Letting Him work

So much of the spiritual life of grace I have viewed as me grasping, trying, planning, leading, controlling. What can I do to make myself a saint?

Perhaps I've never been farther off the mark.

"He did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied Himself, taking the form of a servant."

This is about peaceful acceptance, knowing I am forever in the hand of an all-knowing, all-loving God Who is leading the dance. All I have to do is rest in His arms and allow Him to carry me. Not passively or slothfully, but trustingly. There is no need for me to "figure it out." What He chooses to reveal to me, how, and when is up to Him entirely. I am His instrument to play upon. I am not the Divine Musician.

The less I struggle in His arms like an impatient child, the more quickly He can teach and stretch me and the more deeply I will sink into His mercy and love.

O my Jesus, I accept everything You have given me because I know it comes from Your perfect love and because I desire to love You in return.

Living it out

For the past few years, I've found myself haunted by Matthew's Gospel story regarding the day of judgment, in which Jesus will separate the sheep from the goats according to how they lived on earth, as measured by the corporal works of mercy.

I've heard priests say that it should be so easy for us to get into heaven -- we already know all the questions on the final exam!  All we have to do is live them out.

And so I began to wonder, to contemplate…what if it's true? What if, when I die and stand before Jesus at the gate of heaven, He says to me:

"I was hungry and you gave Me no food, thirsty and you gave Me no drink."

"But I did, Jesus. I sent monthly checks to charities. I even gave up several years of my life for full-time mission work."

"How many times did you see a homeless man on the street and ignore him? You could have handed him food, or a little money, or even just a smile if you truly had nothing else to give. But you looked the other way.  That was Me.  Every time, it was Me."

………………………

What if, in the end, it's not just about the Ten Commandments?  What if it's not enough to have attended Sunday Masses and avoided stealing on a regular basis?  This week's Gospels have been the "Woe to you's" directed at the Pharisees.  How often am I a Pharisee, following the letter of the law, hung up on the intricacies of right vs. wrong but failing to love Jesus in every person I meet?

This is a chilling reality and a wake-up call for those of us who have grown too comfortable with our superficially Christian lives.

O my God, have mercy on me, a poor sinner!  My Jesus, teach me to love as You love.

What is reality?

I'm becoming increasingly more and more aware that it's not what we think it is. This reality here on earth, material, is so easily separated from the true reality of our homeland of heaven.

And that's what this summer has been -- a search for reality. What is truth? I've seen it, tasted it, felt it…but then after all of this I returned to a place and a life which I once knew, and now I know not.  I can't be this Severna Park girl, or even this Tilyou girl.  I belong not to this world.  I can't grasp the concept of identity found in money and status and success and achievements.  My identity is in Christ alone.  Seeking happiness among these worldly things confuses me. How?? Why??

At the pastoral council meeting last night, all were discussing how to make our parish more welcoming and evangelistic.  A beautiful desire.  But it hit me that we were missing the root, the foundation of it all. Unless each person involved is himself growing interiorly in a personal relationship with Jesus, the exterior works are meaningless. Are we falling more in love with Jesus Christ each day? Our apostolate of love will only reach the rest of the world if it is flowing out of our relationship with Him.

And why do we have excuses for not praying or not attending daily Mass? Recently I, too, have been tempted towards this. Can getting more sleep possibly be more important than receiving Him in the Eucharist?  If I am sleep-deprived, it is a lack of discipline on my part; my priorities are not yet properly ordered. Do we truly believe that we need Him - Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity - and nothing else on this earth?

And on a final note, my world is again being shaken, in a good way, by the words of Fr. Dubay. We, as individuals and as a society, have no real understanding of Christ's directives on poverty.  I can't quote the whole book or even a chapter, but Fr. speaks truth and, in so doing, convicts me in the very depths of my heart.

Jesus said, "Love your neighbor as yourself." And He meant it in the most literal sense.  What gives me the right to eat a single meal and ignore the man who goes without?  St. Thomas More brought the poor into his home to eat at his table.  Why am I not doing the same every day?????

John the Baptist's words: "He who has two coats, let him share with him who has none."  How can I read that and still allow myself to own more than one coat, when I know full well there are people without clothing????????

We call friends and strangers alike our brothers and sisters in Christ.  If my blood sister found herself sick, hungry, or without a home, would I not do everything in my power to meet her every need? What a hypocrite I am for not treating every other human being the same!

