In Alaska, there were some people who were taking a trip in a small plane. The pilot was told that he had to leave immediately because bad weather was coming. So, he began to tell the passengers (there were actually only 3 passengers; it was a plane for 4) to quickly put all their luggage in the back of the plane.
A woman, one of the passengers, was traveling with a cat in a box. The pilot told her to put the box in the back of the plane. “No, please, my cat is inside, can I carry it on my lap?” “No, it has to go with the rest of the luggage.” The woman not only disobeyed him but she also began to cry. The pilot insisted, but it was in vain, because she was still holding her cat’s box in her hands and crying. Finally, the pilot said: “ok, you win, but do not open that box.” The woman promised not to open the box, sat in the back seat and the plane took off.
But the vibrations of the plane (it was a small plane, so it shook a lot) and the bad weather made the cat get uncomfortable inside the box. The cat started moving around in the box, and she kept tightening the cover of the box so that the cat would not get out, but the cat kept trying to escape. Then, to calm the cat down, she opened the lid a little bit to pet it. What was not supposed to happen happened; the cat escaped and started running around the whole plane, passing over her, the other passengers, the pilot. Nobody could catch the cat and it was very chaotic. At a certain moment, the pilot opened the window and the cat was sucked out and fell into the abyss.
In our life there are also boxes that we should not open. These boxes are all the prohibitions that we find in the Law of God, which are not meant to limit our freedom but rather to aid our freedom and to prevent it from falling into the abyss of sin, of abandonment of faith, of mediocrity and lukewarmness.
Therefore, we should always be attentive to our thoughts, our actions, our feelings to make sure they are not trying to open a box that should not be opened, especially the boxes of our passions that, like the cat, are very difficult to control once they are opened.
This is because our will does not have absolute control over them, but rather a political control over them, which means that we have to work on them in order to have them under control. If we open the box whenever they want, we will lose control over them, and it could end up being a mess.
In order not to open those boxes, I would like to give some advice:
– learn to think before you act; this “thinking” takes the form of reflection, meditation, weighing ends and means, seeking counsel (of course, including spiritual direction);
– have noble purposes and ideals that really make our efforts worthwhile;
– strengthen the will with a spirit of sacrifice, knowing how to deny self, with abnegation and the spirit of mortification.
