Into His Marvelous Light (through Mary’s Seven Sorrows)

“…that you may declare the wonderful deeds of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.” (1 Peter 2:9)
 

The Woman at the Well

          I am a woman at the Well of Jesus’ Heart. No, I am the woman at the Well of Jesus’ Heart. Of course, I am not the Samaritan woman who encountered Jesus at Jacob’s well, as recounted in John 4:4-42. Yet, I now know that every woman who seeks to receive the living water of Jesus’ Heart is the woman whom He has called to be intimate with Him, to receive His unconditional love—His infinite mercy—for all eternity.  Likewise, every man who comes to Him, thirsty for His love and mercy, is the man He is calling--the disciple—the brother, the intimate friend—whom Jesus loves unconditionally for all eternity, whom He knows in all of his uniqueness.

“…O Lord, Thou hast searched me and known me!” (Psalm 139:1)

 

        I would like to share with you some excerpts from my prayer journal, in which I dialogue with Jesus through sharing my heart with Him, and listening to His Heart’s thoughts, emotions, and wisdom. Here is a part of my journal entry of 11-2-13:

“…It was about the sixth hour. There came a woman of Samaria to draw water. Jesus said to her, ‘Give me a drink.’ “

Dear Jesus,

        It occurs to me, Lord, that before we can receive the living water of Your Spirit, we must give You a drink by opening our hearts with desire to receive Your gift.

        Will You say more to me about this, Jesus? Jesus responds: “Know My Heart, My child.” What must I do to “know Your Heart,” Jesus? “The more you open your heart, the more you will know My Heart.”

Then on 11-5-13:

“The Samaritan woman said to Him, ‘How is it that You, a Jew, ask a drink of me, a woman of Samaria?’ For Jews have no dealings with Samaritans.” (John 4:9)

 

        There is a place deep in my heart, Lord, where I wonder how You—the Holy One of God, the Son of God, “One in being with the Father,” so perfect—can be so intimate with me, a great sinner. And You know better than anyone else that I’m a great sinner, Lord, and yet You cherish me and embrace me.

        Will You speak to me about this, Jesus? I feel so unworthy to be intimate with You. Jesus says, “My love creates you beautiful.” My understanding is that You see what is good and beautiful in me—created by You—and You increase my goodness and beauty, as Your goodness and beauty penetrate me.

        I think that You also have communicated to me that it is only your view of me that is a clear, true view. Neither I nor others can see me clearly. You want me to accept Your view of me as good and beautiful…

          [When, as a young, single woman I had so many loveless, uncommitted sexual relationships, I was robbing myself (and being robbed) of the goodness that the Lord had created in me, and marring my soul to the point that the beauty in it was covered like a house that is completely covered by the soot of a fire.]

I reflect on St. Teresa of Avila’s description in The Interior Castle, Chapter 2, about the effect of mortal sin on the soul:

1.   BEFORE going farther, I wish you to consider the state to which mortal sin  brings this magnificent and beautiful castle, this pearl of the East, this tree of life, planted beside the living waters of life which symbolize God Himself. No night can be so dark, no gloom nor blackness can compare to its obscurity. Suffice it to say that the sun in the centre of the soul, which gave it such splendour and beauty, is totally eclipsed, though the spirit is as fitted to enjoy God’s presence as is the crystal to reflect the sun.

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Jesus answered her, "If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that is saying to you, 'Give me a drink,' you would have asked Him, and He would have given you living water." (John 4:10)

        I knew the gift of God, Lord, when as a seven year old child I made my First Communion, and I experienced Your loving, holy Presence filling my heart, and my heart fell in love with Your Heart. Every time I walked into a Catholic church after that, I felt Your holy Presence, and I felt loved and secure. Even after I left the Catholic Church at the age of thirteen, following my father’s lead into the Church of Christ, I knew the gift of God when I encountered You in Holy Scripture, which I read daily. You were my Constant Companion and my Best Friend.

        But then, as I shared in the last chapter, after I lost my beloved youngest sister, I rejected belief in that gift. I turned away from You, Lord, and, in doing so, I lost the grace that had sustained me. My heart was totally empty without the living water of Your Presence.

        And it became easy for the enemy to seduce me into empty relationships, as I tried futilely to fill my heart’s emptiness, but as each transient relationship ended, my heart became ever more empty.
 

“…for my people have committed two evils: they have forsaken me, the fountain of living waters, and hewed out cisterns for themselves, broken cisterns, that can hold no water.” (Jeremiah 2:13)

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 The woman said to him, "Sir, you have nothing to draw with, and the well is deep; where do you get that living water? (John 4:11)

 

        Without the gift of God, who is the Holy Spirit, we cannot see eternal reality, the treasures buried beneath the surface. We can only see the things of this world; we can only hear audible words, and cannot distinguish between those that are true and those that are the lies of the evil one. We can only feel with the flesh, not with the heart’s more subtle “hands,” which the Lord takes in His to lead us.

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“Are you greater than our father Jacob, who gave us the well, and drank from it himself, and his sons, and his cattle?" (John 4:12)

        Without the gift of the Holy Spirit, which we receive in Baptism and in Confirmation—the gift that grows in us through a Heart to heart relationship with Jesus—we cannot see that there is only One who is truly great, “One who is good,” One who can fill the deepest yearnings of our hearts. Without that relationship with God, our hearts (which were created to worship) make idols out of creatures, or other forms of God’s creation. The more we idolize creation, instead of our Creator, the more we distance ourselves from Him.

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Jesus said to her, "Everyone who drinks of this water will thirst again, but whoever drinks of the water that I shall give him will never thirst; the water that I shall give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life." (John 4:13-14)
 

I share a little more of my prayer journal with you:

Dear Jesus,

        What do You want me to write about this Scripture? Jesus responds: “Know My Heart.” What do You want me to know in Your Heart, Jesus? “You know, My child, My mercy and love. You know, because it lives in your heart, and it has ‘become…a spring of water welling up to eternal life.’ “

          How do You want me to share that “spring of water,” Jesus? “In all of your relationships you share it. It flows out constantly like an artesian well.”

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The woman said to him, "Sir, give me this water, that I may not thirst, nor come here to draw." (John 4:15)
 

        Paradoxically, the emptiness that grew ever more painful in me during my young womanhood became the bucket that I carried to the well of Jesus’ Heart—the bucket filled with my seemingly insatiable thirst for love.

        I remember that, somewhere in my late twenties, I began to feel desperate for a meaningful love relationship. At the time I worked as a secretary at an insurance agency, and it was not a very busy place. So I had plenty of time to read, to think my own thoughts, to write, or whatever. One day I decided to internally ask the question—to whomever would answer me internally, because I still didn’t believe in God: “How can I find love? I asked that question, silently, over and over again, for hours. Then the God that I didn’t believe in decided to answer me: “Feed the hungry, clothe the naked, visit the sick…”

          It was an answer that obviously did not come from my own mind, because I was not ready for it at all. How was that going to keep me warm at night? That was not what I was looking for—I thought. Did you hear the question wrong? I was too immature at that time to realize that we find love, not through focusing on our own needs, but by lovingly meeting the needs of others.

And a ruler asked him, "Good Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?" And Jesus said to him, "Why do you call Me good? No one is good but God alone. You know the commandments: 'Do not commit adultery, Do not kill, Do not steal, Do not bear false witness, Honor your father and mother.'" And he said, "All these I have observed from my youth." And when Jesus heard it, he said to him, "One thing you still lack. Sell all that you have and distribute to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow me." But when he heard this he became sad, for he was very rich. (Luke 18:18-23)

        I was sad that day that God tried to lead me back to following Him, because I was not yet ready to give up my own false expectations of what was good for me. I thought I was “rich” with my own ideas about what would provide the love I was searching for. It took me another two or three years of reading popular psychology books, eastern meditation books, and whatever else that caught my fancy, that I thought might contain the answer I was looking for—two or three more years of “hewing out cisterns for myself, broken cisterns, that can hold no water”—before I began to realize that what I was looking for is what I had left behind: the gift of faith, the precious gift of Jesus, who is our Hope; the gift of God, who is Love.

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Jesus said to her, "Go, call your husband, and come here." The woman answered him, "I have no husband." Jesus said to her, "You are right in saying, 'I have no husband'; for you have had five husbands, and he whom you now have is not your husband; this you said truly." (John 4:16-18)

 

        I have pondered these words many times. What I have desired, as I pondered them, is to hear Jesus speaking them. I have wondered, “What was His attitude and His tone in speaking them to her?”

        If those words would have been spoken by one of her neighbors, most likely there would have been a note of self righteousness, judgment, and maybe even contempt in them. That neighbor would probably have considered herself better than her. After all, the neighbor was probably married to one man all of her married life; she was probably a very respectable woman.

        That was why the Samaritan woman came to the well at noon time, and that was the time of the greatest blessing of her life. Because she would not go there in the early morning, when most of the women of the village would be drawing water, and she would have had to endure the pain of being shunned over and over…she had the gift to come there when she could encounter Jesus alone, and receive from Him the gift of God. It is a beautiful example of how our pain can become our medicine when we encounter Jesus.

        Though I have never audibly heard Jesus’ voice, my experience with Him in my heart gives me the knowledge that His attitude toward the Samaritan woman, when they met at the well, was the polar opposite of the judgmental attitudes of her neighbors.

For God sent the Son into the world, not to condemn the world,

but that the world might be saved through Him. (John 3:17)

        My experience tells me that every word He spoke to that woman was a loving word. It was His love that moved Him to reveal the truth of that woman’s life. It was His desire to set her free from her sin, from her guilt, from her shame, and from her isolation, that moved Him to speak openly to her about the truth of her life. In addition to that, in pondering that passage repeatedly, I have come to the conclusion that He respected that woman for her honesty and sincerity. Jesus, who is the Truth, respects all who speak the truth.

Jesus said to her, "You are right in saying, 'I have no husband';  for you have had five husbands, and he whom you now have is not your husband; this you said truly."
 

        When I began to seek to come into a relationship with Jesus once again, He knew all of my sins. If He would have had the attitude of this world, He might have said, “You are a sinner; what makes You think that you are worthy to even be in the presence of the Son of God?” Or, at best, He might have said, “Go clean up your act first, and then come back, and I might consider accepting you.”
       

“…the LORD sees not as man sees; man looks on the outward appearance, but the LORD looks on the heart." (1 Samuel 16:7)
 

          Only the Lord can look on the heart; we cannot see inside a person’s heart, and that is one of the main reasons that we are not qualified to judge. The Lord, who knew every sinful relationship that I had had, also knew what in my heart had led me into those relationships. He saw my wounds. He saw my distorted image of womanhood. He saw the darkness in which I was lost. He saw my desperate loneliness. I am not denying that I committed mortal sins. It was in confessing my mortal sins that I was forgiven and freed from them. But the Lord also knew that it is only through His grace and mercy that I could “clean up my act,” and, when I returned to Him thirsty for His love, His forgiveness, His grace, and His mercy, He poured them out freely on me.

For I know the plans I have for you, says the LORD, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope. (Jeremiah 29:11)
 

        He also has always known the plans He has had for my marriage of almost 27 years to my faithful husband, who loves all of me: my body, my soul, my heart, and my mind…my husband, who cherishes me.
 

        And, at the same time, Jesus also knows that He is the Husband of my soul, the one that I cling to and will cling to for eternity. He is the gift of God to me.

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The woman said to him, "Sir, I perceive that you are a prophet.” (John 4:19)

        What do you perceive that Jesus is, little handmaid? No, I didn’t ask: “What do you believe that Jesus is? Most likely your parents taught you from an early age that Jesus is the Son of God and the Savior of the world, and you believed them, and that is good, because it is the truth. But Jesus is calling you to go beyond belief to “perception”, and that “perception” can only come from a personal experience of Him.

Now when Jesus came into the district of Caesarea Philippi, He asked His disciples, "Who do men say that the Son of man is?" And they said, "Some say John the Baptist, others say Eli'jah, and others Jeremiah or one of the prophets." He said to them, "But who do you say that I am?" (Matthew 16:13-15)

        Jesus is asking you that question, and He wants you to answer, not just based on what your parents, your pastor, or your religion teacher taught you. He wants to know what your experience of Him is? He wants you to grow up in your faith by coming into an intimate relationship with Him, so that you will truly know Him. He wants you to express your heart to Him.

When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child; when I became a man, I gave up childish ways.  For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall understand fully, even as I have been fully understood. (1 Corinthians 13:11-12)

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Our fathers worshiped on this mountain; and you say that in Jerusalem is the place where men ought to worship." Jesus said to her, "Woman, believe me, the hour is coming when neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem will you worship the Father. You worship what you do not know; we worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews. But the hour is coming, and now is, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for such the Father seeks to worship Him. God is spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth." (John 4:20-24)
 

        We Catholics who believe in the teachings of the Catholic Church believe that the Holy Mass is the place where true worship is offered to our Heavenly Father, the place ordained by Jesus at the Last Supper, the Sacrifice and Paschal Banquet that continues at every Mass.

