The Immaculate Heart of Mary will triumph!

Today we specially contemplate the Immaculate Heart of Mary - it's one of my favorite remembrances. At Morning Prayer, I renewed my consecration to Christ through Mary's Immaculate Heart. I also placed the people I pray for under the mantle of her intercession.

The question "Can I love if I am broken?" is asked by our deeply troubled world in so many ways. We look at Mary's pierced and bleeding heart and answer with an enthusiastic "Yes!" When Christ gave her to us to be our own mother, she didn't say "Now wait a minute, I need some time to heal before I can take something like this on. I have to work through this pain - there's no way I could be of any use to someone else until I've gotten past all this." She lived the "yes" she had been living from the first moment of her existence and trusted God to not only show her how, knowing that He is the how.

In our suffering, we learn to love with the Love of God - not the superficial affection and lust the world offers as a cheap substitute. We're hesitant to love the way God loves. Who wants to be broken, vulnerable, raw, exposed? We try to fix ourselves and promise that once we get our own lives in order we'll be ready to take care of other people. It's an absolute lie - the oldest lie ever told - that we can fix ourselves, that we don't have to entrust ourselves to God, that we can be our own gods. We cannot heal ourselves - we will never get there - and in trying to do so, we cut ourselves off from the source of the very healing that we seek. Our attempts focus our energy and attention on ourselves and close us off from others. But God's presence, His Love, is mediated through those other people! We need to come together in our brokenness and let the love of God flow through us into others and through others into us. This is the same love that poured out of Christ as he hung on the cross - the Unbroken giving Himself to the broken, to be broken so that we can be healed. Dearest friends, I consecrated myself and all of you to this Love this morning because in entrusting ourselves to God, we are empowered to truly love!

Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us!

In 4 more days I'll have 2 months to go!

As my entrance into religious life gets closer and closer, there are more and more questions posed to me everyday. Some are easy to answer ("Yes, I'm really not going to have sex ever again.") Some are harder. I ask myself the hard questions around this time of nights when I'm getting ready for bed. I like to fall asleep with them. People think this is odd - aren't the burning questions supposed to keep you up at night? I like to go to bed with these questions because in asking them, I'm drawn deeper into the Mystery. I learn about God, and I learn about myself. It's in the asking, the seeking, the desire that we come together. In this coming together, every question is answered - not with a forecast of things to come, but with the knowledge that I am His. I wonder about how this belonging will take shape, how I'll live it out over the next 60 or 70 years. All that really matters though, is that we know we are Loved and that someday, when the time is right, we will have been made able to stand in His unveiled presence and stare into His face with nothing but Love in our hearts. Good night everyone!

"The blink of an eye in itself is nothing, but the eye that blinks - that is something. A span of life in itself is nothing, but the man that lives that span - he is something."
- Chaim Potok The Chosen

67 days until I enter religious life! I'm so excited and happy!

Sacred Heart of Jesus, Have Mercy on Us!

The month of June is specially dedicated to the Sacred Heart of Jesus, and so I offer this prayer:

The Raccolta

O Divine Heart of Jesus, grant, I beseech You, eternal rest to the souls in purgatory, final grace to all who are to die today, true repentance to sinners, the light of faith to those who do not know You, Your blessing to me and to all who are mine.
To You, O most loving Heart of Jesus, do I commend all these souls, and for them I offer all Your merits, together with the merits of the most Blessed Mother and of all the saints and angels, and also together with all the Sacrifices of the Mass, the Holy Communions, the prayers and good works that are made today throughout the entire Christian world. Amen.