Giving Forgiveness

Several years ago when I was going through a difficult period in my life, I let my heart be filled with bitterness and resentment. I had been hurt by people I had thought were my friends. I became consumed with feelings of betrayal and anger. I spent (wasted) my time nurturing those feelings. I was going nowhere, except into a hardened and sinful place. I was more concerned with holding onto my grievances than I was with allowing God to heal me of my pain. Until I was ready to forgive, how could Jesus forgive me? So one night I wrote down the names of all the people who had wronged me. I held the list in my hands and began to pray for each one of them by name. It was tough. At first I’ll admit that only a tiny piece of my heart was involved when I prayed. But as I continued with it day after day I felt myself letting go of the anger and hurt. I didn’t forget what had been done, but I was able to lay my hurts and resentments at the foot of the Cross. In return, God gave me His mercy and peace. For the first time in a long time, I was free.

Looking back, I can only wonder at the weeks and months I had invested in all that anger. I let it take over my life and rob me of my joy. I gave it permission to be in control, instead of welcoming Christ’s mercy into my heart. This is something nearly all of us deal with at one time or another. One famous family experienced the pain of separation and estrangement over a lack of forgiveness and the price they paid for it was enormous.

Elizabeth Barrett Browning is one of the most well-known Victorian poets. Growing up in England, she was the oldest of twelve children. Elizabeth began writing poems in childhood and despite a lifelong battle with poor health, she continued to be a prolific poet. Her courtship with Robert Browning produced a multitude of letters famously detailing their love for one another. But Elizabeth’s father was completely opposed to their relationship. After they married, she was disinherited and her father never forgave her and never spoke with her again. The newlyweds moved to Italy and she never saw her dad again. Despite his hard feelings towards her, Elizabeth continued to faithfully write to him for many, many years. Towards the end of her life, she received a large box filled with the letters she’d written to her father—all of them unopened and unread. Because he couldn’t forgive her for loving Robert Browning, her father had missed out on knowing his daughter.

When you get right down to it, not forgiving someone who has wronged you is a sin of pride. You and your grudges become more important than anything else—family relationships included. You think you know best. You believe that your hurt feelings have priority over anything else. They almost take on a life of their own and you nourish and encourage them by remembering how you were wronged and treated unfairly. It’s all me, me, me. Your memories build a prison around your heart and that’s the definition of pride.

Who do you need to forgive today? Are you estranged from someone in your family? Forgiveness and reconciliation are a gift you can give to yourself. Even if the other person never admits how they hurt you. It’s not about them. It doesn’t mean that you weren’t hurt or betrayed, it just means that you no longer choose to hold onto that hurt anymore. Ask the Lord to help you do this. It might take a while, but that’s okay, too. Little by little you’ll feel a burden being lifted and grace will lead you through it. Don’t waste time losing out on love.

“When you are praying, first forgive anyone you are holding a grudge against, so that your Father in heaven will forgive your sins, too.”

—Mark 11:25

God Is Calling You To Sainthood

In a few months, it will have been 10 years since the Church canonized Pope John Paul II, declaring him to be among the saints in heaven. His life exemplifies virtue on a heroic scale, from his work against Naziism, to his fearless proclamation of the Gospel in the face of communism and his legacy as our beloved Pope. His contemporary and friend, And almost 7 years ago, Mother Teresa was made St. Teresa of Calcutta. Most of us remember her tireless work in the poorest of India’s slums giving food and care to the desperately ill and dying. For her, sharing God’s love with the poor was the path to her holiness. Saints over the centuries have come from all backgrounds and experiences. Soldiers, sailors, monks, social workers and even fishermen and tax collectors have answered the Lord’s call to follow Him. Their daily journey to become more like Christ are important examples to us of how to live like Jesus wants us to live. Their stories are valuable to us. We don’t have to try and imagine or guess how we should live as Christians—the saints can show us the way.

