Attesting to Divine Mercy

On the day when P and I first met, which happened to be the Feast of the Divine Mercy, I remember going to the Adoration Room that morning after mass to offer up my first blind date in decades. Although I no longer thought marriage was even a remote possibility, I went on the date with a curious and open heart. I actually received a sign in prayer which, at the time, I was not quite sure what it meant. Now I see the sign was the promise of Divine Mercy, that if we both place Jesus in the heart of our relationship, we can do no wrong. We may fumble badly from time to time, but we will always bounce back, stronger than ever.

Today I am still grateful for this sign, a reminder to make time for the Lord in order to receive life-giving affirmation and vital grounding for my pre-eminent mission of marriage. Thus, I need to praise and worship the Lord, whether in stillness or in movement (what joy it is to worship Him through my body - thanks A, for the opportunity). He is faithful forever, perfect in love* so I, in turn, must be as faithful and perfect as I can be, for Him first, then for P. Thanking and loving Him for His Divine Mercy, commemorating a feast we celebrated just last Sunday.

By Divine Mercy we met
And decided that marriage was
The way forward for us
To test the truths we advocate
Treading waters of nuptial abundance
Percolating quiet, humble obedience.

Through Divine Mercy we love
Bringing fulfilment to each other
Fired in the healing heart of Jesus
We anneal our halves into a whole
His graces are richly sufficient
We bow to the One omniscient.

In Divine Mercy we live
Surrendering intellects and egos
Serving the good of the other
Faithful in the little things
We are bread broken, giving sustenance
Yet astounded always by His providence.

* We worshipped in dance to Aaron Keyes's Sovereign Over Us last night which was uplifting, liberating and soul-satisfying.

Say yes to Easter

If we cannot experience the Resurrection, then we cannot truly experience Easter, said Father Greg last Friday evening during his homily. He was talking in reference to a few of the disciples who, at a loss despite having encountered the Risen Lord, had gone back to what they knew best, being simple fishermen.

What he said resonated with me for I was not feeling particularly Easter-ish even during the Easter Octave. So that was what it was, I was not able to internalize the Resurrection for I was still struggling within myself to take up the invitation of Easter, which is to live by and in the power of the Resurrected Christ. I was unable to fully process this new reality post-Good Friday and its implications for my own life. I remained uncertain, frightened and bewildered, digging in my heels at the new trajectory before me.

I think I got stuck in the tragedy of the Crucifixion, and I forgot to see it as the gift that it really is, an unspeakably beautiful gift of love that morphs into something even more awesome: Resurrection, a resurrection that heralds not just hope of immense proportions, but also an alternative way of living - living a life fully redeemed and destined for eternal life.

Having nailed my sins and my personal crosses to the Cross, I was unable to rise above the events that had recently challenged my identity to the core. I was still weeping and struggling in my human weakness and condition, refusing to let the Resurrected Lord transform my way of thinking. My world got too big for me and I could not see that Jesus was bigger than all the problems of my world and the world at large combined.

It is, therefore, no coincidence that the Feast of the Annunciation follows so soon after the Easter Octave. The invitation is to to be bold, to dig deeper into unplumbed reserves of faith, to suspend personal beliefs, surrender one's own store of past, known experiences, and allow Jesus to lead the untrodden way forward, terrifying and wonderful in equal parts.

The message of Easter is to believe in a new way, even if it seems odds-defying and impossible at the outset. Believing means saying yes unconditionally, and then choosing to set down the path that lays before me, knowing full well that I will encounter difficulties and challenges that may be insurmountable save for one fact: the Resurrected Lord walks with me.

With Him by my side, I am safe. I am more than good. I can experience inner peace and joy, even when beset with problems. My heart can burn with hope and zeal, for Jesus will open my mind to good solutions and perfect answers. I may never be perfect, but His ways, His plan for me is perfect. I just need to do what my SD likes to tell me at the end of our time together, (you) go ahead.

As Mary did, scared as she was, yet dead sure that our Heavenly Father's way is the right one for her, I say yes again today, yes to where I am situated, yes to being His beloved disciple and a favoured daughter who knows her Father's heart. And I choose to believe that Jesus is always on my side so I do not need to operate from a place of fear and insecurity, born out of uncertainty. I am free to relax, be and become the me He created me to be, and evnjoy the ride.

My Easter gift this week comes from 1 John 2:5: But if anyone keeps His word, the love of God has been truly perfected in him. By this we know we are in Him.

If I wish to shoot for perfection, all I have to do is love Him and I will get there. Good news for the perfectionist in me. Easter has finally arrived!

Journeying slowly into Easter

I wondered yesterday if resurrection was painful. Three days in hell before rising must have been at least a tad uncomfortable, if not painful. Even if it was not, it took those who loved Jesus more than three days to process through the grief before accepting the good news of His resurrection.

The reason for my reflection was because I could not experience the joy I usually felt on Easter Sundays for I had a mini crisis of faith on Good Friday. I lost faith in my own goodness, my self-worth and my abilities to the point I was ready to abandon everything I believed in, just like that, despite being able to acknowledge everything that was good in my life, some of which I have assiduously built. It was an extremely painful and terrifying experience. I can only think I was somehow privileged to glimpse a shadow of the internal struggle and emotional pain Jesus must have felt in Gethsemane.

Although my world righted itself by that evening, and I realized I really needed to die to my old self in order to resurrect as Jesus did, the angst had not dissipated completely by Sunday. So it was nice to meet up and celebrate Easter with my ICPE community and receive a few Easter insights.

I was first reminded by S that the Church in her wisdom had divined Easter to be a 50-day period which, as M pointed out, was an even more significant time for a Christian than Lent. It is during this time that the resurrected Lord still walks among us, teaching us, encouraging us. As P shared his memory of a homily last Tuesday when we broke the word on the walk to Emmaus, Jesus comes first to befriend us and walk with us, then He teaches us and shepherds us, before He becomes bread broken for us, feeding us and fortifying us.

This is the Easter journey. And we have days to explore and discover the Risen Lord; experience the hope and joy of His resurrection and what it portends in our own lives. So I still have time to laboriously chip away at the top of the tough eggshell encasing my new self before I can emerge from it, sufficiently strengthened to wobble out on my own two feet.

When K asked us what it was that we would like to offer Jesus this Easter, whether we were still in the darkness of Good Friday or in the resurrection of Easter Sunday, these words that echo Romans 5:5 came to me: The love of Christ has been poured into our hearts.

I saw my vocation, my marriage, as a vessel, the melding of two broken, imperfect heart halves bonded together miraculously and irrevocably by the liquid gold of Christ's redeeming and divine love to form one beautiful and whole heart. Then I saw the gushing waters of God's tender, eternal, unending and faithful love poured into this vessel of us.

If our marriage, our married hearts are filled with God's Holy Spirit, and consequently the love of God, then, no matter what happens, no matter what travails we face, the cross victorious will always reign; originating from the sacrificial love of the crucified Christ, the suffering servant, and transforming into the hope of the resurrected Christ.

This is how P and I can be sustained through the days of our married lives, and this is how we can make our marriage a sign of hope and a source of light in this world. Our marriage will water those who thirst and help the seeds of faith the Sower sows to sprout and grow abundantly around us. We can bring the laughter and joy of Cana to life. Every single day, we can sing the songs of Easter.

My offering to God this Easter is a spanking new self and empty heart, waiting expectantly to be filled with His abundant love.

  _and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.    Romans 5:5