Tag: Relationship

I Am Sorry

“Stop fighting! You are brother and sister, you are going to have to forgive each other!” I can quote many of the sayings my mother would say. But her remarks every time my brothers and I would fight are sayings that will remain with me. My brothers and I would fight all the time. I really do mean all of the time. Looking back at it, I feel guilty for allowing my poor mother to witness her children argue and yell at one another in the most hurtful ways. I know it caused her pain because after each one of our “sibling fights” she would be very quiet and be completely consumed with whatever house task was in front of her. Seeing her children not be loving to each other hurt her.

I know that many of you reading this can relate to having arguments and fights with your siblings. Whether they be little things that annoyed you or big problems that caused many drifts in the family. We have all, at one point or another, had a fight with a loved one. 

“Therefore, if you bring your gift to the altar,
and there recall that your brother
has anything against you,
leave your gift there at the altar,
go first and be reconciled with your brother,
and then come and offer your gift”
-MT 5:23-24

In today’s Gospel, Jesus expands on the fifth commandment “you shall not kill”. It is obvious that it is wrong to kill another human being, but Jesus expands the commandment making it more personal and intimate—it is wrong to harbor bad sentiments towards another human being. Wow. This commandment is difficult. Perhaps we think that we might not be the best of people, but we are people that would not kill someone. But, are we people who think bad thoughts about others? Are we people that do get angry and hold grudges towards others? Are we people that are neglectful and uncaring towards those we do not like? Suddenly, the fifth commandment isn’t as simple or as easy to follow. 

Jesus explains it clearly. We cannot truly be in a loving relationship with God our Father if we are not in loving relationships with one another. Our relationship with God is dependent on our relationship with each other. As we continue throughout this lenten season—a time of sacrifice—give up the anger, give up the resentment, give up the pride. The small sacrifices that we make during lent—not eating chocolate, less time with video games, volunteering more at a shelter—remember, it isn’t a pure gift to God if we are not in right relationship with our brothers and sisters. Jesus radically changed the moral stage. You do not have to be a murderer to be in violation of the fifth commandment. God seeing his children fight amongst each other hurts him.

But it is fortunate for us that our God is a God of mercy! In the first reading the Lord says that none of our past crimes will be remembered against us if we live because of the virtue we practice. 

Carrying anger in our hearts towards others or neglecting them will only keep us away from God. Go and apologize. Forgive. Reconcile with one another. Be at Peace. Let your heart be a place of love. 

Blessed Pier Giorgio, at the age of twelve, wrote a endearing letter to his father expressing his remorse at letting his parents down, and knowing that they were upset at him. His gentle heart knew exactly how to repair his relationship with his parents, by saying sorry and meaning it. 

“I am confused and miserable and I don’t even know how to write to you; I saw how upset Mama was and I thought about you, so much that I don’t know how to ask for a word of forgiveness. I am also sorry…” – Bl. Pier Giorgio Frassati

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Image Credit: PAX CHRISTI ICON (Public Domain)

A Heart Contrite and Humbled

My sacrifice, O God, is a contrite spirit;
a heart contrite and humbled, O God, you will not spurn.
—Psalm 51:19

The disciples of John approached Jesus and said,
“Why do we and the Pharisees fast much,
but your disciples do not fast?”
Jesus answered them, “Can the wedding guests mourn
as long as the bridegroom is with them?
The days will come when the bridegroom is taken away from them,
and then they will fast.”
—Matthew 9:14–15

During this Lenten season, we talk a lot about we’re doing or giving up for these forty days. But let us not forget that the whole point of all these external activities and devotions is to form the interior disposition of our hearts. What God wants more than anything is to be close to us. In today’s Gospel reading, Jesus identifies Himself as the Bridegroom. Jesus desires union with us, to know us intimately, to cultivate relationship with us.

All our Lenten fervor should not be about mere self-improvement or testing our own strength. Rather, it should facilitate our union with Christ, perhaps making us even more aware of our weakness as we learn to depend upon Him. As we fast while waiting upon our Bridegroom, we leave space for the feast that is to come and open up room in our hearts for Jesus to enter.

If we go beyond the surface level of our Lenten devotions and allow them to truly form our hearts, it will affect how we act toward one another. When we create space in our daily routines and welcome the emptiness that Lent brings, we can begin to hear Jesus’s voice more clearly in the silence. And if we listen, we will hear His overwhelming love for us ringing out even in the desert. When we know we are loved beyond measure, our own capacity to love will deepen.