But here’s my problem with sainthood: I stink at it. Don’t get me wrong, I want to be a saint. My purpose on this earth is to know, love and serve God in this world and to spend eternity with Him in the next world. This is a fundamental teaching and belief of my Catholic faith. We are ALL called to sainthood. And like the old song says, “Lord, I want to be in that number when the saints go marching in!”  But I’m much better at being a sinner than at being a saint. The saints seem to be so far away from my messy, harried, self-centered and very un-heroic life. I struggle with sin all the time. I neglect my prayer life. I’m impatient. I know what I’m supposed to do, but I so rarely do it. Oh I have my good days, even my good weeks. Days when I pray and read Scripture and think holy thoughts. And then I leave the house. I’m late. There’s traffic. I spill my coffee. I forget the dry cleaning. How can I be saintly in this crazy gerbil wheel that I live in every day?

The good news for me and for you is that we’re NOT Mother Teresa or Pope John Paul. God created each one of us as singularly unique individuals. He doesn’t expect us to be anyone other than who we are. God wants us to be the very best version of ourselves, not some knockoff version of someone else. That’s at once a relief and a challenge. God doesn’t expect most of us to move to India and become nuns. What He does want for us is that we invite Him into every moment of our lives. In many ways, that means getting out of the way and allowing the Holy Spirit to do His work in your heart. For me, this is a kind of sainthood that I can imagine in my own life—right where I am now, with all my flaws and shortcomings. And there IS something I can model from Mother Teresa every day. I can be kind.

Kindness is one of the gifts if the Holy Spirit (Galatians 5:22-23) that St. Paul says marks us as Christians. Kindness. It’s one of those things we learned in kindergarten that can transform the world. Kindness calls us out of ourselves and puts the needs of the other before us. When were kind we don’t expect any form of repayment or recognition. Kindness is love that overflows our hearts and embraces the other person. But kindness is more than just being nice. Nice implies a kind of agreeableness and even a sort of simpering cooperation. That’s not what kindness is. When you’re kind you act in the other’s best good. You give the beggar a meal or a coat or a pair of shoes instead of a bottle of whiskey.  When you’re kind you give the single mom an evening of babysitting instead of another stuffed toy. Sometimes the kindest thing we can do for someone is just to share a smile or an encouraging word. Kindness is putting whatever the other person needs first, not necessarily just doing what feels good to do. Kindness reaches out and meets the other person right where they are. It’s exactly what Christ does for each one of us.

Kindness is a good start towards sainthood. When you can’t imagine yourself in a far-flung mission field, maybe it’s because your field is much closer to home. Maybe you’re called to kindness. Be kind when you drive. Give more of your time to help others. Don’t gossip. Stop complaining. Smile at a stranger.  Hold the door for an elderly person. Clean up after yourself. Decide to be joyful. Call someone that you know is lonely. Give without counting the cost.

“Three things in human life are important. The first is to be kind. The second is to be kind. The third is to be kind.”

—St. Teresa of Calcutta

Whom Are You Looking For?

“Woman, why are you weeping? Whom are you looking for? “(John 20:15). Mary Magdalene has gone to Jesus’ tomb and found Him gone. Her friend was dead and she felt lost and alone. They had killed Him and now they’d even taken His body away. There was nothing she could do now but weep for her lost Savior and her lost hope.

 When was the last time you felt like everything you loved was lost? All of us have been where Mary was that morning. We’ve all been so devastated by a loss that we didn’t anticipate and couldn’t see our way through. Maybe we lost someone to death. Or divorce. Or abandonment. Our dream job was “downsized.” Our usually-healthy body was laid low by an accident or a serious illness. We’ve been betrayed by someone we trusted with our whole heart. Mary Magdalene had put her faith in Jesus and His promise of new life. She had hoped in Christ. Now, in His tomb, she wept because it was all gone. In that moment for her, hope was nowhere to be found. And that’s when Christ asks her: “Whom are you looking for?” You see, Christ was there with her all the time. He was there in the midst of Mary’s despair and hopelessness. He saw every tear and heard every sob. No one knows abandonment like Jesus. His friends fell asleep in the Garden and ran away into the night when the soldiers came for Him. He knows what it feels like for friends to leave you alone.  He knows what it feels like to be betrayed by a friend and sold out. He’s been there. His closest friend denied even knowing him and not once, but three times.