        Yet, I believe that the Lord has given me the understanding that, for us to worship the Father in spirit and truth, we must do more than attend Mass. We must do more than to make all of the correct postures and gestures; more than to pray all of the correct words; more than to listen to the Scriptures and the homily (with our minds, but not with our hearts); more than to receive the Consecrated Bread and Wine.

The Father is calling us to do more, even, than to believe in the Real Presence of Jesus in the Holy Eucharist. That is a foundational belief of our faith, and without that belief we cannot come into an encounter with Jesus in the Holy Eucharist,; but we must learn to—not just believe in His Real Presence—but to be present with Jesus and, in this way, experience His Presence with us. Though we cannot physically see Jesus, we are called to be present in our hearts with Jesus, like the Apostles were present with the Master whom they loved at that first Eucharistic meal. If we receive Holy Communion without encountering Jesus in our hearts, it is as if we are receiving a “hand-out” from a stranger; a situation in which we do not have any special feelings for the food or the giver of the food.

The Father is calling us to be true worshipers.

At the Last Supper Our Lord communicated to His Apostles, who had been His faithful servants, doing whatever He told them, that He now called them friends.

“No longer do I call you servants, for the servant does not know what his Master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all that I have heard from My Father I have made known to you.”

(John 15:15)
 

As little handmaids, Jesus and Our Sorrowful Mother have called us servants, because we have fervently desired to do God’s will and have been endeavoring to do so. That is a great honor to be called a servant of the Lord. Now Jesus is calling us to be more than servants, to be His friends, so that He can “make known to each of us all that He has heard from His Father.”  In order to become Jesus’ friends, we must first be faithful servants; we must trust that He is our Friend; and we must come into a Heart to heart relationship with Him. To be called His friends, we must truly  desire to be His friends, and we must do our best to become His true friend, worthy of His confidence.

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The woman said to him, "I know that Messiah is coming (he who is called Christ); when he comes, he will show us all things."  Jesus said to her, "I who speak to you am He."

The Samaritans, like the Jews, had been waiting for centuries for the Messiah to come. I believe that the woman was speaking at this point with the desire of her people, and her own more personal desire, to be delivered from all that held her captive. Jesus responded to her desire by revealing Himself to her.

Likewise, if you fervently desire to have a Heart to heart relationship with Jesus, He will grant you that gift. If you do not yet desire that gift, and you would like to desire that gift, pray that the Holy Spirit will grant you that desire. If you come into that Heart to heart relationship with Jesus, you will no longer just believe He is the Savior; you will experience Him as your Savior in your heart. You will experience Him as your Brother; your Master; your Friend; and maybe one day—as Blessed Teresa of Calcutta called Him, your All in all.

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Many Samaritans from that city believed in him because of the woman's testimony, "He told me all that I ever did."  So when the Samaritans came to him, they asked him to stay with them; and he stayed there two days.  And many more believed because of his word.  They said to the woman, "It is no longer because of your words that we believe, for we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this is indeed the Savior of the world." (John 4:39-42)
 

I am the woman at the Well of Jesus’ Heart, and the joy of the Lord is overflowing from my heart. I hope that through this chapter, His living water is flowing from His Heart, through me, to you. And, most of all, I hope that my testimony will help to move you to seek your own Heart to heart relationship with Jesus.

To come into that relationship, you must commit to spend time in the Lord’s Presence each day. It can be time spent before the Blessed Sacrament or time at home. Your heart is meant to be His tabernacle. You must find a time and place of solitude and silence, separate from others and from external distractions. You can begin with as little as five minutes each day, and, if you pray for the Holy Spirit to fill you, He will enable you to gradually increase your time to the amount that Our Father has planned for you. I pray you will give yourself and Him that gift this Advent.

“And they shall not teach everyone his fellow or everyone his brother, saying, 'Know the Lord,' for all shall know Me, from the least of them to the greatest.” (Hebrew 8:11)

 

Into His Marvelous Light (through Mary’s Seven Sorrows)

“…that you may declare the wonderful deeds of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.” (1 Peter 2:9)

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“…a heart of flesh”

“A new heart I will give you, and a new spirit I will put within you; and I will take out of your flesh the heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh.” (Ezekiel 36:26)
 

         I am beginning this chapter in January, 2014, the month of the 41st Anniversary of Roe v. Wade. I have been going through a painful inner tension in anticipation of beginning this chapter, which may be my most painful chapter. My first of the four abortions that I had as a young woman occurred in the summer of 1972, a few months before the Roe v. Wade Supreme Court decision, which, with Doe v. Bolton, effectively legalized abortion up until the moment of birth.

         It is a sad time of the year for me. The anniversary coming less than a month after the joyful, holy Christmas season, celebrating the birth of the Christ Child, it inevitably reminds me of the slaughter of the holy innocents over 2,000 years ago in Bethlehem. And I am reminded most painfully of the killing of my own holy, innocent children and of the slaughter of millions of unborn, innocent children throughout our world, which is covered in such spiritual darkness. I grieve for all of these children and for the spiritual destruction of their parents and so many others in this world.

         Recently, as I anxiously anticipated writing this chapter, I again felt intense shame, and I dreaded revealing my shameful acts in this public way. “Why, I ask the Lord, would I expose myself again in this way?” And He answers me by bringing to my mind an image of Him sitting, scourged, crowned with thorns, with the dirty, ragged cloak draped over His shoulders. Then I see myself sitting next to Him, ashamed, and He removes His cloak and drapes it over my shoulders, and I know that He is claiming me as His own.

         “But You are innocent, Holy Lord, like the children; while I am shamefully guilty. My soul is dirty and ragged like that cloak.” But, without saying a word to me, He communicates to me that the cloak is a cloak of honor, because it is His cloak, which He has bestowed upon me—and I know that I will reveal my shame, in union with His undeserved shame, once again. For love of Jesus and of all of those unborn babies and their wounded parents, I will reveal my shame once again.

         One morning, as I was praying the Divine Mercy chaplet, I was as usual meditating on the sorrowful mysteries as I prayed the chaplet. At the 5th Sorrowful Mystery—“Jesus is Crucified and Dies on the Cross”—I see in my mind and heart an image of Him painfully nailed to the Cross. I am painfully aware of those nails in His hands and His feet. His two feet are nailed together, and I wince at the thought of how excruciating that must have been. Then images of aborted babies, torn into pieces, come to my mind, and I understand that Jesus is united with each of those babies in their pain, and in a mystical sense He is crucified again with each of those babies. And my heart is united with Jesus in each of those babies. And I offer the chaplet for an end to abortion; it isn’t a routine prayer, it is a prayer of compassionate intercession for all of the babies who are facing abortion; I am suffering with Jesus in them; I am grieving for the babies; I am outraged at the injustice against them; I am crying with them and also crying with their mothers and fathers; and my suffering with Jesus in the broken bodies of those little ones becomes the balm that comforts me, because I believe that babies will be saved through my compassionate prayer, in union with Jesus and His Sorrowful Mother. I believe that some women and men will be given the grace to choose life for their babies, and in so doing to choose life for their own souls. I don’t know when abortion will end, but I am confident that some baby (or babies) will be blessed and protected through this prayer of Jesus’ Heart in my heart. It is Jesus calling out to His Father: “Have mercy on the babies! Please transform the hearts of those who are tempted to kill them!”

 

“Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our affliction, so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God.  For as we share abundantly in Christ's sufferings, so through Christ we share abundantly in comfort too.  If we are afflicted, it is for your comfort and salvation; and if we are comforted, it is for your comfort, which you experience when you patiently endure the same sufferings that we suffer.  Our hope for you is unshaken; for we know that as you share in our sufferings, you will also share in our comfort.” (1 Corinthians 1:3-7)

 

           In 2005 I gave my testimony about my abortions and the healing I have received from Jesus before a large group of counselors, social workers, physicians, and others who counsel and minister to women who have had abortions. Project Rachel presented the workshop. The Project Rachel director asked me to share with them, among other things, what it was that made me feel pressured into having those abortions, and I wasn’t sure in my own mind what it was, so I asked the Lord that question, and one word came to mind: “Alone.”

           The fathers of the babies did not want the responsibility for the babies; I had broken off communication with my parents, and I feared I would be condemned by them if I told them I was pregnant; I had no one to give me support to carry and give birth to those babies. My greatest aloneness was a result of my turning my back on Jesus a couple years before, and so I felt utterly alone in the world. I was suffering from chronic depression and didn’t feel able to adequately care for myself, though I hobbled along in my “independence.”

A few days after my first abortion, I smoked some marijuana with a neighbor friend, and after a few minutes I “lost it.” I started screaming: “O my God, I’m a murderer! I’m a murderer!” Still, I didn’t connect that accusation against myself with the abortion. My youngest sister had died in a car accident a couple years before, and I thought my intense guilt was from some undeserved blame that I was laying on myself concerning her death. (I believe that denial can be, not only a psychological defense to protect us from looking at a too painful truth, but also at times it may be a form of spiritual blinders that the enemy places over our conscience to keep us from seeing a truth that might move us to conversion; but the enemy can only place those blinders on us if we have already chosen to enter into his kingdom of darkness through grievous sin.)After I lost it emotionally and psychologically, I went into a severe depression and spent eleven months in a psychiatric hospital. I saw a psychiatrist for a decade after that, and each time I got pregnant again he promoted the idea of having another abortion. I think he thought he was helping me when he did that.

         I want to say at this point that not every woman who has an abortion has the same degree of responsibility. I know a woman who got pregnant when she was twelve years old, and her parents took her to have an abortion, and I got the impression when she spoke about it that she had had no sense of what was going to occur—nor, until years later, what had occurred. This occurred before Roe v. Wade, at a time when there was little public knowledge about abortion.  How many women in China and other places—even some in the United States—have been forced to have abortions? Others are pressured by boyfriends, husbands, or parents to have an abortion. Some are threatened to be thrown out if they don’t have it, and some suffer physical abuse if they don’t consent to an abortion.

         And then there are those like myself who decide on their own to have an abortion, for a variety of reasons. I believe that only God can know for sure who is responsible for those abortions, and to what degree. In writing all of this I am not denying that abortion is a great evil, and I believe that I grievously sinned when I chose those abortions and will always deeply regret them. (Thanks be to God for His tender mercy in forgiving me.)

         But, when the Lord communicated to me that it was my sense of being totally alone that made me feel an inner pressure to have the abortions, I was deeply touched and a little healed by His tender understanding, which did not condemn. It is important to me that no one reading this who has had an abortion will feel condemned by anything that I write, and I also hope that those who have not had an abortion will be moved to a deeper compassion for women who have had abortions.

Here is a passage from Blessed John Paul II’s Evangelium Vitae (The Gospel of Life), #99, which has been a source of light and of great comfort to me:

I would now like to say a special word to women who have had an abortion. The Church is aware of the many factors which may have influenced your decision, and she does not doubt that in many cases it was a painful and even shattering decision. The wound in your heart may not yet have healed. Certainly what happened was and remains terribly wrong. But do not give in to discouragement and do not lose hope. Try rather to understand what happened and face it honestly. If you have not already done so, give yourselves over with humility and trust to repentance. The Father of mercies is ready to give you his forgiveness and his peace in the Sacrament of Reconciliation. You will come to understand that nothing is definitively lost and you will also be able to ask forgiveness from your child, who is now living in the Lord. With the friendly and expert help and advice of other people, and as a result of your own painful experience, you can be among the most eloquent defenders of everyone's right to life. Through your commitment to life, whether by accepting the birth of other children or by welcoming and caring for those most in need of someone to be close to them, you will become promoters of a new way of looking at human life.

         When I spoke to my spiritual director recently about my abortions, in preparation for writing this chapter, I spoke to him about the intensely painful emptiness that I experienced after each abortion. I told him that it was a pain like no other that I have ever experienced. The Scripture that comes to mind when I think of that painful emptiness is:

“For what does it profit a man, to gain the whole world and forfeit his life?” (Mark 8:36)

It seems to me that my spiritual heart and my soul was sucked out, as the tiny bodies of my babies were aspirated from my womb, tearing them apart and causing their deaths.

         My spiritual director told me that he has never experienced that kind of emptiness, and I told him that no man will ever experience that kind of emptiness, and no woman who has not had an abortion can know the painful experience of that emptiness.

         My spiritual director added that he can relate to my emptiness as being like the emptiness of the tomb in which Jesus was laid after His death, and Father’s comment gave me a kind of comfort, having the death of my babies and my intense pain about their deaths spoken about in the context of one of the mysteries of our Lord’s life.