I can't justify it anymore, this frivolous living.  Consider, we are told to give from our very need.  Let me be frank.  I have NEVER given out of my need, because I've NEVER had a need.  This is the end of my old life and the beginning of a new one.  I am ECSTATIC to begin truly striving to live as Christ has called us all to live.

My Jesus, have mercy on me, a poor sinner.  My Jesus, I trust in You!

Let me say it again...

I realize that the majority of my blog posts revolve around a single topic, which is evident even just by skimming through the titles.  So I began to ask myself why? Why does the subject of love seem to take top priority in my mind, second only to God Himself?

Because God is love.

Because it is this for which we were made, to love and be loved.  Or, to quote the Catechism: God made me to know Him, to love Him, to serve Him, and to be happy with Him in heaven.  It's as simple as that.

Why do men and women marry? Why are babies born? Why can a smile change the mood of your day? Why do people of all ages desire to give themselves away through service projects and mission trips and volunteer work?

Every answer is love.

Why have divorces, suicides, abortions, poverty, and countless other tragedies become a sad but common reality in our modern society?

Because of a real or perceived absence of love.

My head hurts, trying to wrap my mind around the universality and timelessness of it all.  My heart hurts, trying to grasp the notion that I can do so little, and yet everything I do is magnified and will echo throughout eternity if it is in union with the infinite love of Jesus Christ.  My hands and feet become restless with a holy impatience. Now is the time. We are called to serve.

Missionaries: we serve the world because we love. But let us always remember our place. We are never creators of love, but rather receivers who have now become reservoirs of love.

"We love, because He first loved us." -1 John 4:19

And over all things, love.

This summer, I forgot that God loved me.

Can't say exactly how it happened. Somewhere in uprooting from my mission home to prepare for a new mission field, in the moment when I was most vulnerable, I found myself lost in a whirlpool of fear. What if I'm an unforgiven sinner? What if I'm not good enough for this life or for heaven? What if, without the constant busyness of service, I have no worth and no purpose? 

And underneath it all, the deepest, cruelest lie that was hiding within the recesses of my heart: 

What if God didn't really love me?

What if?

The haunting emptiness, the darkness that I experienced was like nothing I'd ever known. A loneliness that surpassed all human expression.  I searched unremittingly for answers, for comfort, for reassurance and consolation, but I found none.

And then, the light of the sun shone forth as at the break of dawn: my Jesus had mercy on me. I am weak, I am broken, and because of this, He loves me. He loves me! HE LOVES ME!! I have no need of success, of personal merit -- I claim as my own the merits of His Cross.

The miracle of it all is that Jesus did not allow me to experience such great suffering merely to teach me a lesson for the summer of 2013.  No, He makes all things work together for my good. Memories flood back to me from my childhood, adolescence, and now young adult years -- me being unable to accept His love. Feeling unworthy, unclean. Trying to earn His love through my attempts at perfection. And it was never enough.

And how could it be?? Jesus chose not to shed just one drop of His most Precious Blood, but to spill it ALL, washing over the entirety of the earth, over my sins, over my soul, over all space and all time. It is HIS Blood that saves me, that purifies me, that catches me and draws me up to His Father and my Father in heaven.

I can't say what tomorrow will bring. If this summer has taught me anything, it's that God's ways are inscrutable and not my ways. But I do know that today, and tomorrow, and every day for the rest of eternity, I will be held in His love. And He will never let me go. And that is enough for me.

HE is enough for me.

Why did David dance?

"David and all the house of Israel danced before the Lord with all their might, with singing, and with lyres, harps, tambourines, sistrums, and cymbals." - 2 Sam. 6:5

We are a people of praise. This is not a title to be taken lightly.  Praise is firstly a duty out of justice, something owed to God because He is our Maker.  To give glory to His Name is one of the greatest gifts we can give Him!  But we, too, are blessed when we praise.  Our bodies and our very selves crave this type of worship because it reminds us on some deeper level of who we are -- our identity as children of the Father -- and our place in His creation.

Why did David dance before the Ark of the Covenant? Perhaps because a simple prayer spoken with head bowed and hands folded could not suffice to express the tidal wave of love that was bursting through the walls of his heart at that very moment!  Because the Spirit of the Lord was likely shaking his arms and legs, compelling him to stand and give glory to God with his whole body and soul!  I certainly am not criticizing fervent, contemplative, silent prayer - it, too, is a necessary part of worship - but I would gently question anyone who practices this type of prayer to the exclusion of the other, claiming that it better fits their personality or preferred style of worship. Are we embarrassed to raise our hands to our Father in Heaven because we wonder what others will think of us? Are we too prideful to sing out to our Lord Jesus Christ because our voices are not melodious or pleasing to the human ear?

