Sitting in the pew during mass, weeping over hurts that bubble up, I found myself staring into the eyes of Jesus on the Cross. My list of whys seems endless, because I’m tired, because I’m grieving, because I’m stressed, because I’m worried, because I miss my children, because miss having all of them in the house and in the pew.
My brain flashes back as I spy a larger family with children crawling, climbing over, and switching seats. It’s almost envy. I miss that nestled security I knew for so many years, when I could walk from room to room and tuck them all in, somehow it felt permanent then. I don’t know if other older parents feel this vulnerability, this sense of the soul being fragile, but I do.
And Christ keeps looking at me from the cross.
It occurred to me, that I was holding onto hurts. I supsect all of us do. It’s manifested in what we say and do not say, what we do and do not do. For example, we hear a lot of non apologies in this day and age.
“I’m sorry you were hurt.” not, “I’m sorry I hurt you.”
“I’m sorry you feel that way.” not, “I’m sorry I made you feel that way.”
“I’m sorry but…insert excuse here.” not, “I’m sorry.”
It’s becoming a lost skill, more absent than answering the actual phone when it rings and we don’t know the number.
Likewise, we are missing the counter point to the actual apology, the acceptance.
“I forgive you.” which is a renouncing of the entitlement to hold onto the hurt. Forgiveness is harder than loving your enemies, because forgiveness often invovles people we will interact with again, who might hurt us again.
There is nothing more imitative of Christ than forgiveness. Forgiveness from the cross, for the cross, for all of the acts and words and inaction that led to the cross.
Boy does this world need both of these things, genuine apologies for pain inflicted, coupled with acts that show remorse, and authentic forgiveness that allows room for people to grow and grow up. Grace pours in where we allow, but do we? Are we? Have we? How do we?
Well it starts with thinking about all those who have hurt us, hold the rosary and on each bead, ask Jesus to bless them, to help you forgive them, and surrender it. Surrender it because it holds you stapled to the moment, the pain, the hurt, the sin, even if you are the victim. You will relive it and re-feel it each time you recall it, until it is surrendered. This does not mean a forfieting of justice or law, or calling out the hurt. It merely means not being defined by the hurt going forward.
We have to surrender our hurts. I needed to surrender my hurt. I keep discovering, I haven’t finished surrendering it. Being both and is the nature of reality, a person striving to live in grace, and a person who desperately needs it. Reality is always more than we can fathom. The internet and social media and even our politics pretends otherwise.
It’s challenging because we live in an age where one can create an echo chamber for one’s self, and think that is not all there is, but all that should be. It’s part of why so many struggle in this day and age with depression. We’re tasked with the business being offered knowledge and thoughts and opinions and facts as all the same.
In an age of Artificial Intelligence, we have to remember understanding must be fought for, not clicked on and skimmed. Reflection requires time and effort and the turning over of ideas like jewels, to see each individual faucet and the whole, and not mistake one for the other. Life is both and, reality is both and, and making a society that remembers that mysterious seemingly contradictory nature requires everything we offer.
The only way this world gets better, is if we lean into grace. It means we pray for the recovery of every soul that suffers. Pray and live in a way that reinforces the kindness we want to permeate the whole of society as the expected norm. We don’t get to quit. We don’t get to dismiss. We don’t get to ignore. Everyone includes most especially those we consider our enemies, and all who we know consider us as such. Otherwise, we become what we rail against, returning wound for wound, hate for hate, and the world is guaranteed only to become a crueler, more wounded place.
The devil defines us by our faults, our failures, our sins. Christ calls us by our names.
When we stand before Christ, who sees the more than the sins we commit, but discounts none of the wholeness of who a person is, we will need to remember, Christ is love, and trust in it.
We also must hope that in this life, we lived it with how we treated each other, and how we forgave those who hurt.
Lean into grace. Stare into the eyes of Christ and know, He knows it all and still, He loves you.
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