This type of fasting, which brings us closer to the Heart of God, is what will lead us to the promises described in the first reading from Isaiah:

Then your light shall break forth like the dawn,
and your wound shall quickly be healed.
—Isaiah 58:8

He is the Light in the darkness of Lent; He is the One who heals all our wounds. And He invites us to use these forty days to draw close to His Sacred Heart.

Ephphatha!

A baby in the womb, at 18 weeks, can begin to hear noises. At 24 weeks, a baby can detect noise outside the womb and can turn their eyes and head towards the direction of the sound. Can you imagine a tiny human baby in utero searching for your voice as you talk to them from outside the womb? Then after they are born, often between parents there is a fun and friendly competition about whether the baby will say “mama” or “dadda” first. We talk to babies in ranges of voices. We make goofy faces and funny noises. They see us. They listen. And they try to imitate us. They try to speak back to us and eventually they do.

In today’s reading, Jesus heals a deaf man who had a speech impediment. The Gospel of Mark tells us that before Jesus healed this man, he took him away from the crowds of people to be alone. Jesus then “put his finger into the man’s ears, and spitting, touched his tongue.” Looking up to heaven Jesus groaned and said to the man, “Ephphatha!” and instantly the man was healed.

You will notice that someone who is deaf often times has a speech impediment. This is because they cannot hear their own voice, which affects their ability to speak. Being deaf, they cannot hear other people speak and distinguish speech and dialect. It makes sense that the deaf man in the Gospel had a speech impediment—it’s not that he couldn’t speak but that he couldn’t speak clearly. Jesus was known and sought after for his ability to heal the physical body. Every time he heals the physical body, he also heals the spiritual body.

At one point or another in our lives we were deaf and unable to speak. We couldn’t hear God’s voice nor his commanding Word. We couldn’t hear the Father because something was blocking our ears. As a result we could not speak about the Father, about his love, about his Son, Jesus Christ. What was it that you were doing at that point in your life? What worldly pleasure were you enjoying that made you turn away from God, that closed your ears to his voice? Jesus took the deaf man away from the crowds to heal him—away from the bad influences, away from worldly treasures, away from temptation, away from the indecent culture. Jesus took the man away to a place where is was just the two of them—to a place where the man, with newly opened ears, could freely listen and talk to God.

Let Jesus take you away to a quiet place, free of distractions, where you can listen to him. Let him into your life and allow him to heal you.

Ephphatha! Be opened to God’s love. Be opened to God’s mercy. Be opened to follow God’s Word. Be opened to accept him. And then you can clearly speak God’s truth to others.

Image Credit: [Public Domain] Christ healing a deaf and dumb man by Domenico Maggiotto

He Knows Your Heart

“The word of God is living and effective,
able to discern reflections and thoughts of the heart.” -Hebrews 4:12

Your heart is known.

Each and every part of your heart is known by our Lord, even the parts no one else knows about, the parts that carry our deepest desires and our deepest scars. And to be known by God is to be tenderly, intimately loved by God. There is nothing to be afraid of in Him knowing all of us, because He loves us totally and completely.

God knows our hearts and loves our hearts. He desires to so badly pour His love into every nook, cranny, and crevice of our hearts. The Lord waits for you in each moment to fill your soul to overflowing with His dazzling peace, with His wondrous light that shatters all darkness.

Sometimes we can find ourselves crying out to God with questions of, “why?”, “how?”, or “when?”, especially when we are struggling. God always hears and answers these questions, but oftentimes with a “who.” In those moments of uncertainty and questioning and wrestling, God so tenderly answers by pointing us to Himself.

You see, the more we know who God is and who we are as His beloved sons and daughters, the easier it is to trust that He has got every single one of our whys, hows, and whens on His Heart, too, and that He’s already working on it before we can even utter a single word.

When He knows our hearts, He loves our hearts, and everything on our hearts has His complete and total attention. He is always working for our good, in every situation.

Let yourself be known by God, and receive the beautiful intimacy of who God is, for He is love.

Seek Him in All Things

“Seek him in integrity of heart;
Because he is found by those who test him not,
and he manifests himself to those who do not disbelieve him.” Wisdom 1:1-2

Time and time again I find myself in a place of realizing just how much I need the Lord. It truly is a wonder to behold how intricately He is involved in every breath, every detail of our lives, all because He wants us to know His great love and love Him in return.