         And so I meditated on that mystery and on that thought. What is the emptiness of the tomb? Jesus was not only the Son of Mary, but also her God. Imagine how painfully empty her Heart was when she stood outside of that tomb after helping to lay the dead body of her Son in it. Imagine the painful emptiness of the hearts of Jesus’ closest friends, those who had been with Him for the three years of His ministry.

         But, paradoxically, when I think of Jesus’ tomb, my deep sadness and sorrow (in union with our Sorrowful Mother’s sadness and sorrow) is transformed into joy, because the tomb is not only the place where Jesus’ dead body was laid. It is also the place where Jesus was resurrected…the place from which Jesus was resurrected. Without the tomb there would not have been a Resurrection.

         And so Jesus’ tomb reminds me that my babies are resurrected and are with God, the Blessed Mother, all the saints, and all the angels for eternity. And it is my enduring hope that one day I will be able to see them face to face and embrace them, telling them face to face what I have told them many times in my heart…of my deep sorrow for the pain I caused them, of the love for them that has been miraculously growing from the soil of that emptiness, once I brought that sin and all of the pain of it (along with my whole being) to the Sacred Heart of Jesus, through the Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart of Mary.

          It is a love that is expressed in my prayers and work to help save  the unborn babies who are at risk of being aborted, and to help save the souls of those who are tempted to commit the sin of abortion, and to bring  Jesus’ reconciliation and healing to those who have already committed that sin, or who already have had that sin inflicted upon them.

“Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.” (Matthew 5:4)

           Jesus’ tomb reminds me of the emotional and spiritual resurrection I have been experiencing since I turned back to God, the resurrection that continues to grow, the more I abandon my life to God.

         When I became pregnant for my firstborn child, still it was in a relationship that was totally lacking in commitment. Yet, through God’s grace, some very important changes had been taking place in my heart and in my life.

         In 1982 I became a member of a Quaker meeting in the city where I lived, and it is in that fellowship that I rediscovered faith in God. The formal name of the Quakers is the Society of Friends, and it was a well-deserved name in the group that I met with, because they were supportive of their members whenever there was a crisis.

         When I became pregnant, without asking me any embarrassing questions, they rejoiced with me in the new life that was growing in me, and their support strengthened me and gave me courage to face a very uncertain future. I will always remember the beautiful baby shower they gave me, where their love and acceptance warmed me like a receiving blanket swaddling my heart. As my friend drove me home from the shower, an image came to mind of wildflowers popping out of what looked like barren ground. It was the barrenness of my heart coming beautifully alive.

         The most powerful change that was taking place in me was in the very vibrant relationship I was developing with God. Though I was obviously still in darkness about God’s plan for me, especially in relation to my sexuality, I was fervently seeking Him, and He was responding lovingly to my desire to have a genuine relationship with Him. As I am reflecting and writing about this, I keep thinking of Pope Francis’ words:

“The thing the church needs most today is the ability to heal wounds and to warm the hearts of the faithful; it needs nearness, proximity. I see the church as a field hospital after battle. It is useless to ask a seriously injured person if he has high cholesterol and about the level of his blood sugars! You have to heal his wounds. Then we can talk about everything else. Heal the wounds, heal the wounds. ... And you have to start from the ground up.”

         The Quakers were my field hospital at that point in my life, and Jesus was the Physician who was healing my wounds, starting from the ground up, the ground being my wounded heart.

         When I was about two months pregnant, I began having some very strong doubts about carrying my baby to term, strong temptations to have another abortion. There was a very intense battle going on in my heart and soul, and I am certain that the warriors who were fighting that battle were Jesus Christ and Satan. The outcome, as long as I remained willing to cooperate with Jesus, was certain. Jesus is always victorious in the souls of those who seek His salvation.

         I started having thoughts like: “It isn’t fair to bring this baby into the world without a father who is present to support it…You don’t even have a full-time job and can barely financially support yourself…” I felt such a powerful tension in me that I went out that night and walked and walked for block after block the streets of my neighborhood in the very dangerous city of New Orleans, where very few women would venture out alone at night.

         In response to Satan’s temptations, the Lord in me countered: “You can’t continue to just ‘throw away’ your responsibility…The Lord will provide whatever you need…”

           Then I suddenly came to a totally firm decision to carry that baby: “I’m going to carry and keep this baby. I’m not going to ‘throw away’ my responsibility again. I’m going to trust that the Lord will provide what my baby and I will need.”

         When I arrived home from my long, compelling walk, I began to have doubts again, and then, in an instant, I felt surrounded and embraced by the love of God the Father, and He spoke to my heart more tenderly than I had ever before experienced words: “This baby is My baby. I am its Father. I will provide all that it needs and all that you need.” When I recall the Father’s Presence at that moment, I am still awed and grateful beyond words. After that I never had any doubts about the wisdom of choosing life for my baby.

         So though that pregnancy was a heavy cross to carry, deep in my heart I felt joy. I remember, walking down the street one day in spring, and I felt part of nature: the trees growing new leaves, the grass growing more and more green, flowers blossoming…new life in nature and in me. The spring in my step reflected the vibrant life within and without me. A young man who was passing me smiled widely and said admiringly: “Yo, Mama!” And I smiled back, with pride and joy in the new life in me.

         I sometimes struggled with depression during that pregnancy, but I had enough emotional support not to become overwhelmed by it. A woman friend of mine went to Lamaze classes with me to help me prepare for a birth that I hoped would be without drugs. In the last month of my pregnancy she let me know where she was at all times so I could always reach her. That friend, Cindy, one of my sisters, and my sister-in-law remained with me for the whole labor, which lasted for 14 hours, most of the time in painful induced labor, until I finally consented to have a caesarean section.

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         After my daughter’s birth, it seemed like Satan pulled a plug out of the bottom of my heart, and all of the joy that I had been carrying in my heart during my pregnancy drained out, and in its place my heart was drowning in the worst depression I have experienced in my life. But Jesus did not abandon me, and deep down I knew that He was with me.

         I struggled for two months with that depression. I had the sense that I was barely hanging on, and I prayed constantly: “Help me, Lord, please help me…” In retrospect I have come to realize that at that time I was overwhelmed by the feelings of guilt and grief about my abortions that had begun to surface.

         One day, after two months of that depression, I was lying on my couch, and I felt like I couldn’t go any more. I simply said to Jesus: “I can’t hang on any longer, and in my heart I simply let go. Then immediately I felt myself as if physically lifted up, and in a moment the Lord lifted me out of that depression. A little while later a poem came to, a poem of healing, a poem in honor of my daughter:

                  To My Daughter

                  In bearing you

                  and loving you,

         I have lost a part of myself,

                  yet freely so,

            like a bare tree lovely

      in its open embrace of the sky,

       even in it winter barrenness,

  the fruit of letting go of autumn leaves.

 

It is never too late to love, by opening the door to the God who is love. It is never too late to choose life, by inviting Jesus, who is “the Way, the Truth, and the Life” into our heart.

In the next chapter I will continue to share with you my journey of healing from the wounds of my abortions, and in particular my reconciliation with my aborted babies. My God enlighten and heal you as you reflect on this chapter!

Into His Marvelous Light (through Mary’s Seven Sorrows)

“…that you may declare the wonderful deeds of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.” (1 Peter 2:9)

“…a sinner on whom the Lord has turned His gaze.”
 

After writing my last chapter, I decided that this chapter needs to be a balm to soothe the soreness of my heart, and maybe those reading my book will also need a balm at this point.

Today, when I was meditating and contemplating the fourth Sorrow of Mary, I was able to connect Heart to heart with Jesus, to feel His longing to be comforted by His Mother when they met on the Way to Calvary. And I believe that I also connected with our Sorrowful Mother’s painful longing to take her Son into her arms, to take Him away from the pain of His Passion. I expressed to Jesus my deep desire to comfort Him, and He showed me in a very clear way that, in the writing of this book, in my willingness to let my pain and misery surface and to share it with others, He is deeply comforted. He revealed to me in a profound way that this book is a sharing of my pain with Him, and, in that way, I become His Simon of Cyrene, helping Him to carry His Cross, lightening His burden a tiny amount—but that tiny amount is a great comfort, because of the love in it. I know that this is true, though I cannot adequately explain this mystery. Thanks be to God our Father for this great privilege! I am deeply comforted in knowing that I comfort Jesus.

“For as we share abundantly in Christ's sufferings, so through Christ we share abundantly in comfort too.” (2 Cor. 1:5)

I found another source of comfort today in reading the interview of Pope Francis that has caused such a stir, by an Italian Jesuit priest. In a portion of the interview I found some words from the Pope with which I can deeply identify:

...but when I had to come to Rome, I always stayed in [the neighborhood of] Via della Scrofa. From there I often visited the Church of St. Louis of France, and I went there to contemplate the painting of ‘The Calling of St. Matthew,’ by Caravaggio.

“That finger of Jesus, pointing at Matthew. That’s me. I feel like him. Like Matthew.” Here the pope becomes determined, as if he had finally found the image he was looking for: “It is the gesture of Matthew that strikes me: he holds on to his money as if to say, ‘No, not me! No, this money is mine.’ Here, this is me, a sinner on whom the Lord has turned His gaze. And this is what I said when they asked me if I would accept my election as pontiff.” Then the pope whispers in Latin: “I am a sinner, but I trust in the infinite mercy and patience of our Lord Jesus Christ, and I accept in a spirit of penance.”

If by unlikely chance I ever had the opportunity to meet Pope Francis, I would not want to kiss his ring. It’s not that I don’t profoundly respect him. It’s that I feel in a deep way that he is my brother, and I would want to hug him tightly and say, “My brother, I too am a sinner on whom the Lord has turned His gaze. I, too, trust in the infinite mercy and patience of our Lord Jesus Christ, and without His infinite mercy, I would be lost.”

My reaction to the Lord’s gaze is similar to Matthew’s, except that it’s not money that I want to hold onto. It is my closed heart, “secure” from the view of those from whom I fear condemnation. I want to hold onto the respect and even admiration of others, which I fear losing when they know all of the shameful things I did in my past. It is a false image of who I am.

But I give my fear, shame, and false self image to Jesus over and over again, because, I am Yours, O my sweet Jesus, and all that I have is Yours, through Mary, Your Holy Mother and mine.

At the beginning of each chapter, as I reflect on what I am going to write, I go through the same intense, painful struggle, as I feel the Lord’s gaze upon me, and I feel in an unspoken way: “No, not me! Why me? Why do I have to be so vulnerable? No, my heart is mine; my reputation is mine.” But I always begin again when I realize again that I am compelled, not only through obedience, but also through profound love for the Savior who gave even the last drop of blood for my salvation. I accept in a spirit of penance, in atonement for my sins, and for the sins of the whole world!

                      Thanks be to God!

 

Into His Marvelous Light (through Mary’s Seven Sorrows)


“Lord, show us the Father…”




Dear Father,

        I think that You’ve communicated that it’s time for me to begin writing the next chapter of my book…What do You want me to express in that chapter, Father? He answers: “Your love for Me.”


          As usual, when I think of my love for our Heavenly Father, I think first of His love for me, and the first Scripture that comes to mind is Is. 49:15:


"Can a woman forget her sucking child, that she should have no compassion on the son of her womb? Even these may forget,yet I will not forget you.”


          The first time I read that Scripture, I didn’t experience love—neither God’s love for me, nor my love for Him. I’m not sure that I had much love for God at that time. I had more fear about what He would do to punish me, because I had just come to the realization that I had had no compassion on the children of my womb—my first four children, whom I had aborted.

        However, after just a couple months of pastoral counseling with a Dominican sister, I began to profoundly experience God’s love—God who wills not to punish me or condemn me; but to forgive me, to heal me, to tenderly hold me and comfort me. I began to realize that God not only had never forgotten the babies that I had aborted. He also had never forgotten me; had never condemned me; had never abandoned me—even while I was committing the most grievous sins. I was in that counseling because He had tenderly called me there.

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        Recently I started praying the Our Father in a contemplative manner, and to journal with it—seeking a closer relationship with my Heavenly Father.

“Our Father…”


        Sometimes when I pray those two simple, beautiful words, I feel my spirit drawn upward, and I often remember my experience of the Father in Medjugorje.

        On my first day in Medjugorje, after the evening Mass there was a healing service, as usual, and I thought, “That’s what I need, healing,” and I walked up to the front pew, which had plenty of space, because most of the people had left after the Mass. But the Holy Spirit had somewhat different plans for me—a more powerful means of healing.

        I was sitting close to the side door, and through it I could see a couple of the confessionals that were in a line outside. Suddenly I got a strong feeling that I should go to confession, and I went outside and stood in one of the lines. “No,” I said to myself, “I need to go to the healing service; healing is what I need.” And I walked back into St. James Church and sat down in the front pew again. But in less than a minute I felt compelled to get up and go back to the confessional line. That happened a couple times, until finally I surrendered.

