Today This Happened

MY NEW YEARS RESOLUTION

Reflections on the New Year

Reflecting on my life, I have found I have filled my life with many things, so many desires of my heart, and so many expectations, and I had dreams for a future that I have to release control over.  For whatever is God’s will, is what will be.  I surrender my will to His and have returned the ship’s wheel to Him. I have expected people to love as I love.  I relied on people who loved me to always love me.  It seems life just doesn’t go as planned.  I believe this because the players are doing the planning and not letting God do it.  My life has been filled with beauty but filled with sorrow as well.  There will always be beauty and sorrow.  Just look at Jesus’ own life.  

◦As a child, I had a kind and loving mother who taught me what it was to love and be loved.  Losing her at 13 left me searching for the essence of that most beautiful experience of love.  To love and be loved is the greatest gift.  When you come upon that kind of love, you know it.  There is no mistaking it.  Sadly, my experiences have shown me that it can also lead to great sorrow.  A pain in your heart that is so deep. This new year my heart is feeling so much sorrow for many different reasons.  It feels so heavy.  The antidote?  Reflect upon Jesus.  Jesus loved like no other.  He loved, and He taught love.  And what happened?  Even those closest to Him betrayed or denied Him.  But he still loved.  And for the love of each of us who has betrayed and denied him in different ways, he gave His life.  He suffered sorrow, but what did He do in His sorrow?  He lifted his eyes to heaven, called upon His father, and submitted to His will.  Then He hung on a cross in the most excruciating agony giving His life to save us so that we may have life.  He did not once turn His love from us.  Not once.  And what do we give to Him?  What do I give to Him?  What are we called to give to Him?  We are called to give Him the best of our love.  We are called to place Him first and, above all things.  Jesus told us, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the greatest and most important commandment”.  We are to love Him with ALL our heart, with ALL our soul, and with ALL our mind.  In that commandment, my friends, I have found my New Years’ resolution. 

We go about life, filling all space and time with indulgences that make us happy.  I don’t have to list them.  We all know the things we do to waste our time.  I’m guilty of it.  We are all guilty of it.  So the question for reflection here is, “Where does God come into play here”?  Do you find yourself trying to fit him into your day or is He included in all you do?  The only one who can give you true lasting joy is God.  All those other fillers fill up most of our day and only bring temporary happiness. How do we love God?  How much time do we Give God?  Do we really love Him?  Are there days we barely communicate with Him?  How many of us don’t feel Him?  If you are not communicating with Him, you certainly will not feel Him.

In the late nineties, I felt spiritually in a great place.  I spent lots of time with God in church, prayer, retreats, and on a pilgrimage that I believe was a calling from God and which I  was incredibly blessed to go on. That pilgrimage was an incredible blessing that has richly affected my life.  But then, heading into the year 2000, something happened. I wasn’t “feeling Him,” and I was lost, and I just wanted to feel that love again.  I had felt His love so strongly, and now I felt he had abandoned me.  When I think back, I wish I had kept a better journal.  I wish I had followed my spiritual director’s guidance to journal daily.  What I found later is that God did not abandon me.  God never abandons us.  We abandon Him.  Maybe I got complacent and started to slack in my prayer; perhaps I got self-absorbed and thought of my wants and how I wanted to feel rather than what God wanted and His will.  Ah, life is full of lessons.  When I hear about “the dark night of the soul,” that is how I felt.  I couldn’t deal with the feeling of emptiness and that God had abandoned me.  I think I did not trust in Him at that point.  This was a crucial point in my life, where I now know that God did not abandon me but was leading me out of myself and into Him into a deeper and more personal relationship.  That is the only way I can think of to describe it.  I failed and bailed. It is like that moment on the sea when Peter walked on water and, when filled with doubt, sank.  I sunk.