We have nothing to lose by allowing ourselves to seek God with every fiber of our beings. God’s the one who won’t let us down, who can take all our mess and brokenness, and who draws us into a deeper relationship with Himself. He is the one who can fully satisfy every searching and longing of the human heart.

When we seek after other things to fill the deepest aches of our hearts, we are left empty. But when we really seek after God, He not only fills us, but He sets us free.

God always shows up when we seek Him, and we have nothing to fear.

What is your heart seeking today?

Is it affirmation? God’s voice is the only voice that matters: you are defined as His beloved child.

Is it peace? The Lord is the giver of true peace, peace that lasts.

Is it attention? God’s tender gaze is always fixed on you. He can’t take His eyes off of you.

Is it answers? He is the way, the truth, and the life.

We can really seek after God, without fear of betrayal or the fear that seeking Him will lead us astray. The Lord promised that when we seek after Him with our whole hearts, we will find Him (Jeremiah 29:13).

Now this may all sound cheesy or way too hard to believe, but this is the reality of God’s love that we have the opportunity to live in: God bestows on us the gift of His Divine Revelation, that when we really seek after Him, we will find Him; when we lean into Him, we won’t fall.

We can’t seek after Him too much. We can’t press into Him too much. You are never a burden to our Lord. And the beautiful thing is that we are seeking after a very real God who knows all the ins and outs of our souls, who sees and knows every nook and crevice of our hearts, who cares about the things that make us laugh and the things that keep us up at night. He is there through it all. So let’s seek wildly after His Heart. He’s already there, and He has wonders to reveal to us.

Take courage in your seeking. Know that He is seeking after your heart all the more.

Come, Lord Jesus. We seek You. We long for You. We need You.

Do you find yourself seeking? Here’s some more Scripture to pray with this week on this theme: Psalm 63, Psalm 34:6, Psalm 27, Matthew 7:7-11, Song of Songs 3:1-4

Irrevocable Love

“Lord, in your great love, answer me.” -Psalm 69

Sometimes it can be easy to forget that God never leaves us. When we find ourselves in a place of searching for answers, He’s already there, already working on it. With Him, we are safe, and we don’t have to be afraid.

A lot of people talk about how God always hears our prayers, which is true, but let’s focus for a second on how God receives our prayers:

God receives your prayers with the utmost love, care, and concern. He receives your prayers with tenderness and compassion, with deep knowing and understanding for every cry of your heart. No corner of who you are is left unloved or unnoticed by Him. He really does care about every single detail of every prayer, repeated or only uttered once, spoken out loud, or buried in the depths of your heart.

Whatever is on your heart is on God’s heart, too. You always have His attention. His gifts and calls are irrevocable, as today’s first reading says. This applies to His loving, constant focus on you, too–that’s a gift He will never take away.

And so we can go to God, as we are. We can go to Him unmasked and hearts unveiled, because He always receives our prayers with love.

We praise You, Lord.

Directing Our Steps

Jesus told his disciples a parable:
“Can a blind person guide a blind person?
Will not both fall into a pit?
No disciple is superior to the teacher;
but when fully trained,
every disciple will be like his teacher.”
—Luke 6:39–40

Jesus has entrusted each of us with free will, leaving us room to act as we choose. Knowing our weakness and tendency toward sin, this can seem a terrifying responsibility. Sometimes I would rather God just take the reins entirely instead of leaving any decisions up to me. But God does not want to control us; He wants a relationship with us. He does not want us to act out of fear or passive obedience but out of love. When I overthink a decision or think I can’t live up to what God is asking of me, I forget that God knows me better than I know myself and has already accounted for the fact that I will make mistakes. There is nothing He can’t handle.

When it comes to discerning where God is leading us, we can often feel blind to perceive the road ahead. We turn to advice from others, hoping that they can tell us where to go, but they too are only human, unable to see our path fully. So how do we make our way forward? Jesus tells us that as His disciples, we are to listen and follow His ways, training ourselves to become like Him, so that instead of stumbling along like the blind leading the blind, we can learn to walk in His footsteps.

Any good teacher knows that there is a learning curve, that students will make mistakes along the way before they can master any new skill. And when Jesus calls us, He is aware that we are stepping out blindly, not yet able to make out what lies ahead. But He also knows that we won’t learn how to orient our steps if He doesn’t give us a chance to move freely, stumbling a bit as we go.