        When I got into the confessional with the priest, I told him, “I was Catholic as a child, but I left the Catholic Church as a teenager. The Holy Spirit wants me to go to confession, but He doesn’t want me to become Catholic again. (Ha! Ha!) The priest simply invited me to make my confession. I didn’t think about it at all. I hadn’t done any examination of conscience. I simply confessed what came out, what was heaviest on my heart and soul. (The Holy Spirit was obviously in charge of the whole thing.) I confessed to being sexually promiscuous for many years and to having had four abortions as a young woman. I cried a little, though I wasn’t even clear at that point about why I was crying. That very wise priest told me, for my penance, to continue to be led by the Holy Spirit. When I walked out of that confessional, my heart felt lighter.

        After that confession, for the next three days (the time I had left in Medjugorje), whenever I went to Mass, I would feel the Father drawing me towards the altar. What I felt was the Father’s love drawing me to Himself, with such power, it felt like a giant, powerful magnet that I couldn’t resist, drawing me towards the altar. All of the Masses were standing room only, so I would just gently make my way through the crowd from the back of the Church towards the altar. I never made it to the front, but it was my whole focus throughout the Mass. How did I know it was the Father? If you haven’t already experienced the Father’s Heart, one day, hopefully—if not on earth, in heaven—you will experience a Heart that is unmistakably the Most Loving Heart of the Father, who has been longing for you, as you have been longing for Him, your whole life.


“…while he was yet at a distance, his Father saw him and had compassion and ran…” (Luke 15:20)

 

        I knew that the teaching of the Church is that Jesus is present in the Most Blessed Sacrament, so, why, I asked myself, was I experiencing the Presence of the Father emanating from the altar? The following Scripture occurred to me:


  Philip said to Him, "Lord, show us the Father, and we shall be satisfied."  Jesus said to him, "Have I been with you so long, and yet you do not know Me, Philip? He who has seen Me has seen the Father; how can you say, 'Show us the Father'?  Do you not believe that I am in the Fatherand the Father in Me?” (John 14:3-13)


        “…show us the Father, and we shall be satisfied.” It calls to mind St. Augustine’s words: “Our heart is restless until it rests in You…”


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“…who art in heaven…”


          Most days I get up some time between 5:00 and 6:30 in the morning, so I can, hopefully have some quiet, uninterrupted time to spend alone with the Lord, before my husband and two daughters get up and need my attention. The earlier I get up, the more focused time I have with the Lord. Usually, at some point during that quiet time, I feel an intense desire to get closer to the Lord. Recently, I have been focusing on our Father, hoping to get to know Him better by experiencing His love for me more, by expressing my love for Him more, and by simply opening my heart to Him, hopefully with more sincerity and trust. Many times I have had an image of being a little girl climbing up on the Father’s lap, and I lay my head on His chest. This is my heart’s image of heaven.

        But often, when I have that image, I will quickly feel an intense anxiety and, in the image, I will quickly get down from the Father’s lap. As much as I long to experience being the Father’s beloved little girl, I often cannot bear being that close. My heart remembers the times when, as a child and, later, an adolescent, I got physically close to men whom I trusted, and who were inviting me to be close in what I thought was a purely affectionate manner; but, several times that trust and desire for affectionate closeness was betrayed when I was touched in ways that no adult should touch a child; in ways that no one should ever be touched by a close family member, other than a husband or wife. Those men were close members of my family, neighbors, and family friends. Those men, as one counselor said, were called by God to be my protectors, but instead they were the ones from whom I needed protection. For much of my life I have felt painfully unprotected and vulnerable.


+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++


          Every child, a priceless gift from God, needs and deserves to be cherished by her parents. Every child is cherished by God our Father, by our Lord Jesus, by the Holy Spirit, by the Blessed Mother, and by all of heaven. Every child is created to be cherished by her parents and others. Being cherished by a parent is a source of strength, of joy, and of self confidence. It gives us the security of love and the sense that we are lovable and worthy to be treated with dignity.

I felt cherished by my earthly father. I felt like the “apple of his eye.” I remember the sparkle in his eyes when he spoke to me. I was the child in my family who looked most like my father, with his olive complexion and hazel eyes. He took great pride in my intelligence and my excellent grades in school. He told me that I could do anything I made up my mind to do. When, at the age of thirteen, I told him that I wanted to become a nurse, he told me that I was too intelligent to become a nurse; that I should go to medical school instead.

          When I was eight years old, I did not yet know in a conscious sense that I was the cherished little girl of our Heavenly Father. Yet, I believe, I had a self image of being a cherished little girl, in large part because of my father’s love. I believe that that self image of being a cherished daughter was stronger than my image of being an unloved child (caused by my mother’s rejection)—because love is stronger than rejection or any other negative emotion.

        That self image of being a cherished little girl was damaged—with what felt like irreparable damage—when I was sexually abused by my grandfather. I loved my grandfather because he was my beloved father’s father, which made my father “flesh of his flesh.” So in my little-girl heart I felt that he must be good, even though he was an alcoholic and usually came to our house drunk; even though he had abandoned my father when he was only two years old and had never done anything after that to support him. Still, my father loved him unconditionally, and maybe that was the most important reason I loved my grandfather. I loved him, and I wanted to be loved by him.

He was a river boat captain, and he often came to stay at our house for a few days during his time between trips. When I was eight years old, my parents were renting what is called a shotgun house, in which there is no hallway. The house is shaped like a long rectangle, in which the door of one room leads into the next room, from the front of the house to the back. So one time, when my grandfather was staying with us and was given my older brother’s room to sleep in, I had to walk through his room in order to get to my bedroom. My parents were a couple rooms away, in the kitchen, I think.

It was the early part of the night, dark outside, and my grandfather was lying on the bed drunk, and as I was walking through that room, he quietly called to me, “Come and lay by Grandpa.” I had no knowledge of sex at that time and no conscious awareness of it. To me, in my innocence, it seemed an invitation to loving closeness. And so I lay next to him, and he put his arm around me; that felt good to me.

Then he touched me in a way that I had never been touched before, in a place where I had never been touched before. Even though I was sexually innocent, I knew that what he did was a terribly shameful thing, especially for a grandfather to do to his granddaughter. Deep within me I was violated, and I want to say that it was a feeling almost as if I had been murdered.

 I pulled his hand away, got up from the bed, and walked out of that room. I can’t remember what I did after that. I know I didn’t tell my parents or anyone else what had happened. I also know, as I reflect on my feelings now,  that I felt that I was to blame for what happened. “I shouldn’t have lain on that bed with him! Why did I lie on that bed with him?” This is a semi-conscious, unjust—because no child is ever responsible for being abused—accusation that I have made against myself, repeatedly, ever since the first time I tried to process what happened that night. My strongest feeling about it is shame; it is a feeling that penetrated deep into my heart. My image of being a cherished little girl was “ruined” that day, like some masterpiece painting that has been slashed with a knife.


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“…hallowed be Thy name.”

At Adoration I write in my journal:

I had an image of a light shining on this Scripture:


“Blessed be the God and Father of of Our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort…” (2 Cor. 1:3)


Dear Father, “God of all comfort,”

        You know that I need Your comfort this evening…

        What “light” do You want to shine on that Scripture, Father? When I asked the question, “…the Father of mercies…” was anointed for me. What do You want to say to me, “Father of mercies”? I pray that God will fill my heart with His love until it is overflowing, with His mercy until it is overflowing, so that “You, Father, can pour out Your love on others through me.” I had an image of a hungry child holding out an empty cup to be filled, and I have the sense that it represents the world’s hunger for God’s love; and, at the same time, God’s invitation, plea, to me to bring His love to the world. How do You want me to bring Your love to the world, Father of mercies? The Father responds, “Be in the world in the truth of your life, My child. It is a beautiful truth.”

          Thank You, Father, for affirming the beautiful truth of my life. You know that I still struggle a lot with shame. What do You want me to do with the shame, Father? I think of what Dawn Eden (in her book, “My Peace I Give You: Healing Sexual Wounds with the Help of the Saints.") said about wounds not being “toxic” when we hide ourselves in the Sacred Heart. In His Sacred Heart, Father, Jesus lifts us up to You, preventing us from falling downward into depression and despair.  How can I move upward, instead of downward, when I experience shame and other emotional pain?

        Thank You, Father, for the beautiful gift to be here with You. The Father responds: “You are My beautiful gift to the world, My child. Don’t deny the world that gift.

          What do You want from me, Father? I had an image of Jesus standing (“Behold the Man!”) half naked, after His scourging, and as He was being condemned by His people, whom He loved so much. The Father says: “Your wounds are already beautiful, glorified in My Son, because you have given them all, along with everything else in your life, to Me. I am pleased, My child. Your offering blesses My Heart. Accept My blessing!

          Thank You, Father. Words could never express my gratitude for such a great gift!


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“Thy kingdom come.”


        What do You want to say to me about Your kingdom, Father? I have an image of God holding my wedding ring and moving it back and forth to get my attention. I think You are communicating that it is through spiritual marriage that the kingdom comes fully. The kingdom comes when we marry the King and become His bride.


        Marriage is the most intimate relationship. Two become one. God created men’s and women’s bodies to “become one” in sexual intimacy, and there are other areas of intimacy in which love seeks to become one. Through learning to communicate—which involves a flow of listening and speaking at different levels—the couple, if they are committed to giving themselves to each other, gradually become more and more “one” in understanding and accepting each other, and in finding agreement in the midst of conflicts. I think that one of the most beautiful intimacies between a husband and a wife is to be able to enjoy being with each other without speaking. This is something we see most often in older couples, who have been growing in love and understanding over a lifetime.

        I have felt deep tension in my intimacy with my husband, most intensely in our sexual relationship; but to be receptive and vulnerable to him in any sense has been very difficult, like a heavy cross that I have carried in my heart. My husband has his own wounds and tensions from his painful childhood, so I think that it is a sign of God’s most loving and powerful grace that our love for each other has deepened over time, and we have, in some ways, in the last five years or so, fallen in love in a deeper sense than in the beginning.


At some point I realized that the excruciating anxiety and the anger that I would initially feel when my husband would approach me sexually were feelings that related to a very frightening experience that I had when I was ten years old. When I realized the source of the feelings I was able gradually to stop reacting to my husband in that way.

When I was ten years old, a great uncle was visiting my family when my parents decided to go somewhere, and they took my brothers and two of my sisters with them. They left me behind to take care of my baby sister, who was one year old at the time. My uncle also remained in the house with my sister and me.


After everyone else had left, my uncle invited me to come and sit on his lap, which I did. (Trust does not easily die in children.) As I was sitting on my uncle’s lap, he suddenly stood up, holding me in his arms, and carried me into one of the bedrooms. He laid me on the bed and, with a “soothing” tone of voice asked me to take my clothes off. Terrified, I started crying, and this must have caused my uncle to “wake up” to the reality that my family might come home at any time, and he backed away and kept saying that he wasn’t going to hurt me.


I got off the bed and, though I was almost paralyzed with fear, I went and found my baby sister and took her in the bathroom with me, where I locked the door. I was shaking with fear the whole time. As I sat in the bathroom with my baby sister, I feared that my uncle would come and break down the door. I stayed in the bathroom with my sister until my mother came home, knocked on the door, and called my name. Then I unlocked the door and immediately, with shaking voice, told my mother what had happened.


The way that my mother reacted to what I told her was very confusing to me. She seemed to make light of it. She said that my uncle was “punch drunk,” because he had been a fighter (boxer), and he was “like a little boy.”

She smiled the whole time she was saying that, the way an adult smiles at a child to calm the child’s fear about something they needn’t fear. Even now, as I think of her reaction, I feel confused. It didn’t surprise me that my mother didn’t hug me to comfort me, because she was not able to comfort her children in that way; but I think that I expected her to get angry about what my uncle had done and to say that he wouldn’t come into our house again. If she would’ve shown anger about what my uncle had done, I would have felt to some small extent that she was standing up for me and would protect me from him in the future. Even after that terrifying experience had occurred, I think I would have been consoled a little if my mother would have shown deep concern about the trauma I had suffered.

When she reacted the way she did, I squashed my feelings and never told anyone else about the experience. My terror and anger were locked in my heart—like I had been locked in that bathroom—from that time until a few years ago when, through prayer journaling, I began to feel freed from the bondage of those feelings. Still, in the writing of this chapter, I see that there are still painful feelings that surface and are released, through God’s grace.


Often, when I have thought about that experience, I have felt proud of myself for protecting my baby sister. Then, after I become aware of that feeling, I become aware of feelings of hurt and anger, that I was unprotected by my parents. If they knew that my uncle was “punch drunk” and “like a little boy,” why did they leave my little sister and me alone in the house with him? It has occurred to me that, since my mother coped with the abuse she had suffered as a child by denying that it was abuse, she was unable to see that kind of danger clearly. “That’s the way men are,” she told me once. After that experience, I felt totally unprotected.

