Thursday, October 19, 2017

Become Broken Hearted

     “This Heart is a pierced Heart. Jesus stands before us with a pierced Heart. We have seen how knowledge of God has always cost; the human heart has to be broken open before it can receive God, and thus it was with Jesus. And the deepest mystery of all is that we learn that the Father’s own Heart is pierced.
     How can we enter into this pierced Heart? Only by becoming like it, living in love at whatever cost, paying the high price of loving. Too easily we assume that loving is a pleasurable experience. Most surely it is the only sweetness in life, but this must be understood correctly. True love is always bleeding in our mortal life. You cannot have love in this life without pain.
     Just think of our own way of carrying on. We get hurt, offended. . .what do we do? Shrink into ourselves, erect all sorts of barriers. Our heart has withdrawn from the one who hurts us in any way. We mustn’t be hurt, “I matter,” our poor ego cries. But that is not how Jesus loves. If we would be like Him, we must struggle to the death with all this, refuse to curl up, refuse to withdraw in the slightest. We must go on exposing ourselves, giving ourselves, pouring ourselves out.
     We say we want to love, we want to serve, we want to give ourselves, and at bottom we are saying we want selfish satisfaction. We want to feel we matter, are important, we want to feel fulfilled; in other words, we are using others, and the beautiful concept of love is being abused. Love is selfless. The way into the Heart of Jesus is not through intellectual insight, not through glowing emotion, but through learning to pay the cost of pure love. There is sacrifice involved in letting others be themselves.”                                                                                      Sr. Ruth Borrows, O.C.D.



     As I read Sr. Ruth’s words, a memory stirred in my heart.

     “Your mission is to be the Wounded Heart.”

      I sat there many years ago, trying my best to absorb Father’s words and internalize their meaning.

     A mission is something to given to us by God. He hand-picks our mission and prepares us to receive it. God gives us the grace to carry it out. It is part of His plan for us – our specific road to sanctity. God is right there with us, accompanying us as we do our best to fulfill the task. We can accept it or not. It’s really up to us.

      This did not exactly sound like a mission I would felt drawn to choose. It sounded down right difficult and painful! I was experiencing a lot of pain at the time with self-worth and rejection and wondered if accepting the mission would increase the pain?

     Did I really want to say yes? Did I want to continue to make myself vulnerable? Did I want to continue to suffer? Did I want to continue to be rejected? Did I want to love others as God does – selflessly and without reservation?

     Regardless of how I answered, it would not change the circumstances of my situation. But if I accepted, it would give it supernatural meaning and worth. Something inside of me needed to believe that all the pain, all the suffering, was not in vain. I wanted it to be used for some good. I wanted to unite my pain with Christ’ and allow God to use it for my own redemption, as well as the redemption of others. I wanted to continue to love, as Christ did, regardless of whether my love was returned.

     I realized that if I said yes, God would use this mission to perfect my love. Loving as God does is very difficult and painful. It costs plenty and would probably take a lifetime of purification. But something inside of me, felt affirmed and acknowledged. It was as if God noticed my plight and invited me to go deeper with Him on a journey into His Heart. He was inviting me to resemble Him slightly and allow others, with my permission, to pierce my heart as His was.

     After some time in prayer, I said yes!

     It has been many years since my “yes,” along with many opportunities to practice and carry out my mission. I had been mistaken in believing “that loving is a pleasurable experience.” It has taken many painful and difficult lessons for me to learn the truth. We need only to look to the crucifix to see what love truly is. Jesus said, “I love you this much” – placed His body upon the cross and died – for you and for me. We are called to do the same. We are called to love till it hurts – to forget ourselves and look to the One who IS love.  
 
     Loving as God does will cost us everything, but will reward us with a much greater abundance! It is Jesus’ command to us: “I give you a new commandment: love one another. As I have loved you, so also you should love one another. This is how all will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another” (Jn 13:34).  
     
     How can we manage to do this – love others as Christ does – in our fallen world full of sin and selfishness?

     The world was no more holy when Jesus walked this earth, yet He loved perfectly! His focus was on the Father and carrying out His mission. He depended upon the Father for everything and trusted in His great love for Him.

     Both Jesus and the Father knew the high cost of loving. “For God so loved the world that He gave His only Son, so that everyone who believes in Him might not perish but might have eternal life” (Jn 3:16). The Father knew that Jesus would not be loved by many. Papa knew that Jesus would be killed by man and out of His great love for us, sent Him anyway.

      Jesus came to save us, even at the cost of rejection and scorn.

     “He came to His what was His own, but His own people did not accept Him” (Jn 1:11).

     This rejection was not a surprise to Jesus. He was well aware of the ways of man: “Jesus would not trust Himself to them because He knew them all, and did not need anyone to testify about human nature. He Himself understood it well” (Jn 2: 24-25).

     Despite our rejection of Him, Jesus stayed the course. “Before the feast of Passover, Jesus knew that His hour had come to pass from this world to the Father. He loved His own in the world and He loved them to the end” (Jn 13:1).

     We, on the other hand, deceive ourselves and forget that we are deeply wounded by original sin. Often, our love is selfish and self-centered, yet we expect to be loved by everyone! We are focused on ourselves; our needs and wants. We have expectations of others and expect them to be fulfilled. When we fail to receive what we believe is owed to us, we pout and put our tail between our legs and retreat.

    God is calling us to more! He is inviting us to have our hearts broken so He can then enter our hearts. His presence will enable us to more easily forget ourselves and begin to love as He does. It is a lofty calling – but one with heavenly rewards!

     Say yes! Say yes to loving as our great and generous God does. “If we would like to be like Him, we must refuse to curl up, refuse to withdraw in the slightest. We must go on exposing ourselves, giving ourselves, pouring ourselves out.”

     “Allow others to be themselves,” loving them anyway and you will become a true disciple of the “Pierced Ones” – God our heavenly Father and Our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ!   
    
    
     
    


1 comment:

  1. To love as Jesus loves is indeed a very lofty calling! To embrace love, especially with the thorns that come along with it, is a difficult choice. We most definitely need the grace of Our Dear Savior to answer this call. Thank you for enlightening us once again with your sage words. God bless you Avia Joy!

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