God knows that our attempts to do good may go awry, but, in the words of Thomas Merton, our desire to please Him does in fact please Him. When we go off course, He can redirect our steps and bring good out of any situation, as long as we continue to invite Him in and give Him permission to act in our lives.

Though we cannot see further than one step ahead, He leaves it up to us to take that one step and then allow Him to illuminate the next. He will never force us; He guides us, if we accept His help, with a gentle hand. Learning to trust Him means believing that He can handle my weakness and that He invites me to follow just as I am.

Created for Communion

Some Pharisees approached Jesus, and tested him, saying,
“Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife for any cause whatever?”
He said in reply, “Have you not read that from the beginning
the Creator made them male and female and said,
For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother
and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh?
So they are no longer two, but one flesh.
Therefore, what God has joined together, man must not separate.”
They said to him, “Then why did Moses command
that the man give the woman a bill of divorce and dismiss her?”
He said to them, “Because of the hardness of your hearts
Moses allowed you to divorce your wives,
but from the beginning it was not so.
I say to you, whoever divorces his wife
(unless the marriage is unlawful)
and marries another commits adultery.”
—Matthew 19:3–9

As human beings, we are made for communion with one another. God created us in a way that makes it impossible for us to go it alone, for He made us in His own image. Just as He exists as a loving community of three Persons, we also are designed to live in relationship with Him and with one another. We see this in the complementarity between men and women: each is a reflection of the love of God, but they express this in different ways. Their complementary strengths bring them closer together.

Whether our need for communion is fulfilled through the vocation of marriage—a relationship that echoes the love of the Trinity—or through consecrated life—a sacred relationship with God Himself—it points to a deep desire written upon our hearts: to love and be loved, to make of ourselves a gift to others. Even while we are still waiting upon our vocation, God still calls us, here and now, to be part of His family. Each time we receive Jesus in the Eucharist, it is an opportunity for intimate connection with our Beloved.

Jesus is the Bridegroom, and we, the Church, are His bride. He lays down His life as a gift for us, and He assures us that His promises to us are eternal, never to be broken. When Jesus speaks against divorce, it is not to shame His disciples or to place burdens and restrictions upon us. He even acknowledges that in some cases, the marriage was unlawful and fundamentally lacking in what is needed to establish a true, healthy marriage as He intends for us. Rather, He wants us to understand that marriage is a great gift, not to be carelessly tossed aside. It is not merely a well of contentment that eventually dries up; rather, it is an opportunity for us to fulfill our deepest purpose through serving one another. To be truly fulfilled, we must each offer a gift of our whole selves—not just the parts we like about ourselves, not just one stage of our lives, and not just a surface-level desire for comfort.

God has blessed us with many great gifts, but do we truly understand their purpose? Or do we see them only for our own benefit? Our own personal gifts are meaningless if we cannot understand ourselves in relation to others—how we are called to serve them, what we have yet to learn from them, and how we need to rely upon them. We can form a true sense of self only when we look outward.

An Infinite Love

edith stein

I will espouse you to me forever:
I will espouse you in right and in justice,
in love and in mercy;
I will espouse you in fidelity,
and you shall know the LORD

These words were read at Mass today in celebration of a very special saint of our times, St. Teresa Benedicta of the Cross (Edith Stein). A saint very close to my heart, St. Teresa Benedicta is one of the main reasons for my conversion back to my faith.

Edith was raised in a Jewish family in the early 1900s in Germany, eventually converting through an encounter with Christ through philosophy and the lives of the saints. A prominent philosopher, teacher, and speaker, Edith earnestly searched for the answers to who we are as human beings, what that means regarding our call to relationship with God. She died in Auschwitz during World War II, serving others whole-heartedly until her final moments.

The words from Scripture today are from the book of Hosea, words which God spoke to Israel. He desired an all-consuming and faithful relationship with His People. Even in their unfaithfulness, He kept pursuing them with this love.

The reason the Scripture reading was picked for St. Teresa Benedicta’s feast is that she lived her vocation as a human person, in particular, as a woman, to the fullest. She knew that she was created by Love and for Love. She had been captivated by the love of God, and in that, felt she could not contain that message of His love. Her life is a witness of what it truly means to allow God to love us.