As I journaled:
        I had an image of Someone covering my face with His hand and wiping my whole face with blood. I sense that it is a protective covering. I think it is You, Jesus, covering my face with Your Blood, wiping away the shame. People cover their faces when they feel shame, but I believe that the Blood you are covering my face with is wiping away my shame…I hear a familiar, silent “voice”: “No more shame!” (I think it is Jesus casting out all spirits of shame.)


“…with his stripes we are healed.” (Isaiah 53:5)


        Lord, please heal those who are covered with shame about the sexual abuse that they suffered as children. Cover them, instead, with the protection of Your Precious Blood, which streamed down Your Holy Face from the wounds that pierced Your Precious Head. Please be their comfort, Lord, along with our Sorrowful Mother.


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“Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.”
 

“We know that in everything God works for good with those who love Him, who are called according to His purpose.” (Romans 8:28)


          Why didn’t you give me the kind of loving mother that I saw in other families, Lord? Why was I sexually abused as a child? Why did I become sexually promiscuous as a young woman? Why did I have four abortions? Why are you asking me to share these shameful experiences with others? I have asked myself those and other similar questions over and over again, but it has finally sunk in that the only important question is


Lord, how can I help you work for good in my life—in everything in my life--according to Your purpose?


This book is one of the ways that I am seeking to help the Lord to work for good. He knows the good that will come from it. I know that that good will come only if I am obedient to His personal directive to me to write it. Our Father works for good in the lives of all who love Him, no matter how late they come to that love—no matter how wounded, how broken, how sinful their lives have been.

        Recently I have often felt foolish for sharing these memories in a book, but I strongly believe that it is Your will, Lord. I meditate on Jesus standing next to Pontius Pilate, before the crowd of people who are screaming for Him to be crucified. He is half naked: half naked of clothes, and even half naked of skin, because pieces of His skin and flesh are hanging from his Body after His cruel scourging. (I feel naked, Lord, and I feel that pieces of my heart are hanging in the view of others.)       

Do you think that I cannot appeal to My Father, and He will at once send Me more than twelve legions of angels? (Matt. 26:53)


        Did Jesus, in His humanity, feel foolish for suffering and dying for so many—many physically present before Him, and many more present in His vision of the centuries ahead—who had (and would) betray Him, abandon Him, deny Him, and reject Him? As He stood before that hateful crowd, knowing that He was about to be crucified, Jesus could have appealed to His Father, and His Father would have at once saved Him from any further pain. But Jesus, in His incomprehensible love, stood (for the sake of our salvation) and accepted the condemnation, the contempt, the hatred, and the sentence to be crucified. As I meditate on that terrifying—yet beautiful—scene, I know that I will go on writing.


“Now I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake, and in my flesh I complete what is lacking in Christ's afflictions for the sake of His Body, that is, the church…” (Col. 1:24)


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“Give us this day our daily bread.”

“Or what man of you, if his son asks him for bread,will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a serpent?” (Mt 7:9-10)


        As I wrote earlier in this chapter, my father was the parent by whom I felt cherished when I was a child. He was the one who gave me the “bread” of love, acceptance, and affirmation.  He was my hero, the man I most admired, my inspiration. As a child he had only received a third grade education. After that he had to work on fishing boats to help support his mother and his sister.

He met my mother on a leave during World War II, and they quickly got married, as so many couples did during that war. He received a medical discharge, because he had a nervous breakdown during the war. He suffered with psychiatric problems, with epilepsy, and eventually with serious heart problems.

        In spite of these problems, he was always determined to learn, to live a productive life, and to provide for the material and—to the extent that he had the light—the spiritual needs of his family. He had a great love for learning and passed on that love for learning and books to me. He studied accounting and received what would today probably be called an associate’s degree in accounting. He became a “junior accountant” for the U. S. federal government and worked in that position until he became more severely disabled and was given a veteran’s 100% disability pension.

        My parents each had a firm belief in God. I think that agnostics and atheists were not very common in those days of my childhood and adolescence. While both of them had a strong belief in God, each had a quite different view of God.

        For my mother God was the Almighty Being who was in control of everything. He saw everything, and she reminded us of that in order to warn us to be good. She also had a strong belief that God provides what we need, and I remember her expressing this by saying, “With every child God brings the bread.” I wish I would have internalized that belief.

        My father had a much more personal relationship with God. As I stated before, his father left him, his mother, and his sister, when my father was only two years old. He talked about his maternal grandfather with some affection, so he must have been loved by him, but there was still a big hole that was left in his heart when his father abandoned him. He shared with us that one day, when he was walking in the woods in the rural community in which he was born and raised, he met God. I was awed when he said that. It was the first time that I realized that God was a Person that I could meet. At the time I assumed that my father had seen God in the woods. Now I wonder if he had a vision of Jesus or had, instead, experienced his invisible, living Presence. What was certain is that he had met God, and he knew Him as His closest Friend.

        My father always had a hunger—a restlessness—to know God better. It was that restlessness that led him away from the Catholic Church (I state with sadness now). I think he must not have met Jesus in the Holy Eucharist, because what could be a closer experience of God—if we truly experience Him—than His Living, Real Presence in the Eucharist? What could be more filling than to receive as our true food the Bread of His Body and as our true drink the Wine of His Blood?

When I was twelve years old, my father left the Catholic Church and became a member of the Church of Christ. Within a year of his move, my mother, one of my sisters and I also became members. In the Church of Christ at that time (I don’t know if their rule has changed), a preacher of a congregation was not required to have formal schooling. He only had to be accepted by a congregation. My father made friends with a man who had been a member of the Church of Christ for many years, but was not attending church services because of the long distance of the nearest congregation. That family of the man and his wife and ten children and our family began meeting in the man’s house, and my father became the preacher. The congregation grew as neighbors and other family members began attending. I became a Bible school teacher. At that point, my father was my spiritual, as well as my earthly, father.

        During my teen years my relationship with my father became uncomfortably emotionally intense. He looked to me to be his friend and confidante. It seems to me, as I look back, that he wanted me to provide him with the emotional support and comfort that he felt he was not receiving from my mother. Then, when I was around sixteen years old, his feelings for me became clearly disturbed when on two occasions he violated me through impure touches. On both occasions I pushed him away and walked away from him.

        I never spoke to him about those experiences, and he never spoke to me. I don’t know what was going on in my father’s mind after that, but I know that I never thought of those touches again until I was in my early thirties. I never realized that I had been sexually abused or violated by any of the men who had molested me when I was a child and adolescent, until I was working at a state psychiatric hospital, and I went to an in-service on the psychological effects on women of childhood sexual abuse. At that in-service the speaker stated that those women who had been sexually abused as children were either sexually promiscuous, or what was at that time called sexually “frigid.” A light went on in my head, and I realized immediately that I had been sexually abused several times, and that that was the reason that I was sexually promiscuous. When I had had those experiences, I had “shut down” emotionally and was unaware of what I was feeling.

When I spoke to my spiritual director recently about my father violating me sexually, I realized clearly for the first time that those experiences were the most shattering experiences of my life. I have come to the realization that the first time my father touched me in that way, the cherished daughter (who still lived in a little place in my heart) died. In her place appeared the shadow of a woman who believed that God created women to be sexually used by men. That was what my mother communicated to me when she said, “That’s the way men are,” and that’s what my father confirmed to me when he touched me in that way.

Looking at photos of myself when I was a younger teenager, I can see the sad expression of depression. After my father treated me in that way, the depression deepened, and, though I could function and still excelled in school, there was little joy in me. It was around that time that I took an overdose of pills, thinking I wanted to kill myself, but I realized after I took them that I didn’t really want to die, and so I told my mother what I had done, and she took me to the local emergency room. I worked in that emergency room, and I knew the physician who was on duty when I went there. He had his assistant give me some ipecac to make me vomit, which I did. He happened to be a psychiatry resident, so the next time that he worked, he brought me an application for a therapy group and said he would give me a recommendation to get me quickly into the group, which had a waiting list. But my mother was afraid of what people would say if they found out that I was in a therapy group for emotional problems, so I never attended the group.


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“Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us.”


        Try to imagine that you are Jesus, your hands and feet nailed to the Cross, your head crowned with thorns, and so you cannot even rest it against the wood of the Cross, because that would push the thorns deeper. How painful are the gashes in your back, legs, and arms—gashes made by the cruel scourging that you had suffered!

        As you hang on that Cross, below you are those who had nailed you to the Cross; those who had scourged you; those who had crowned you with thorns. Also there are the leaders of your people, who had brought you to Pontius Pilate to be condemned. Those people who had screamed for you to be crucified had followed you to Calvary, and now they were mocking you.

        In your heart are your closest friends, who have betrayed you, abandoned you, and denied you. Also in your heart are the people in the future who will refuse to believe you; who will reject you; who will treat you with ingratitude, contempt, and (worst of all) indifference.

        As impossible as it is for me to fully imagine the pain that Our Lord suffered on that Holy Cross, His response to that abuse is even more impossible for me to even begin to imagine:


And Jesus said, "Father, forgive them;for they know not what they do." (Luke 23:34)


        “To err is human, to forgive divine,” Alexander Pope wrote, a profound truth. The human heart is not capable of forgiving profound abuse by a loved one. If Jesus had only been human, He would not have been able to pray that incomprehensible prayer of mercy. But Jesus, we Christians know, is fully God as well as fully Man. It was the love of the Father—in union with the love of His Divine Son—that moved the Heart of Jesus to appeal to the mercy of His Father for all of mankind. And, so, to come to a place of forgiveness of those who painfully pierce our hearts, we must pray for the grace of union with the Merciful Heart of Jesus.

        But first, my experience has taught me, we must be affirmed in our suffering, affirmed in our righteous indignation against the injustice and indignity we have suffered. We must name our sorrows, the causes of our tears. God has recorded them in His Heart.


“Thou hast kept count of my tossings; put Thou my tears in Thy bottle! Are they not in Thy book?” (Psalm 56:8)


When we are ready, we are called to beg, like Jesus on the Cross, for God’s mercy on our abusers. Only God knows when that time is. We are in the Father’s loving hands, in the loving Heart of our Redeemer.

        I have struggled to know how to express my pain about what my father did to me. Then God planned for me to see in a video an analogy of that pain. My husband and I watched the 1961 movie El Cid, starring Charlton Heston and Sophia Loren. Sophia Loren plays Jimena, the fiancé of Rodrigo (El Cid, played by Heston).

        Jimena and Rodrigo were passionately in love with each other, but a great tragedy threatened to destroy their love. Jimena also intensely loved her father, Count Gormaz, who was the champion of the king. In defense of his father’s honor, Rodrigo had a sword fight with Jimena’s father and killed him. Just before he died, Jimena’s father asked her to avenge him.  

        After her father’s death at the hands of Rodrigo, Jimena vowed that she would learn to hate Rodrigo. The King ordered her to marry Rodrigo anyway, and, in obedience to the king, Jimena married him, but told him that she would never give him her heart. Still it is obvious that Jimena is going through an intense inner struggle between love and hatred towards Rodrigo, and she goes into a convent for an extended kind of reclusion to try to “find peace,” to reconcile with her own intensely conflicting feelings, to reconcile with her husband. Eventually, her love for Rodrigo is victorious, and she returns to him to truly embrace him as her husband.

        The intense struggle in me has been between the cherished daughter who still loved (and loves) my father and the deeply wounded adolescent who rejected him for the wrong he did to me. When I began to look at my relationship with my father more honestly, I tried to find “inner peace” by simply saying that my father was not the loving, good man that I had thought he was, and by saying to myself that he had been a phony, and to “write him off.” The good guy becomes the bad guy. The hero becomes the villain.

Of course that was very painful, but I realize now that what has been even more painful is to see that my father had truly cherished me when I was a child, and he continued to love me when I was a teenager, but his feelings became more and more self-centered. More and more he wanted me to meet his emotional needs, and then, on those two occasions, he crossed the boundary from emotional to sexual.

It was my father, who had loved me—my father, whom I loved (and still love) so much—who had violated me, and that was the greatest pain that I experienced in the midst of all of the abuse of my childhood and adolescence. It was my “loss” of a trustworthy father that was the greatest pain. Seeing that with my mind and my heart causes a kind of dissonance (inner tension) that sometimes feels unbearable. It is as if my heart is being torn apart. Like Jimena, who went to the convent to find peace, I am still searching for peace and wholeness in my heart.

Dear Jesus,

        I have been experiencing so much pain in trying to know and understand my relationship with my father and the abuse I suffered from him. As I was expressing my pain to you this morning and fervently praying for my healing, the word “purpose” came.

