Heart to Heart

I'm avoiding it... the heart to heart talk... the inevitable.  I've been filling my time and my spirit with work, reading,  stress, cleaning, email, and many other insignificant things.  Even my prayer hasn't been prayer but more of a task to complete - and a difficult one at that.  I feel a very real desire to bare my soul, to pour it out, to share myself - but at times it feels like there is no place for that - in community, in spirituality, in my busy-ness.

At the Easter Vigil, Father's homily was very touching for me.  He said that the vigil is the time for us to revisit the place where we first met Jesus - the tomb of our hearts - where He raised us from the death of sin to our new life in Him.  I was thinking... yes... that is exactly what I need to do - to meet Christ again in my heart where I first encountered Him.

Father went on to say that the place where we were all gathered as a parish community was our Galilee of that very moment and that in all the universe that was exactly where Christ had planned for us to encounter Him - Risen!  For me - that meant where I was in community.  It meant that the sisters I was with were the disciples I was meant to bring Christ to.  At the same time, they are the disciples who are meant to bring Christ to me.

I have to be honest - I haven't felt that way recently.  Maybe I haven't been holding up my end of the bargain.  I expect often a lot from community life.  I expect to be challenged, taught, educated, called, appreciated, corrected, and loved... but have I been doing the same?  Have I been putting my whole self out there - my faith, my heart, my convictions, my desires, my vision?  The truth is no... because I have been afraid of what the reaction would be.  I have been unwilling to be challenged, corrected, affirmed, and encouraged.  It is scary to share your heart.  But I know that right now it is what I most desire.

The other thing I desire is a spiritual director - but God has not seen it in His plan to give me one quite yet... I am getting desperate though so I ask your prayers that He puts someone in my path.

My Cross is your cross

This week has had me doing a lot of thinking in preparation for this holy week and I've come to focus through my prayer on something that has really touched me.  I don't know if I can quite put it into words because it is more of an experience but I'm going to try.

I have had a lot of suffering in my life.  Lots of that suffering has been suffering that I haven't been able to understand.  It has been confusing.  It has made me feel worthless, self conscious... just plain bad.  I get more and more in touch with that everyday that I am with middle schoolers.  Their own lives are such a raw picture of the suffering that I have somehow "made it through."  This week I've had students being beaten up by their parents, students failing, students hurting one another and fighting... It has been insane!

Those were just examples of what I've been thinking about though.  I've felt really called in prayer recently to penance and suffering for the sake of the Church.  The scandals, lack of vocations, moral deterioration, Church and school closings are all calls from God to step out of the comfort zone and into the unknown - an unknown that I am certain is filled with sanctifying suffering.

Each of us is carrying a different part of the one Cross carried by Christ for all eternity.  Each of us is blessed with a share in this saving, suffering cross because none of us can possibly carry the same weight Christ did once and for all.  I need for you (whoever you are) to carry your part of the Cross - because I can't carry all of it and in order to participate in the life of Christ I must pick up my Cross and follow Him.  I know intimately that this Cross was specifically chosen for me to carry for you so that you wouldn't need to.  You carry a cross for me so that I can carry my own.  We make up the one Body of Christ crucified on the one Cross of our Redemption.  As I look at all the pain in the world around me I see so many people offering up a suffering I could never offer.  I see others who make the offering of the Cross more and more difficult for those around them.

We are all called to carry our crosses.  The question I am faced with this week is; how have I been carrying mine?  Have I carried it well?  Have I united it with Your's? Am I offering my suffering for those around me?  Am I appreciative of the unique Cross each of my brothers and sisters carries for me?  How do I show my gratitude and love for each of them?