What comforting words…espouse you to me forever. The I AM, the all powerful, all mighty, all loving God is uniting the church, and therefore me, as a member of that beloved body to his very self forever. His desire for communion with us is so great that he forgave us and then became one of us and then suffered for all of us and died in the place of each one of us so that he could redeem each of us and all of us…in right…in justice…in love…in mercy…fidelity. Even when I/we have prostituted ourselves, run away from love, denied the love offered, and failed miserably on our own merits; God still offers to make me/us right, still offers me/us justice, still offers that love to me/us, still offers me/us mercy, and continues to offer us his fidelity.
I have developed a desire for the praying of the Chaplet of Divine Mercy. For many years I ignored this prayer form and considered it ridiculously repetitive and simplistic in its focus. Now, after several months of it being one of my daily pillars of prayer I can not move elsewhere. Although it is repetitive, the repetition causes me to focus my mind and remain in a right relationship…it helps to protect me from pride and self-sufficiency and self focused decision making vs discernment. All is gift because of God being always gracious and merciful.
I recognize in myself the tendency to be prideful and passively defiant in spiritual matters. However, for some of my brothers and sisters, experience has broken them where they perceive no self-worth and have lost their sense of value as a beloved. They tend not to engage at all, feeling so far beneath and less than others. Your faith has saved you Jesus says when we reach out in hope. Me in the hope of forgiveness and healing. My broken brothers and sisters in the hope of being affirmed in their innate value as a human person, a child of God.
This evokes an awareness of my appalling lack of gratitude for the gifts which have been lavished and continue to be lavished upon me. I love you Lord! I praise you Lord! I surrender Lord! Teach me to be as you would have me to be, not as I selfishly desire to be. Thank you for knowing my frailty and for loving me anyway. For I know now, at least at this moment, you have always loved me anyway.
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