        What purpose do You want to speak to me about, Jesus? Jesus responded: “My seed is deep in your heart…My word. Your suffering is fertilizer for its growth in you.”

          Will you give me more understanding, Jesus? Image of me helping Jesus carry His Cross, like Simon of Cyrene. Jesus says, “Accepting your suffering is your strength.”


“…and through Him to reconcile to Himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of the Cross.”(Colossians 1:20)


        How can I obtain “peace by the blood of the Cross,” Jesus? Jesus answered: “It is all in the acceptance.”

          I think I’m trying to accept the pain in my heart, Jesus, but the weak human in me withdraws from it. How can I learn to face it, Lord?

        What “seed” do You want to grow in my heart through the “fertilizer” of suffering, Lord? Jesus answers emphatically: “Faith!”

          How can I completely accept my suffering, Jesus? Jesus answered: “Ask for the grace over and over.” Thank You, Jesus.

        Do You want to say any more to me, Jesus? I had an image of Christ’s tomb open and empty. Jesus said: “It is from the pain that the joy is released…”
 


          Since that journaling “conversation” with Jesus, when I feel intense pain, I am able to totally accept it—to surrender to it—offering it to Jesus, in union with His Passion. Immediately I feel the pain flow out of me, and in its place I experience profound peace. In its place I experience comfort. So, paradoxically, it is my intense suffering, in union with Jesus’ suffering, that brings me the most profound comfort.                     

“For my sighing comes as my bread, and my groanings are poured out like water.” (Job 3:24)
 

As Jesus hung on the Cross, who do You think He prayed most fervently for? I believe that Jesus gives us that answer through His Apostle of Divine Mercy, St. Faustina, in her diary, Divine Mercy in My Soul:

[Let] the greatest sinners place their trust in My mercy. They have the right before others to trust in the abyss of My mercy. My daughter, write about My mercy towards tormented souls. Souls that make an appeal to My mercy delight Me. To such souls I grant even more graces than they ask. I cannot punish even the greatest sinner if he makes an appeal to My compassion, but on the contrary, I justify him in My unfathomable and inscrutable mercy.
(Diary, 1146)

I am one of the greatest sinners (because of the abortions I had), and I have placed my trust in the Divine Mercy of Jesus. Imagine! Jesus says that He cannot punish even the greatest sinner if he makes an appeal to His compassion. Jesus has a Heart radically more compassionate than all of our hearts—our hearts, which judge others as deserving or undeserving of mercy. His desire to save all sinners—along with His infinite love for, and obedience to, His Father—is what gave Him the strength to carry His Cross to Calvary.

My gratitude to, and love for, our Merciful Savior moves me to offer my pain in union with His Passion for the redemption of those who abused me and for all abusers. It is in this way that I am receiving the deepest healing.


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“And lead us not into temptation…”
 

        Dear little handmaids, my sisters, let us pray for those who have been abused and those who have abused, that they will not be “led into temptation.”


        Let us pray for the healing of those who have been abused. Let us pray that they will not be “led into temptation.” Good Father, we pray with our Sorrowful Mother, in union with Your Son, Jesus, that those who have been abused will not give into the temptation to shut themselves off from loving others and receiving the love of others. We pray that they will not remain ashamed, nor angry, all of their lives. Please give them the light to know that they did not sin in being abused. Please give them the grace to forgive their abusers. Please heal their wounded hearts. Let them fully feel your love, and know that You have always loved them.

        We also pray, Merciful Father, that those who have abused will have the grace of true repentance, salvation, conversion, and transformation in the Sacred Heart of Jesus. We pray that they will have the grace to overcome temptations to abuse. Please give all of us the grace to stop judging them, to look at them through Your compassionate eyes, and to pray for them daily. We also pray, Father, that they will be stopped from abusing others.

 

Some may think that it’s a waste of time, and even a kind of sin, to pray for abusers. Some may think that they don’t deserve our prayers. Some may think that it’s impossible for them to change, and that may be true in a strictly human sense. But “…with God nothing will be impossible” (Luke 1:37).  There would be no hope for this world if that were not true.


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“…but deliver us from evil.”
 

“And do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul; rather fear him who can destroy both soul and body in hell.”

(Matthew 10:28)
 

        I believe that the most evil moment of my life was when I made the conscious decision to turn my back on Jesus. It was an evil moment because it grievously offended my Heavenly Father. It was an evil moment because it deeply wounded my Lord Jesus’ Heart—Jesus, who had been my one always true Friend. It was an evil moment because, most destructively, it put me in danger of having my soul and body destroyed in hell. It separated me from all that is good.

        Somewhere in my late twenties, after having lived several years separated from God, years in which I committed evil many times, I remember one day asking myself: “Does good exist?” I was living in total darkness. I was totally blind spiritually, and so I could not see the “One who is good.”


And He said to him, "Why do you ask me about what is good?One there is who is good. If you would enter life,keep the commandments." (Matthew 19:17)


        No evil that was committed against me wounded me so deeply as the evil that I committed wounded me—wounded my very soul and threatened to destroy it.

        Thanks be to God that I now know Him as my Loving, Good Father! Thank you, Father, that you have delivered me from evil, and You continue to deliver me from evil every day. This is my most profound healing.

“Amen!”

Mary's daughter and your sister in Mary and Jesus,

Cami

Butchy was my mother’s firstborn child, the elder brother that I never met, because he died at the age of eighteen months, a year and a half before I was born. People said that he looked like an angel, but, after his tragic death, my mother felt that that praise turned out to be a curse.

        On the day that Butchy died, there were a lot of people at my parents’ house—family and friends. It was one of those occasions when everyone thinks that someone else is looking after the baby. Actually, my mother had a 3-month old infant at that time—my brother, Bob—so maybe she was occupied with him.

        My Uncle Frank was leaving for work, backing his car out of the driveway, when the accident happened. He didn’t know that Butchy was behind his car, and he backed over him. There were many details I was never told. People want to forget details that are that painful. The only other thing that I know is that Butchy died in my mother’s arms on the way to the hospital.

        My mother told me that, after Butchy’s death, she had a recurring dream of waking up, and he was at the foot of her bed crying, and, the more she reached for him, the farther away he got. I can’t even imagine how painful that loss was for her and my father.

        It occurred to me once that that dream described, in reverse, my relationship with my mother. The more I reached for her, the farther away she got. I think she wore a kind of psychological armor, designed to protect her from any more emotional wounds by trying to prevent any emotional bonds.

        Like any normal child, I wanted to be close to my mother. I wanted to be cherished by her, like I saw so many other little children cherished by their mothers. I wanted to be loved through hugs and kisses and tender words. I wanted to be loved for who I was. I wanted her to be pleased with me. But my mother, though she joked a lot and could laugh in any situation, kept her tender heart under lock and key.

        When I was afraid, lonely, or having any kind of emotional distress—if  I sought comfort from her, she gave me the message, “That’s life!” Or, similarly, she many times told me that I was too sensitive.

        Whenever I brought my report card home, proud that I was on the honor roll again, typically, I would have only one B, and the rest A’s. When I handed the report card to my mother, her usual response was to ask me why I didn’t get all A’s.

        One time my mother told me that I had plenty of book sense, but no common sense. She also told me that I needed to marry a rich man so I could hire a maid, because I would never make a good housekeeper. That particularly hurt, because I was the one of my mother’s children who was always ready to help her with housework, but the work I did was never good enough for her. For instance, when I washed dishes, she criticized the way I stacked them. In these and other ways, my mother tore down my self-image, giving me the message that I would never be good enough.

        When I was about eleven years old, I think that I gave up on my mother. I decided that I would never be able to please her—that she would never love me—so I wouldn’t try any more. I still did what my mother expected from me, but I never seriously tried to reach out to her again until I was in my forties. I think that all of my life I felt like a “motherless child,” and maybe, after that, even more so. Looking back, I realize that there was a tender place in my heart that became hard at that point.

“But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that made us whole,

and with his stripes we are healed.” (Isaiah 53:5)

 

        It has occurred to me, as I have been reflecting on my wounded relationship with my earthly mother, that there have been many blessings that have come through that wounded relationship. I realize that there are gifts of my heart and soul that have come through those wounds, gifts that could not have come in any other way. I am truly filled with deep gratitude for those wounds, which have been making me the daughter, the mother, the wife, the little handmaid, the whole woman (very good and beautiful) that God planned for me to become—planned even before I was conceived.

Because my mother pushed away my heart, I have been seeking heart to heart relationships all of my life. In that search, I have been growing in compassion for, and understanding, of others. I am a person who connects at a deep level with others. The gift that I have cherished the most for the last several years is my heart to Heart relationship with Mary, a gift that has drawn me ever closer and deeper into the Sweet Heart of Jesus.               

        A few years ago, when I was on a journey of healing of the wounds of my relationship with my mother, the Lord spoke to my heart and told me that I had been consecrated to the Blessed Mother from my conception. (I believe that you, also, my little handmaid sisters were consecrated to the Blessed Mother at your conceptions.) This knowledge of my consecration to the Blessed Mother from my conception was powerfully healing to me. It was as if a laser beam of God’s healing love penetrated to the center of my heart, where my mother’s rejection had caused a kind of cancer of self rejection. I knew from that moment on that I had never been a “motherless child”—that I had had the best, most loving Mother, all of my life, and she had been with me all of the time—interceding for me, protecting me, comforting me, filling my need for a Mother in ways I was not aware of until the past few years. I had believed that I was not worthy of a loving mother.

        When I was a child I didn’t know that the Blessed Mother was my mother. We didn’t have devotion to the Blessed Mother in my family.

        I remember only one occasion in my childhood in which I experienced devotion to Mary. It was the only year that I attended a Catholic school. My parents were separated at the time. My mother, brothers and sisters, and I lived in Baltimore with my maternal grandparents, while my father lived in New Orleans. It was a very painful, depressed time for me, because I was separated from the parent whose love I cherished, while I was with the parent by whom I felt rejected.

        We had very little money, but my sisters and I were able to go to a Catholic school on a scholarship. As is traditional, in May a May procession was held to honor the Blessed Mother. The girls came to school dressed in pretty white dresses, the boys in blue suits with white dress shirts and ties.

Because we had very little money, my mother was unable to buy me a new white dress, so, instead she bought one at a kind of thrift store, an old-fashioned, lacy dress that must have been very pretty when it was new, but now it was very yellowed. My mother took it home and bleached it, but it was still a very light shade of yellow. This is what I wore to school for the May procession.

         No one said anything to embarrass me, but I was deeply embarrassed, noticing the obvious difference between my dress and the other girls’ pretty, new white dresses. I was twelve years old at the time, in the seventh grade, a time when fitting in socially is extremely important to an adolescent. It was the first time in my life that I felt poor, surrounded by those who had more, materially.

        When I brought my flower up to Mary’s statue and laid it at her feet—surprisingly!—I felt a very tender love for her for the first time in my life. Fifty years later, as I write this, I understand that the love that I felt at that moment was an emerging awareness of the love that she had for me. It was a seed that remained dormant for decades.

Mary is my Mother, who always hugs me when I most need a hug.

       

Maybe devotion to the Blessed Mother would have sprouted a lot sooner in my heart, but within a year of that experience I had left the Catholic Church. When we were reunited with my father, we learned that he had left the Catholic Church and become a member of the Church of Christ. My mother, my sisters, my younger brother, and I started attending church with him, and within a few months, I was baptized in that church. It is a church that believes that praying to Mary is idolatry, a grievous sin, so I left behind, for decades, my budding awareness that Mary is my Mother, who loves me with a love greater than even the most exceptionally loving earthly mother can feel. It is hard to imagine that her love for each of her millions of children is just as great, for God, who knows that we need a Mother as well as a Father, has given her the grace to see the very good and beautiful gift that He has created in each of us, from our conceptions.

Mary is my Mother, who waited for me and prayed unceasingly for me when I turned away from her and from her Divine Son, Jesus, in the Most Blessed Sacrament.

 

When I became a member of the Church of Christ, Jesus did not abandon me. He came to me in Scripture. I was directed to read the Bible every day, and I did so with joy. Jesus became my Constant Companion, and I experienced that close Friendship with Him until, after my youngest sister’s death in 1969, I lost my faith. He did not abandon me, though I felt that He had; but I abandoned Him.

For almost a decade I became an agnostic—unsure of God’s existence. That was a period of terrible darkness in my life. I was sexually promiscuous, and I had four abortions. (I will write about this in greater detail later.)

When I got tired of the emptiness of my life, I searched for and, through God’s great mercy, regained faith in His existence. When I began searching for the church that God wanted me to become a part of, I saw a television documentary about the daily apparitions of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Queen of Peace, in Medjugorje. That documentary reached deeply into my heart, and I knew, without a doubt, that the reported apparitions were real. I was so excited and grateful! I remember that, deeply in my heart, I thought, “God’s love for us must be so great, since He is sending the Mother of His Son to this wicked world every day, to call us to conversion!”