I remember a time when my spiritual director asked me if “I could accept Divine Love”   “What is Divine Love?  I asked. He responded, “you tell me,” and I said, “it must be God’s love.  God’s love for us is divine because He is divine.  Can I accept God’s love? is that it?”  But he would only repeat, “Can you accept Divine Love?” I remember feeling so frustrated and saying just tell me, and he said something like it wasn’t coming from him. I knew it meant more than God’s love, but I didn’t know what.  In another conversation, he told me I would know when it happened.  It would be an aha moment.  And He added that he sure hoped that I knew before I died. I could never understand why he couldn’t tell me, but today I understand. It had to be experienced.   He was right when he said it would be like an aha moment.  I believe he, Fr. Peter, was not asking me per se but that this was actually God himself asking me through Fr. Peter.

My conversion back to the faith has been a journey.  Another thing Fr. Peter taught me.  In the beginning, I was filled with excitement, joyfully exclaiming that I  was finally where I was always supposed to be! This is the love I was always looking for!  He put a name to it, “conversion”, but informed me in not so many words that I did not really arrive anywhere.  He told me it was an ongoing journey.  I have since discovered it has been and still is a journey filled with hills and valleys, winding roads, and long straight ones, taking me through lush pastures and barren deserts. It is a journey.  I am now at a point in my journey on this very beautiful 1st of January; the solemnity of Mary, Mother of God.  I am at one of the crossroads of the journey.  Our beautiful blessed Mother has, as our Lady of Sorrows, her hand out once again.  I can stagnate in my sorrow and have anxiety, relying on myself, or I can go to where I am hearing her call me..towards her son.  The only one who can bring us out of our sorrow.  At the foot of the cross, as He was suffering for all mankind, He gave us not only the gift of Himself, but He gave us the gift of His mother to be our Mother.  I can almost hear her telling me, as the tender, loving mother she is, “come, my son will help you.  He is meek and humble of heart.  I hear Jesus’ word’s through our Mother in the Gospel of Matthew:  “Come to me all you who labor and are burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am meek and humble of heart, and you will find rest for yourselves. For my yoke is easy and my burden light.”.  He is our only help.  He is the way, the light, the truth. He is the only way to go.  

To love God with all my heart, with all my soul, with all my mind. Seems like a perfect New Year’s resolution. Still on my journey.  The long and winding road will hopefully lead to the gates of heaven, where I will hear, “Well done my Good and faithful servant.”  I pray daily for this, and please know that I also pray for you.  Just know no matter how sinful we have been.  No matter what we have done, how many commandments we have broken, how far we have turned our backs on God… remember this:  He is full of love and mercy, and forgiveness is yours for the asking through the most beautiful sacrament of reconciliation, commonly known as confession.  The most beautiful words you can hear on this earth are, “your sins are forgiven.”  So it is never too late if you feel you have not been faithful.  For with forgiven sins comes the grace of God filling up your life, speeding you along the highway to heaven.  Picture this:  There could be nothing more wonderful than seeing Jesus, falling on your knees, and hearing those 7 words. “Well done my good and faithful servant.” 

SIDE NOTE 1: If turning back to God is something you think could never happen for you, you should read the conversion story of Fr. Donald Calloway. It is a heartwarming, inspiring story of one man so far from the faith and immersed in sin and how he came to know God. It really is impressive. You can find it here:

https://fathercalloway.com/books-and-gifts/no-turning-back-witness-mercy-10th-anniversary-edition

Fr. Donald Calloway has many other books besides his conversion story to help you grow in your faith.

SIDE NOTE 2:

In the confessional, you are confessing your sins through a priest to God. And God is the one absolving you of your sins. This is a sacrament of the church. A beautiful sacrament of the church. I will never forget my first time after probably twenty years and much sin. The feeling of lightness and joy walking out of that confessional was terrific. It really made me feel wonderful hearing those words of forgiveness. This is what the priest says: God the Father of mercies, through the death and resurrection of his Son has reconciled the world to himself and sent the Holy Spirit among us for the forgiveness of sins; through the ministry of the Church may God give you pardon and peace, and I absolve you from your sins in the name of the Father, and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. Ahhh, just beautiful. Look out for a future blog entitled “Confession.”