Cosmos-Liturgy-Sex

While searching deep into our never ending stacks old snap-shots for some pictures we hoped to include in a DVD for our niece’s birthday party next weekend, I stumbled upon some pictures that were taken when we first started dating - 13 years ago! It’s been ages since we happened across these particular pictures, and after getting a good laugh over our big hair styles, we resumed our search for the ever elusive pictures of Sarah, our niece.

Finding these pictures the night before Mercy Sunday begged me to ask the question, how often have I choked the ones (everyone and anyone) He loves? As if it were yesterday, I remember the state of my soul, heart and mind when these pictures were taken. It had been about 10 years since I stepped foot into a church, and even longer since I received The Eucharist or the sacrament of penance. Even though we were both from families who had taught the difference between right and wrong, we chose to excel in rationalizing our apathetic attitudes and decadent lifestyles. The thing I remember most was the profound emptiness I felt late at night while laying in bed before going to sleep. Sure, I remember being happy and optimistic at times, but that was always totally dependent on the specific situation at a particular time in my life.

To put it plainly and simply, we were both really broken, yet God loved us to the point of continually drawing us to Himself, infinitely more than we sought to love Him. Despite our best efforts to go to hell in a hand basket, God’s love and mercy continued to work on our hearts. I believe that from the start, we were always meant to be together. We met in college where, if things worked out as planned, I should have been one year ahead in the curriculum with little to no chance of us ever crossing paths. The missing college transcripts, the denied financial loan applications, and required college classes being filled prior to my enrollment, and all the other major disappointments in getting my college degree - all was for a purpose in God’s merciful plan.

Although my soul has been cleansed of the sins committed, many of the scars remain. Of course, I don’t enjoy my struggles, nor am I always patient with the burden of which I am solely responsible, but I have come to realize that I need them at this point in my life to compensate for my hardness of heart. Unless I am willing to, and perform, tangible acts of mercy to others - the same that which was given freely to me - I am the slave who had his debt forgiven by his Master, but choked and jailed another who pleaded for the same. As evident by some of my blog posts, I quite often fall short of the mark.