As for me, I began to know Jesus as soon as I accepted Jesus as the truth; I found true peace when I actively sought his friendship; and above all I experienced joy, true joy, that stands above the vicissitudes of life, as soon as I tasted and experienced for myself the gift he came to bestow on us: eternal life. But Jesus is not only the Image of the Father, the Revealer of the dark knowledge of God. That would be of little avail to me in my weakness and my sinfulness: he is also my Saviour. On my journey towards him, I was completely worn out, unable to take another step forward. By my errors, my sinful rebellions, my desperate efforts to find joy far from his joy, I had reduced myself to a mass of virulent sores which repelled both heaven and earth. What sin was there that I had not committed? Or what sin had I as yet not committed simply because the opportunity had not come my way? Yet it was he, and he alone, who got down off his horse, the the good Samaritan on the way to Jericho; he alone had the courage to approach me in order to staunch with bandages the few drops of blood that still remained in my veins, blood that would certainly have flowed away, had he not intervened.

—Carlo Carretto, In Search of the Beyond

Here we see the prerequisite for having a relationship with Christ. We must do the hard work of acknowledging what a mess we are when left to our own devices. Carretto does exactly this using powerful language. It can be hard to read, but when we finally begin to understand how grievous is our sins to God, the sentiment from today’s excerpt is perfectly natural if we are at all interested in having a relationship with Christ.

But note too the hope that is contained here. Carretto acknowledges he fatally broken but he also knows from whence his help comes. This is the difference between seeing oneself clearly, broken and beyond self-repair, which can lead to life, and having a pathological loathing of self that inevitably leads to darkness and despair.