Heart of the Matter

Last night I went to sleep with a heavy heart. I made the mistake yesterday evening of reading the article in Newsweek, "Bring the Pope to Justice," by Christopher Hitchens. After I read it I felt quite hopeless and very confused about what we would do next. While I find it very unlikely that anything Christopher Hitchens suggested be done to our Holy Father or to the Vatican would actually happen, I did feel the strain of the fact that legal action is being suggested against our Holy Father.

This morning I woke up still feeling that heavy hearted sadness about everything that has happened recently in our Church. The sun was just coming up and my bedroom was filled to the point that I could barely see anything because of the light. As I was getting dressed, I bent down to put my shoes on and noticed the shadow of just my Crucifix on the unfinished wood of my drawers. I stopped what I was doing to look at it and was filled with a sense of peace. A small sign seemed to be present in that shadow. Jesus is the only one that matters. He will take care of this too.

At Mass, as Father was pouring the wine into the chalice I felt drawn again to that Crucifix. I thought that maybe this time in our Church was the time to join in Christ's sacrifice and pour out our own blood with His. I feel that we are being emptied and when we are emptied God uses us in extraordinary ways. When the Holy Father was in the United States he said that our Church would get smaller but more faithful. I think that we are going to lose a lot but that the spiritual fruit of our suffering, sacrifice, and perseverance will be beyond measure.

I join my loses, my heartache, and my desire with all the Church and ask God to sanctify it and lead me to new and lasting life through death. Whatever happens let me make the fundamental choice to follow Jesus faithfully through the Church no matter what hardship occurs.

I don't know if any of this makes much sense but I feel very much at peace with whatever might come from the circumstances in our Church and our world right now. Jesus is in it all. Praise be to God for the good, the bad, the sad, the joyful and all things that can lead to holiness.