This past week while praying the rosary and meditating on the sorrowful mysteries, I felt as though God showed me the following. It's a bit difficult to put into words, because it was moreso an understanding or impression I had, than really a description. It's just something to meditate about I think:
With His heart bursting with the greatest of love for you, Jesus approached you. Never before has anyone compared to this kind of love—no relationship, no one has fallen so deeply in love with you as He. Offerring not only His heart, but His very self, He called you close to that beating, living heart and said, "this is for you", but you rejected His gift outright. Not only did you not return His love, but you demanded He be sent to prison. How shattered He was by this rejection and your complete dismissal of His feelings for you. So much so, that He went to the garden and wept. He had little concern for His arrest and imprisonment, but His heart was torn by your words, by the look in your eyes as though you didn't even know Him.
He bore the rejection of the love from all the world. But as you had the guards take Him away, he turned at you and gazed into your eyes and said, "it is alright, know that I still love you."
You falsely accused Him so that He may be punished, as though tearing up that poor man's heart was not enough. He was beaten, whipped, His flesh torn to shreds and His blood spilled as a lamb in the slaughter.
He bore the sufferring and pains of the world. With what little strength He had left, bruised, broken and beaten, he raised His head and gazed softly into your eyes, forgetting the whip you clutched in your hand and He whispered, "I still love you".
Dragging Him aside you found it fitting to mock Him since the flogging had not yet eliminated Him from your life. You spat on Him, and with all your cunning used your tongue not to bless, but to deride, to attack, as a sharpened sword, so quick to lash out the most hurtful of remarks. Into his head and mind you beat those sharp words and thorns as deeply as you could, trying to destroy Him from the inside out. He let out loud cries and moans that could shatter the stars in the sky.
He bore the cruelty of the whole world. Then He clutched His heart, which was bursting at the seams and brimming with love, and He looked at you once again and with softness in His voice He called to you, "precious one, so dear to Me, I still love you"
Then with dead hatred in your heart, you looked back at Him, straight in the face and screamed, "CRUCIFY HIM!" This you shouted repeatedly; demanding a death that is prolonged and drawn out. Handing Him the cross, you shouted at Him, deriding Him—this Man who was already broken, now crushed under the immense weight of the cross. His shoulders splitting, the wood rubbing into His open wounds as he slowly marches uphill toward the condemnation you demanded He serve—to death.
He bore the sins of the whole world, and decided that even though you continued to deny His love and to unleash your cruelty upon Him, He would bear your sins too. He smiled and with what little energy He had left, looked deeply into your eyes and said, "remember that I love you"
Then, unrelenting and unrepentful, you began pounding the nails into His hands and feet, and with each bang of the hammer He cried out "I love you! I love you!" And hanging on the cross, He prayed for you, calling to His Father in heaven, "forgive them, for they know not what they do!" Choking on His own breath, he looked down from the cross and forgave you for all you did, even until death, and with tears in His eyes He finally said, "My precious child, love of my life, My heart is bursting with love that I can no longer contain. My Mercy and my Love are so strong and dying to pour out onto you, that they cannot be held in any more. I forgive you, and I love you so dearly." Then as He gave up His life, His heart which had grown so big with love for you, could no longer be held back, and with blood and water Christ's mercy and love poured out with His very life for you. Never has there been or will there ever be such love and mercy and it is pouring out for you endlessly, regardless of what you may have done or will ever do. You need only accept it, and it will always be waiting for you.
and I had been concerned that maybe I have never worshipped God in my life. It seemed to me that there would require of us an active component in worship, a formal decision of worship. I figured that after all these years that I've been learning and growing to love God more, that perhaps I had not taken the time to actively worship Him.
Now, since worship is not something of our own regard, but rather we may enter into worship when we praise God—stepping forward into the gates of heaven to join with the angels and saints in unceasing worship—then how might I enter into the throne of worship by praising God? Through the analyzing, worry, and confusion over this whole ordeal, it seems that I have placed myself somewhat further still from worship, for little did I know I have worshipped the Lord all along! As Catholics, every time we meet on Sundays, we come to worship, and this is where my fear lay, for I figured that without having consciously partook in the attempt to actively worship, that I was not worshipping. But in my times of prayer, in my coming to Christ to have a meeting with Him, both in and out of Mass, worship is exactly where I had ended up, for worship is not really an all out conscious pursuit but rather a consequence of the heart. If we mentally organize ourselves to worship, we do not really achieve anything but perhaps frustration, for in the words of Shakespeare's Hamlet, "My words go up, my thoughts remain below, words without thoughts never to heaven go."