Whenever I think of that deep thought, I think of the Scripture:

Simon Peter replied, "You are the Christ, the Son of the living God."  And Jesus answered him, "Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jona! For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you,

but my Father who is in heaven. (Mt 16:17)

 

Within a few years of seeing that documentary, I was blessed to make a pilgrimage to Medjugorje, alone except for the band of angels that I never saw, but I felt their powerful protection. In Medjugorje Mary’s soul magnified the Lord to me, in the Sacrament of Reconciliation, and even more powerfully in the Most Blessed Sacrament. A few months after I returned home to my family, I also returned home to the Catholic Church. When I think of that homecoming, often an image comes to me of Mother Mary leading me (a little girl dressed in her beautiful white First Communion dress)—alone except for her—up to an old-fashioned communion rail to receive Holy Communion.

Mary is my Mother, who never rejected me, in spite of the shameful condition of my soul, but led me with joy back to her Divine Son, Jesus, to be cleansed in His Precious Blood.

 

When I returned from Medjugorje, I had two powerful dreams that clearly communicated that I was called to have a special relationship with Mary. In the first one I was standing before a group of people in a Catholic Church, and I began a talk by saying, “Mary has called me to consecrate my life to her.” The second dream even more powerfully, and more simply, expressed my consecration to Mary, because in it my name was changed to Bless Mary. At a close friend’s advice, I did (for the first of several times) the Total Consecration to Jesus through Mary, which God gave to the Church through St. Louis de Montfort, a consecration that several popes have made, and, as a result of the good fruit that they received, have recommended to the faithful.

In spite of these powerful experiences, when I returned to the Catholic Church in 1992, I had a lot of ambivalence and fear about devotion to Mary. After all, as a teenager I had been given strong messages that praying to Mary was sinful. Yes, I knew that, when we “pray” to Mary, we are actually asking her to pray for us and with us. Still, I had a deep fear at times that my devotion to Mary was not from God.

What helped me to come to a peaceful place, for the most part, about my relationship with Mary was my observation that those who had a strong devotion to Mary also had the strongest devotion to Jesus in the Most Blessed Sacrament. One sign of that strong devotion to the Blessed Sacrament was that, when possible, many of them attended daily Mass. And, so, the concern that some express, that devotion to Mary draws us away from Jesus, is unfounded. Just the opposite is true: devotion to the Blessed Mother draws us closer to her Divine Son, Jesus. The Blessed Virgin Mary loves Jesus more than any of us could imagine. When she was conceived, her whole vocation was to bring the Savior into this world, and this continues to be her vocation, which she accomplishes when, through her intercession, Jesus is born in our hearts.

Yet, even though I knew that I was consecrated to Mary, I didn’t feel close to her in my heart. When I spoke to her, I felt her always to be seated on her throne in heaven. I believed that she heard me and loved me, but I couldn’t get close to her. I couldn’t understand how some of my Catholic friends spoke about Mary, with such joy, as if she was someone who lived with them in their own homes.

Then he said to the disciple, "Behold, your Mother!" And from that hour the disciple took her to his own home. (John 19:27)

In 1999 I met a retired priest who had done healing ministry with women who had had abortions, and I asked him if he would celebrate a Mass for my aborted babies. He graciously agreed to do so, and he welcomed me with a few of my family members and Church friends into his little home, where he celebrated a Mass at his dining room table.

During the Mass, during the Consecration, an image came of me as a little girl, and I was running towards the Blessed Mother, who was seated. But, every time I got close to her, I would feel compelled to run away from her. This happened repeatedly.

This morning, during my quiet prayer time, I decided to journal about that image of me running towards the Blessed Mother, never able to reach her. I would like to share with you a portion of my entry:

I urgently needed you, Mother, but, when you came so powerfully into my life, I was afraid to trust you. I think you are an essential part of my healing from those abortions, Mother. I not only need God’s forgiveness, which I know I have received. I need a deep sense that you have forgiven me. I need to feel your embrace telling me that I am still beautiful in your eyes, that I am very good, that God has restored, and is restoring, the beauty He created in me.

Will you give me a healing word, Mother? The Blessed Mother responded: “Receive my love completely, my child. It is you who shut it out.

How can I get past the barriers in me to receiving your love completely, Mother? “Pray the Seven Sorrows Rosary for your healing, until you are fully healed. Love yourself, as God loves you, and I love you…The healing is coming, because you are committed to doing God’s will…You are ready to finish the chapter now. You don’t have to be fully healed to write it.

 

It’s difficult for me to share with you what is still unhealed in me, my little handmaid sisters. In American culture, so much emphasis is put on success, and, if we are not fully successful, we are supposed to put on a face of being successful. But Our Sorrowful Mother comes to those who are broken. I ask myself over and over again why she chose me to be the foundress of the Little Handmaids of Our Sorrowful Mother, because I think that a foundress is supposed to be a saint, and I know that I am so far from that. But she does not expect us to be saints; she does not expect us to be perfect. She comes to us in our brokenness and in our sin, holds us tenderly, and prays with us for our healing. Please pray for me, my sisters, as I pray for you. Let us pray for all of the women who need to be restored to their true dignity and vocation, which, I believe, includes all of us to some degree.

Mary’s daughter, Cami

         

       

       

         

 
 

The First Sorrow

“…that thoughts out of many hearts may be revealed."

(and a sword will pierce through your own soul also), that thoughts out of many hearts may be revealed." (Luke 2:35)

As I do each time I pray the Rosary, I offer this chapter (mystery) to God our Father, in union with the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary. I offer it for the healing of all abused and neglected children, even from the moment of conception.( Abortion is the ultimate form of child abuse, the total rejection and physical destruction of God’s child, within his/her mother’s womb, a place that God created to nurture the life of His child.) How many children born into this world are rejected, abused, and neglected? I also offer it for the repentance, conversion, and salvation of all child abusers.

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Some of you may be old enough to remember a nursery rhyme that I heard a lot when I was a child:

What are little boys made of?

What are little boys made of?

Slugs and snails

And puppy-dogs' tails,

That's what little boys are made of.

What are little girls made of?

What are little girls made of?

Sugar and spice

And everything nice,

That's what little girls are made of.

 

It was a nursery rhyme that fascinated me when I was a little girl, and I think I would “ponder” questions like: “Are boys really that yucky? Are girls really that sweet? I don’t think that I am.”

After more than twenty-six years of marriage, I am more certain than ever that there are big differences between little boys and little girls, probably even bigger ones between men and women—not only in their bodies, but also in their ways of thinking and feeling, and their ways of connecting with others. What I am equally certain of is that the most important thing that little boys and little girls have in common—the most important thing that we are all “made of”—is a very tender heart. After all, aren’t we all “made in the image of God?” And isn’t God love? That means that God is, in a sense, “all Heart.”

Little boys and little girls, in their innocence, are most like God’s Son, Jesus, whose Heart was pierced by the rejection, abuse, and neglect inflicted on Him by the leaders of His people, His neighbors, and even His closest disciples and friends. When Mary and Joseph presented Jesus to His Heavenly Father, it is this knowledge of the terrible wounds to His Heart and His Body that Jesus was sent by His Father to suffer, that already pierced the Sorrowful Heart of Mary. Her Heart is still being pierced at every moment by the wounds inflicted on her daughters and sons, given to her by Jesus as He hung dying on the Cross.

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Both my mother and my father had been abused and neglected as children. My mother often said, with a sense of pride (I think) that she had cleaned a 6-room house when she was a child. She also had cooked for her family. Though she never complained about that, what I understand from this and other things that she said is that my mother never had a real childhood. Her mother had gotten married when she was 15 or 16(?), and though I loved my grandmother very much, reflecting now on her personality, I would say that she never fully grew up. My grandmother used to say that my mother and she were more like sisters than mother and daughter, but my impression was that, in some ways, my mother was more like her mother’s mother.

Then there was the sexual abuse that my mother suffered, which I didn’t learn about until I was in my forties, and learning about it helped me to forgive my mother for the hurt that she had caused me. The man who had always called my mother “the apple of my eye” –and I think he meant it—had used her for his sexual pleasure. Putting together things that my mother and others said, I think that the way that she coped psychologically with the abuse she had suffered was to deny that it was abuse. “That’s the way that men are,” she told me once.

My father came from a family that was ostracized in the community in which he was born and raised. My paternal great grandmother had died when my grandfather was a teenager, and my grandfather and his siblings were placed in an orphanage. Eventually one of my grandfather’s sisters became a prostitute to support her brothers and sister. My grandfather and at least two of his siblings were alcoholics. “(That family) is no good,” many members of his community said. My grandfather abandoned my father, his sister, and his mother when my father was two years old.  His maternal grandmother took care of him and his sister so his mother could work. “You’re no good, just like your father,” she would tell him; and later, when my grandmother remarried, my father’s stepfather beat him unmercifully. One time he beat him until he was unconscious, and maybe he would have killed him, except that my grandmother sent for a neighbor, who came and stopped the beating. Beaten hearts struggle to love, if they struggle at all.

Recently I read an article at http://www.americancatholic.org/Newsletters entitled “Mary: Mother of God and Our Mother” by Fr. Peter John Cameron, O.P. This article deeply touched my heart, and I especially want to share with you an excerpt that Fr. Cameron quotes from an early book of Pope Benedict XVI (then Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger) entitled Principles of Catholic Theology (pgs. 79-80):

 

(Alone) we cannot come to terms with ourselves. Our “I” becomes acceptable to us only if it has first become acceptable to another “I.” We can love ourselves only if we have first been loved by someone else.”

That word “alone” has painful significance for me. I think that, even within my mother’s womb, I felt alone in a way that God did not mean for a child to feel alone, because my mother was physically carrying me, but her heart was far from me. As a young child, struggling to grow more and more into the little girl that God planned for me to be, I learned that nothing about me was acceptable to my mother. I felt totally rejected by her, unloved by her, and, as a result of that rejection, I have struggled all of my life to accept and love myself. I have carried a sense of being abandoned and alone all of my life. Mary, whom I now am blessed to know in a very personal way as my Mother, has been leading me ever more deeply into Jesus’ Heart, where the pain of my loneliness is being transformed into the joy of intimacy with Him.

I had no doubt that my father loved me; he was very proud of me. But my father was emotionally and mentally ill, had never fully matured, and was unable to be the strong, gentle father that I think that every child desires.

When I grew into adolescence, our relationship became disturbed, and my heart was broken by him. I am seeking to know more and more the goodness and unconditional love of God our Father, in order to heal my broken heart.

In the next two chapters I will write in more detail about my relationships with my mother and father. It is important to me that you know that I am not sharing the wounds that my parents caused me in order to dishonor them. I am not revealing my pain in order to blame or condemn them. I believe that I have fully forgiven them. I believe that my sins have been greater than theirs. I see that the wounds that they suffered as a child made them unable to love as fully and purely as they probably wanted to love; as I see that the wounds of my childhood profoundly affected the adult that I became. None of what I say is a denial of sin, but only God can judge us. We cannot even judge ourselves, a truth that my former spiritual director reminded me of over and over.

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And he said, "Go forth, and stand upon the mount before the LORD." And behold, the LORD passed by, and a great and strong wind rent the mountains, and broke in pieces the rocks before the LORD, but the LORD was not in the wind; and after the wind an earthquake, but the LORD was not in the earthquake;  and after the earthquake a fire, but the LORD was not in the fire; and after the fire a still small voice.  And when Eli'jah heard it, he wrapped his face in his mantle and went out and stood at the entrance of the cave.

(I Kings 19:11-13)
 

When the winds of rejection and abuse; the earthquakes of so many traumas; and the fire of so much anger…were past, I was left “standing at the entrance of the cave of my heart,”  listening and hearing the “still, small voice” of God.

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My hope and prayer is that, by openly and honestly revealing the thoughts of my heart, “…that thoughts out of many hearts may be revealed…” to themselves. It is my hope and prayer that, by seeing and better understanding their own hearts, both those who have been abused and those who have abused (often one and the same person) will receive reconciliation and healing. My greatest hope is that they will receive the salvation that comes only from Jesus. Please pray with me, little handmaids, my sisters, for that gift for all of our brothers and sisters.

“Most Merciful Mother, remind us always of the sorrows of your Son, Jesus.”

(from the Kibeho Seven Sorrows Rosary)


God bless you, beloved little handmaids and friends!

Mary's daughter, Cami

Into His Marvelous Light (Through Mary’s Seven Sorrows)


The Fruit of Suffering

 

For me the sweetest fruit of suffering has been the indescribable joy of intimacy with Jesus, who suffers with all of His suffering brothers and sisters. It is my younger daughter, Sofia—“with whom I suffer, through whom I suffer, and for whom I suffer” (to borrow my spiritual director’s words)—who has brought me most deeply into intimacy with Jesus.