 When we’re in a tomb of loneliness and we feel betrayed and abandoned, the question Jesus asked of Mary is the one we need to ask ourselves: “Whom are you looking for?” We want acceptance and affirmation. We want to be valued. We want to feel needed and cherished. We want the wounds of our childhood and past relationships to be bound up and healed. We want to feel good enough. We want to be loved for the person that we are. We want to be needed because we’re valuable and unique. We want to be treated with dignity and respect. We need to feel like we matter to another person. We need to be affirmed and supported in our decisions and choices. And yet most of us are disappointed. Most of us, at some point in our lives, have the experience of Mary Magdalene. In those moments before she recognized the risen Christ speaking to her, Mary was at the lowest point of her life. We’ve all been there. Lost, alone, disappointed and hopeless. It’s the moment Easter was made for.

Easter says to us: “You are loved just the way you are, with all your sins and wounds and shortcomings. You are My unique and priceless child, formed by My own hands. I made the universe for you. I put the sun and moon and stars in place, just for you. You’re the reason I left heaven, to be born as one of you, to live and die on a Cross so that we can be together forever. You are the reason for Good Friday. You’re the reason for Easter morning.” When Mary Magdalene heard Jesus call her by name, she recognized Him at last. Jesus knows you by name, down to the number of hairs on your head and the DNA of your cells. He knows your joys and your fears, all your hopes and every one of your sins. And He came  that “you might have life and have it to the full” (John 10:10). This is the promise of Easter, fulfilled by the empty tomb Mary found that morning. So…..Whom are you looking for?

“Now let the heavens be joyful, Let earth her song begin: Let the round world keep triumph, And all that is therein; Invisible and visible, Their notes let all things blend, For Christ the Lord is risen Our joy that hath no end.”

—Saint John of Damascus

The Good News Of Easter

You can never be good enough. You can never be kind enough. You can try as hard as you can, but you’ll never be humble enough or generous enough or merciful enough. You can strive every day to be patient and long-suffering, but it won’t work. You’ll never make it, no matter how virtuous and “good” you are and how hard and tirelessly you try.

You see, there’s nothing you can do to make God love you more.

Unlike all other religions, from Islam to Buddhism to animism, Christianity teaches its followers that God loves them totally and completely, just as they are. His love for you and for me is dependent on NOTHING that we can ever do or say. His love is His Nature and is contingent on nothing else.

Accepting this fact is life-changing. This is pure, unconditional love and most of us find it a radically-new experience. Only the love of parents can mirror in a human way the perfect love of God for His children. Far too many of us believe that we’re not worthy of this kind of overwhelming love. Somewhere deep inside of us is a list of stuff we think we have to do in order to MAKE God love us. I have to read the Bible more often. I have to tithe. I have to volunteer for more ministry work. Nope. To repeat: there’s nothing you can do to make God love you more. He already loves you perfectly. All you have to do is to accept that love.

There’s more good news, too. God is not impressed when you think you aren’t worthy of His love. In fact, there’s NOTHING you can do that will make God love you any less. Think about that for a minute. Probably you’ve always believed that when you do bad things, what we call “sin,” it makes God love you less. But it doesn’t. God IS love—–it’s His very Nature. He can’t not love you, no matter what you do or what you think of yourself.

Does your sin disappoint the Lord? Sure it does. It offends Him and it distances you from Him when you choose to sin. If it’s a serious sin, it can cut you off from a relationship with Him and endanger your immortal soul. It’s serious. But even in the middle of your worst possible sin—–God loves you just the same. One of my favorite Scripture verses promises us this: “…while we were still sinners, Christ died for us”(Romans 5:8). Before we even knew Him, He suffered and died for us on the Cross. That’s incredible love. It’s beyond our human imagination. And I think that’s part of why we can’t consider ourselves worthy of His love.

We please God when we take Him up on that love. When we turn away from our sin (repent) we find Him already there, already and always there, waiting to welcome us into His friendship. He’s never been anywhere else.

His love calls us into loving each other. This means loving even most the unlovable among us. That means loving sinners. Just like you and me. And it means forgiving people who have wronged us, even if they don’t apologize and even if we’re still angry or hurting. Forgiving others is being like Jesus, and when we love and forgive one another, it pleases Him.