Worship comes from the heart. When we enter into a meeting with Christ, he touches the innermost parts of our heart and worship is evoked from that meeting. It's something that naturally happens, it's a natural desire. After all, we were made for worship, it is integral to our very creation. So worship is not a trial or something we have to endure, but it is a beautiful expression of our love that explodes outward when we are in awe and in love with God. It's a natural expression and fulfillment of our being.
but I am thinking of composing a new song. I was reflecting upon what it would be like to live a day in which I could see no sin. How beautiful it would be to live in the day without sin, and to see with the eyes of God how things might be, and what love would be present. No one hurting another, no callousness, no pain, only kindness, chairty, and love towards one another. Then I thought, if I want to have any hope of seeing a day without sin, I have to start with me.
This was a springboard into the thought of the way we see sin in others. So I want to write a song called "maybe you didn't know" which will be like a story of a man who is walking by others and lovingly asking them if maybe they didn't know what they were doing. For the leading cause of so many of our sins is the lack of knowledge, for if we truly knew what we were doing, if we knew the pain it caused Christ, then out of love for God we would not be able to stand committing those sins. It's in forgetting God; forgetting ourselves that we sin.
Even when we want to argue with the fact that we may be committing a sin, it's partially because of our perspective. We do not see things in their proper light, for we wear the glasses of selfishness and yet we want to think ourselves entirely unselfish, so we cannot bear to conceive of things in any other manner. Maybe you should know.
Always a little bit daunting as it feels like it ought to set the tone for all the entries contained herein.
Sometimes I post ramblings...
sometimes I post interesting stuff...
and probably more often I'm motivated to post what is dear to my heart, in the whisperings of Our Lord to my soul.
sometimes these are simply thoughts in progress as well, so do not take me as a definitive authority on the Church teaching in all things. Of course I will always try to be in line with the Church, but feel free to correct me.
May God bless you and be with you.
And say a prayer for me if you can...
Slightly Orange
With His heart bursting with the greatest of love for you, Jesus approached you. Never before has anyone compared to this kind of love—no relationship, no one has fallen so deeply in love with you as He. Offerring not only His heart, but His very self, He called you close to that beating, living heart and said, "this is for you", but you rejected His gift outright. Not only did you not return His love, but you demanded He be sent to prison. How shattered He was by this rejection and your complete dismissal of His feelings for you. So much so, that He went to the garden and wept. He had little concern for His arrest and imprisonment, but His heart was torn by your words, by the look in your eyes as though you didn't even know Him.
Dragging Him aside you found it fitting to mock Him since the flogging had not yet eliminated Him from your life. You spat on Him, and with all your cunning used your tongue not to bless, but to deride, to attack, as a sharpened sword, so quick to lash out the most hurtful of remarks. Into his head and mind you beat those sharp words and thorns as deeply as you could, trying to destroy Him from the inside out. He let out loud cries and moans that could shatter the stars in the sky.
Then, unrelenting and unrepentful, you began pounding the nails into His hands and feet, and with each bang of the hammer He cried out "I love you! I love you!" And hanging on the cross, He prayed for you, calling to His Father in heaven, "forgive them, for they know not what they do!" Choking on His own breath, he looked down from the cross and forgave you for all you did, even until death, and with tears in His eyes He finally said, "My precious child, love of my life, My heart is bursting with love that I can no longer contain. My Mercy and my Love are so strong and dying to pour out onto you, that they cannot be held in any more. I forgive you, and I love you so dearly." Then as He gave up His life, His heart which had grown so big with love for you, could no longer be held back, and with blood and water Christ's mercy and love poured out with His very life for you. Never has there been or will there ever be such love and mercy and it is pouring out for you endlessly, regardless of what you may have done or will ever do. You need only accept it, and it will always be waiting for you.