We can only reach the crux of worship when we stop concentrating on what is "acceptable" according to our own personal and societal norms and instead fix our gaze solidly on the King of Heaven.  When prayer becomes an intimate conversation with Him, when we can gaze upon Him in the midst of the tumult that surrounds us and see only His beauty, feel only His presence, and hear only His words of love, then can we praise Him in true freedom of heart.

"It is good to give thanks to the Lord, to sing praise to Your Name, Most High!" - Ps. 92:2

You ARE called (missionary memories, unpublished 12/2012)

Praise Him for converted hearts and souls made new!  Today I met up with a sophomore girl to help her begin fundraising for SEEK 2013, our FOCUS National Conference.  I first met Lindsey last year at one of our women's nights here at our apartment -- a just-for-fun fellowship event with crafts, snacks, and anything else that would appeal to our girly interests.  Lindsey was truly struggling through her first year of college and in need of real friends.  I offered a listening ear for a short time that evening but quickly forgot all about it.  Months later, after a choir concert, she tapped me on the shoulder and asked if we could get together sometime -- she had a few questions to ask me.  Well, I was quite embarrassed because I couldn't even remember who she was!  But like every skilled missionary, I played it off throughout our short conversation, afterwards hissing at my teammate, "Who WAS that girl??"

I invited Lindsey to lunch at my apartment and she spilled out her story -- growing up in a Catholic home, rebelling against the Faith because she felt "forced" into it, ultimately rediscovering God at a retreat which she attended begrudgingly at the insistence of her loving little brother.  Now she desired only to grow and learn more about Catholicism and this God she had so long denied.

Fast forward to this fall semester: a senior girl I disciple invited Lindsey to be a FOCUS student missionary, and so for the past month or so they have been meeting weekly in discipleship to discuss prayer, evangelization, and the challenges of living as a dynamic Catholic on a college campus.  Today Lindsey admitted to me that she's never been as happy as she is now; touching her hand to her heart, she explained that this is a lasting happiness, not just a fleeting feeling.  Beginning a daily prayer life has been somewhat difficult, but she bashfully explained to me that in a recent prayer period, after silencing her mind, she unexpectedly heard a voice telling her to love and not to condemn others.  She seemed almost shocked at this: was it God speaking to her, or merely her own voice in her head?  I assured her that the Lord does indeed speak with a still small voice, even a whisper.  She was surprised that she could have such an experience so early in her spiritual development, after only praying for a short while.  But I know better -- God works quickly when He is presented with a willing and humble heart.

Lindsey was also proud to tell me about her experience of barehanding "unintentionally."  She had a 45-minute conversation that began simply with her telling a fellow student about her father's large family...which led to the big family=Catholic connection...which, after finding out that he used to be Catholic as well, led her to ask him why he was no longer practicing the Faith.  So often we are turned off by the concept of evangelization, blaming either our own timidity, ignorance of theology, or distaste for the prospect of forcing our beliefs on others.  But true evangelization is nothing more than a conversation which, when spoken in truth and love, inevitably leads back to our God and our hope in Him.

You could say that Lindsey has no particular talent or charisma that would mark her as a student or a teacher of the Faith, and yet she is just one more proof that this duty to evangelize falls on the shoulders of each one of us, whether or not we consider missions our "day job." But first we must sit with Jesus in the classroom of silence, allowing Him to work in our own hearts and shape us into something new.  We must pray for many, many more to hear and answer the call to holiness and to live the life for which we were created.

Come, Lord Jesus, send us Your Spirit, and renew the face of the earth!

All my love

Counting down the days to the bitter end...or as my team director says, it's all over but the weeping.  Finals week is upon us, final coffee dates and lunches have been penciled in, departing conversations and letters and hugs and memories to be made.

Questions arise in my mind - did I do enough? did I say what needed to be said? did I love as I should have loved?  Names of girls I wanted to invest in and never had the chance to do so.  Seemingly "failed" relationships or attempts to spark a conversion.  The dreams of a missionary.

Daydreaming about the past two years, where I've been and how I've grown.  Dreams for the future, looking ahead at the long road in front of me.

Desires arise in my heart, not to be stifled but to bring to the foot of the cross. This too, my Jesus, I offer up to You.  Everything is Yours.