Sometimes it’s tempting to make our faith really complicated. But the heart of it is pretty simple: to love and forgive others as Christ loves and forgives us. We’re in the Easter season now. And it’s all about His love for us and how much He wants to know us and have a relationship with us. We Catholics believe that Jesus rose from the grave on Easter morning. He wants to raise you from the dead, too. He wants you to know that you ARE good enough and kind enough—that none of your sins have changed how much He loves you. He wants you to know that you belong to Him, and you always will.

“God loves each of us as if there were only one of us.”

—St. Augustine (354-430 AD)

Holy Week

The images of Holy Week draw us into the drama of Christ’s last few days before Calvary. On Palm Sunday we hear the crowds shouting, “Hosanna!” as Jesus enters Jerusalem There’s a kind of frenzy in the air. Lots of people are following Jesus. Lots of soldiers are following Jesus. He’s coming to celebrate the Passover feast with his friends. He’s coming to suffer and to die, betrayed by a friend and denied by a friend. And He’s coming to rise from the grave on Easter morning.

We’re so familiar with the story that sometimes we gloss over the uncomfortable images in our haste to roll the stone away and cry, “Alleluia! He is risen!” It’s a common human mistake. In fact, it’s the core of the prosperity Gospel fad. But here’s the truth: Jesus said, “If anyone will come after Me, let him deny himself, take up His cross, and follow Me” (Matthew 16:24). He never tells us that if we follow Him we’ll be rich and powerful and healthy. Or even, happy. The saints have always known this. They view suffering and sacrifice as the doorway to an intimate relationship with Jesus.

In Jerusalem, the path that Jesus walked from His condemnation to Golgotha is called the “Via Dolorosa” or “Way of Sorrows.” This recalls the prophet Isaiah’s description of our Savior: “He was despised and rejected—a man of sorrows, acquainted with grief…”(Isaiah 53:3). Pilgrims today retrace His footsteps, stopping to pray and to remember His passion and suffering for our sake. The Stations of the Cross, these same instances as on the Jerusalem “way,” are in every Catholic Church and we pray them often during Lent. We recall how Christ was arrested, beaten, stripped, and burdened to carry His Cross. At each fall, at every humiliation and torture, we kneel and pray these words: “We adore You, O Christ, and we praise You, because by Your Holy Cross You have redeemed the world.” Christ performed many miracles of healing, and yet His miracles didn’t save us. He taught beautiful parables of mercy and forgiveness, yet His preaching didn’t save us. What saves us? His death on the Cross. And that’s what this week is about.

A few summers back, at World Youth Day in Rio de Janeiro, Pope Francis prayed the Stations of the Cross with more than a million young people. He asked them 3 questions. This week is a good time for us to ask ourselves these same questions: What have I left at the Cross? What has the Cross of Jesus left for me? What does the Cross teach me?

We pray to be more like Jesus. We beg Him to hold us close to His Sacred Heart. Yet it can be hard for us to accept the fact that suffering comes with that embrace. To be more like Him, we must walk the Via Dolorosa, too. We’re beaten down, spat upon, kicked and left alone with no one to stand up for us or defend us or make a case for us. We fall down. We get up. We fall down again. We get up again. Through our blood and sweat we can see that hill ahead of us, two crosses already there. Two thieves hang in agony and we know that soon, we’ll take our place between them. Each one of us bears a cross of suffering, just at the Church does. She is maligned, accused of every wrongdoing and shortcoming and sin. She will suffer because Her Spouse suffers. And She wouldn’t have it any other way. Her very life is in Him, and apart from His Cross, she is nothing but a social club: well-meaning but not life-giving. The glory and power of the Resurrection are bought at the terrible price of His suffering and death. On Good Friday, on the Cross, Easter looks a million miles away. But without suffering, without the power of His Blood, the stone of the tomb is impossibly heavy, unable to be rolled away. In these days of Holy Week, we walk with Jesus, and we weep.

“He was pierced for our transgressions. He was crushed for our sins. The punishment that brought us peace was on Him. And by His wounds we are healed.”

—–Isaiah 53:5