Heart Lessons. By: C.C.

"The deepest lessons the heart has to deliver to us become accessible only when it is ruptured. It is anguish that makes the heart an open book because the wound it causes pierces all the way through to the core. These are terrible lessons, the kind that fill one with nausea. We like to think our lives would be happier if we could find a way to avoid learning them; but the only way to do that is to close one's heart and keep it closed, so that nothing gets in or out of it - to make oneself a heart of stone. It is terrible to put into words the one real alternative to this avoidance. But I see no way to get around what seems to be the harshest, the most merciless truth about the human heart - I mean the fact that, to keep it open, once it has been pierced, one must allow it to be an open wound." (Jerome Miller)
    "Ruptured", "pierced", and "open wound" are not the words that invoke comfortable feelings. It is hard to imagine that out of this brutality one can be led to the joyful end of true love. As Catholics we see the Cross in this same light. It is through the suffering, pain, and brutality which Jesus endured that we come to recognize what love means and truly calls us to do.
     To love Jesus is to love the Cross. I am not suggesting that one becomes a lover of pain through this process, but one is better suited to accept suffering and pain as a pathway to peace, to true love, and to a deeper relationship with Jesus. To deny the pain of the Cross and focus solely on the Resurrection is misleading and can result in one living in a false reality; a "flesh-filled focused" reality aimed at what feels good and benefits our selfish wants, needs, and desires. It is through living this way that hinders us from learning the truest lessons, loving to fullest of our potential, and therefore unable to live as God intended.
     It is when we press through the agony and pain that we can experience our Easter Sunday--our true sense of love.
     The sheer idea of the emotional battle that one endures as a result of this pain is often difficult to accept. It is at times seemingly impossible to press through the inner agonies that can leave us feeling that our very palpitations have become paralyzed. In these moments we must decide which path we will take. Will we remain here and become numb , or will we press on, surrender to learning our lesson from the wound(s) and embrace our Cross?


Will we press on in faith, clinging to the Lord and await our Easter Sunday? (C.C.)

"Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. (Matthew 11:28)