When I read the words of the Scripture reading today, in all honesty, my heart is uneasy. I desire to be loved with such unconditional, all-consuming, and infinite love. But how often do I settle for less? In my own heart, I find that when I resist these words from God, it is because I doubt He is enough.

While we each have these desires for such love, it is so much easier to settle. We fill our hearts with finite things which give temporary satisfaction, in order to fill that inner void. But these temporal goods, while gifts from God, are not enough. They are finite. They are gifts which ultimately are meant to point us to Him. 

Today, as we pray through these words of Scripture, place yourself in a position of receptivity. Hear them as Jesus speaking them directly to you. Let us ask ourselves, “What are those things which I grasp onto to try and fill that spot in my heart meant only for God?”

Give these desires to Him, and allow Him to fill them. Give him the doubt in your heart, and allow Him to surprise you!

As we celebrate today’s feast, let us ask for St. Teresa Benedicta of the Cross to intercede for us. She received the love of Christ the Bridegroom, trusting that her heart’s desires were given to Her by God for a reason. She was one who was not afraid to allow Herself to be loved.

St. Teresa Benedicta of the Cross, intercede for us and help us to surrender wholeheartedly to the one who loves us. Give us the interior freedom to receive His all-consuming love without fear!

For more information on St. Teresa Benedicta of the Cross’s life, go to http://www.vatican.va/news_services/liturgy/saints/ns_lit_doc_19981011_edith_stein_en.html

Recommended reading on St. Teresa Benedicta of the Cross:

Life in a Jewish Family: https://www.amazon.com/Life-Jewish-Family-Autobiography-Collected/dp/0935216049

Essays on Woman: https://www.amazon.com/Essays-Woman-Collected-English-German/dp/0935216596

The Law of the Sabbath

Jesus was going through a field of grain on the sabbath.
His disciples were hungry
and began to pick the heads of grain and eat them.
When the Pharisees saw this, they said to him,
“See, your disciples are doing what is unlawful to do on the sabbath.”
He said to them, “Have you not read what David did
when he and his companions were hungry,
how he went into the house of God and ate the bread of offering,
which neither he nor his companions
but only the priests could lawfully eat?
Or have you not read in the law that on the sabbath
the priests serving in the temple violate the sabbath
and are innocent?
I say to you, something greater than the temple is here.
If you knew what this meant, I desire mercy, not sacrifice,
you would not have condemned these innocent men.
For the Son of Man is Lord of the sabbath.”
—Matthew 12:1–8

Jesus’s response to the Pharisees in this passage highlights the purpose of the Mosaic law: it is was not implemented as a means of controlling and restricting the Jewish people, but rather as a way to establish a relationship between God and His chosen people and to serve as a constant reminder of the covenant that was yet to be fulfilled. Jesus gives examples in which God called people to violate the letter of the law in order to serve a much higher law. Though unworthy of drawing close to God by serving Him in the temple and of consuming the bread of offering, the Jewish priests perform these actions because God has called them to do so. When they are serving in the temple, their actions, though technically against what is prescribed for the sabbath, are holy, for they are standing on sacred ground and fulfilling the duties of their calling. They prefigure a closer intimacy between God and man, when God will sanctify men to be in relationship with Him and serve at the highest altar.

It follows then, that Jesus’s words carried an implication that would have been shocking to the Pharisees. He is speaking with authority above the law, declaring that His disciples are following a higher purpose just by being in His midst. Simply being in Jesus’s presence is sacred—even more so than the temple itself. He is the fulfillment of God’s covenant, of the Holy of Holies. He is the Temple of God’s new covenant of mercy. Through His sacrifice for us, the veil between God and man has been torn in two, and we can behold the Face of God without perishing.

In Jesus’s presence, the disciples ate grain on the sabbath to assuage their hunger. Hunger is an inescapable part of the human condition—both the hunger of our bodies for sustenance and the hunger of our souls for meaning and redemption. Jesus responds fully to our hunger, ministering to the deepest aches and longings within us: body and soul, mind and heart. Every Sunday, we consume Bread on the sabbath, opening ourselves up to receive the only food that can truly fill the deep, piercing hunger within us. It is the fulfillment of God’s promise to rescue us from the depths of our sin. Jesus, present in the Eucharist, looks upon us with mercy and invites us to draw closer to the mystery of His overwhelming love for us.