something other than how she pictures herself. Her face now is that of a bitter, hateful old person. We need to do what she did, have a good look at our faces in a mirror. Better yet, lay out a series of photographs of yourself from childhood, through adolescence, through young adulthood, through middle age, to your present age and study your face over the years to see how it has changed from when you were younger. Sadly, you will probably see there some hardening that is less attributable to natural aging than it is to bitterness, jealousy, and hatred.