Sofia seemed to have normal development until sometime between the ages of 2 and 3. In fact, she seemed to be precocious in some ways. She wanted me to read books to her over and over again, and, when we went to the library, she would choose a children’s book and would sit on the floor and make up a story as she looked at the pictures in the book, turning the pages in a purposeful manner. She was also using the toilet independently, except for some accidents at night.


By the time she was three years old, she was no longer using the toilet independently, and she would repeat phrases from videos that she watched, but she would not interact with us at all. Watching Sofia regress and then remain at the same level for so many years, my husband and I have grieved for the precocious little girl that we “lost.” She is now 24 years old, and she is still at the developmental level of a two year old. We have taken her to physicians and for treatments as far away as Canada, a long way from our home in Texas. We have been given some hypotheses about the possible causes of Sofia’s serious developmental problems, but treatments have helped only very little. (Sofia is diagnosed with severe autism and severe mental retardation.) What I tell everyone now, including my husband, is that Jesus is Sofia’s Physician, and her life will continue to unfold according to the Father’s plan.


Sofia loves people, and her severe lack of the ability to talk, as well as her lack of understanding about how to behave according to social rules, causes her to be isolated from most people, other than her Papa, her older sister, and me. One evidence of the pain that she suffered as a young child is that, when she was 5 years old, she used to sing Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer (she can sing more than she can talk), and she would cry uncontrollably when she would get to the part: “They never let poor Rudolph join in any reindeer games.”  Sofia’s pain about being socially isolated has strongly motivated her Papa and I to work very hard to learn to connect with Sofia in ways that have enabled us to bond with her more and more meaningfully.


So her happiness has been growing along with ours. Still we suffer when Sofia cries and is unable to tell us what her pain is from. She has difficult behaviors that sometimes cause us a lot of stress. Also, Sofia requires constant supervision, and so every night I go to bed very tired, and sometimes I get physically and emotionally burned out. I am very blessed to have a husband who shares completely in caring for Sofia.


When she was young, I would take her to Mass in spite of the difficulties that that entailed. She could not sit still for even a minute, and though she could not talk, she would loudly sing her own songs and make nonsensical sounds. So I would take her outside to “visit” the beautiful statues on our parish grounds, and she and I would take turns singing Jesus and Mary songs. And then we would go in in time for me to receive Holy Communion and for her to receive the priest’s blessing.


One Sunday Sofia was sick, so I left her with her dad and went to Mass with my older daughter. A friend of mine, when she saw that I didn’t have Sofia, smiled and said, “You’re really going to enjoy this Mass.” And I said, “Yes,” and I hoped that I would enjoy it more, but the truth was that I didn’t feel Jesus’ presence so powerfully as I did when I had my beloved, difficult Sofia with me, and so I felt a strong lack at that Mass.


The next night I had a dream that I was kneeling behind Sofia, and she was standing up, which put us at the same level. I was hugging her from behind very tightly and warmly, and I was saying very fervently, over and over: “I love You, Jesus; I love You, Jesus… I cherish my memory of that dream, because it confirms to me, over and over, that in loving and caring for Sofia, I am loving and caring for Jesus. Sofia was Jesus in the dream, and I believe that, in her need, Sofia is Jesus to me every day. It warms my heart to the very depths of it to know that.


And the King will answer them, 'Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brethren, you did it to me.' (Mat. 25:40)


When, in the midst of a busy day, I begin to lose touch with Sofia, who sometimes just “spaces out” in her own world, the Blessed Mother connects me to Sofia again by saying: “Be Jesus to her.” And, so, my life with Sofia is a powerful expression of the truth of the Scripture that says:


“For where two or three are gathered in My name, there am I in the midst of them." (Mat. 18:20)


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When I began to pray about this chapter, the Lord brought to mind a Scripture that He gave to me more than twenty years ago, one that has ministered to me so many times since, when I have gone through great difficulties:


“But Thou, O LORD, art a shield about me, my glory,

and the lifter of my head.” (Psalm 3:3)


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I love the first part: “But Thou, O Lord, art a shield about me…” Not just a shield in front of me; a “shield about me…” I imagine that shield to be the Lord’s arms around me, hugging me, and no one can harm me when I am in His arms. He is the Good Shepherd, and I am His little lamb.


But I haven’t always felt His protection, and no matter how close we are to Jesus, we do not always feel His protection. That’s why we need faith and trust. Several years ago I was going through a journey of healing from the wounds of sexual abuse that I suffered as a child. My spiritual director (at that time) was guiding and encouraging me on that journey. I was journaling about my memories and feelings, and at one point I was stuck in asking Jesus the same question over and over again in the same accusing tone: “Where were You when that man was treating me like that? Where were You…?”  I was stuck in anger and unforgiveness.


My spiritual director decided to give me a gentle “push”—like pushing a car stuck in some mud—to help me to get out of that rut. When I shared with her my journal conversation with the Lord, with that question (yet again), she answered for Him. “He was suffering with you!” That silenced me, and I waited until I hung up from my telephone conversation with her to ponder that idea. It was something that had never occurred to me, and in my mind I wasn’t even sure it was true. But the Holy Spirit let me know intuitively that it was true.


“Well, Jesus, I didn’t want you to suffer with me. I wanted you to protect me from being abused!”  At that point in my healing journey, I was like the thief, crucified on one side of Jesus, who railed at him, saying, "Are You not the Christ? Save Yourself and us” (Luke 23:39).


But it didn’t take me long after that to realize that all of my “railing” at the Lord wouldn’t help anyone, wouldn’t heal me, and wouldn’t change Him or my experience of abuse. That’s an anointed word for me: change. “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today and forever” (Heb. 3:8). God never changes, so it is I who have had to change my attitude, in cooperation with the Lord’s grace. Yes, God never changes, the God who says:

“…I know the plans I have for you…plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope.” (Jer. 29:11)


“We know that in everything God works for good with those who love Him, who are called according to His purpose.” (Rom. 8:28)

 

In 1 John 4:8 St. John teaches us that “…God is love,” and so I know that all that God does is an act of love, and I have come to understand that, when God permits evil to be committed—because He has given free will to all of His children—that He will work even that for good with those who love Him, and we who know and love Him can accomplish, in Christ, good for those who do not yet know Him.


These questions about why God allows innocent children to be abused set a fire in my heart, and that fire fueled my prayer and journaling this morning:


Dear Jesus,


You know that I was searching and struggling in contemplative prayer this morning, to understand why innocent children are abused, to understand why You, Lord Jesus, innocent Lamb of God, suffered so terribly. In my heart I cried for You, as well as for the children. In my mind I had images of my hands, like Yours, Jesus, bleeding profusely. I cried out in anger and pain when I “saw” You in my imagination being nailed to the Cross. You said, “You are bleeding for Me.”


Is there more You want to say, Jesus? Jesus responded, “Your heart is being stretched.” I had an image of a cervix contracting so that it can open to allow the baby to be born. Thank You for the “stretching” of my heart, Lord...


These are thoughts I had in response to Blessed John Paul II’s apostolic letter, “On the Christian Meaning of Human Suffering”, #14:


I see the suffering/abuse of innocent children as similar to Your suffering, Jesus, because You are most innocent. But the difference, as I see it, is that You were able to choose to say YES to the suffering, Lord, while almost all children do not have a choice when they suffer.


Will You help me to understand this, Lord? The Lord responded: “I have taken their suffering on Me.” Thank You, Lord, but still the children suffer.


What I understand that You are communicating to me is that Your Presence with them is an experience of most profound love.


I believe that You love and are with all of the suffering children, Lord, but do they all experience Your Presence? The Lord answered: “Your prayers bring that experience to them.”


This conversation with Our Lord touches me deeply, and I become aware that the Lord, in His great mercy, has transformed the evil fruit of sexual abuse into the good fruit of my compassion for others who have suffered abuse of any kind. I resolve to pray daily, in union with the Suffering Hearts of Jesus and Mary, that all suffering children will have that experience of Jesus (and Mary) with them, that they will have that experience of “most profound love”: those who are being aborted in their mothers’ wombs; those who are rejected because of their disabilities, or just because they are an inconvenience to their parents; those who have painful diseases; those with mental or emotional illnesses; those who are homeless; those who do not have enough to eat; those who do not know the unconditional love of Our Heavenly Father; and all suffering children. A child can be on the other side of the world, and still we can bless them with the loving Presence of Jesus and Our Loving Mother Mary, through our compassionate intercession.


May Our Heavenly Father, in union with the Hearts of Jesus and Mary, give us the grace, little handmaids, my sisters, to grow in this, our charism!

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“But Thou, O Lord, art…my glory…”


The Lord gave me that Scripture in 1992, when I was seriously beginning my journey of healing from the wounds of abortion. Shortly after I began to talk about my four abortions, the Lord gave me the light to see that I didn’t really want to heal, because I felt that I didn’t deserve to heal. When I realized what I had done to my babies, I hated myself. In fact, I think that I had unconsciously hated myself since I had had the first abortion, or even before. When I came to full awareness of the grievous sins I had committed, I was overwhelmed by shame.


“Glory?” I looked at that word with the feeling that it must not be addressed to me at all. I thought, “I have never known glory.” Obviously, the Psalmist who had written it must have experienced it, but glory was a state that I had never—and would never—experience, I thought.


“For God so loved the world that He gave his only Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life.” (John 3:16)


Blessed John Paul II teaches about the “fundamental and definitive meaning” of suffering in his apostolic letter, On the Christian Meaning of Human Suffering. Here is an excerpt from #14 of that letter:


…the words quoted above from Jesus' conversation with Nicodemus refer to suffering in its fundamental and definitive meaning. God gives his only-begotten Son so that man "should not perish" and the meaning of these words "should not perish" is precisely specified by the words that follow: "but have eternal life".


Man "perishes" when he loses "eternal life". The opposite of salvation is not, therefore, only temporal suffering, any kind of suffering, but the definitive suffering: the loss of eternal life,…damnation…The mission of the only-begotten Son consists in conquering sin and death….

 

I believe that, after I had rejected Jesus in my early twenties, I had been on a path towards that definitive suffering: the loss of eternal life…damnation. I also believe that there were people who had no doubt spent years praying for me, and that through their prayers, I received the grace to return to Jesus and His Church. It was natural that I was filled with shame about my past and that healing from that shame was (and is) a painful process.


Yet, it was not our Merciful Father’s will—our Merciful Savior’s will—that I remain in that shame. The mission of the only-begotten Son consists in conquering sin and death, in each of our hearts and souls. When the Lord gave me that Scripture about Him being my glory, I knew, with amazement, that He wanted me to accept His glory as gift. He is our Merciful Father, who likes nothing better than to hug, kiss, and feast each of His prodigal children who return to Him in humble, sincere repentance.


Coming into His glory has been a difficult journey. When I confessed my grievous sins in the Sacrament of Reconciliation more than two decades ago, I knew and have never doubted that God completely forgave those sins. Forgiving myself has been a much longer process. What has motivated me to go through that process has been my love for God, which I know to be a  dim reflection of His unconditional, infinite love for me.


Some who read these words may think: “Well, I’m glad that I never was the kind of terrible sinner that that lady was. This does not apply to me.” To those who think that way I want to say that the greatest saints are those who know that they “have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23). Take for an example St. Faustina, who saw what she called her own misery, even though most of us would probably not recognize any of what she confessed as sin at all. Here are her words from her Diary (#66):




“Truly, Jesus, I become frightened when I look at my own misery, but at the same time I am reassured by Your unfathomable mercy, which exceeds my misery by the measure of all eternity. This disposition of soul clothes me in Your power.”





I too am reassured by God’s unfathomable mercy, which exceeds (even) my misery by the measure of all eternity. Jesus told St. Faustina, “The greater the sinner, the greater his right to My mercy.” Sometimes I wonder what it will be like when I die and I stand before Jesus. I imagine that I will strongly feel that I do not deserve to go to heaven. At the same time, I will believe that:

“…God sent the Son into the world, not to condemn the world, but that the world might be saved through Him.” (John 3:17)

 

My hope is that my prayer will continue to be: “Jesus, I trust in You.” My hope is that I will continue to totally trust in His mercy, surrendering all of myself to Him.


Here is a recent journal entry:


Dear Father,


Do You want to say anything to me about You as my glory? I had an image of the Father as a brilliant light shining in the Heart of Jesus. My thought is that You, Father, shine in Jesus’ Heart in the same way that Jesus shines in my heart, and, by extension, that, when Jesus shines in my heart, You also shine in me (in Him).


The Lord led me to read John 17:17-26. The whole passage was intensely anointed for me, so I decided to journal about the first verse:

“Sanctify them in the truth; Thy word is truth.” (v. 17)

Dear Father,


That whole Scripture passage is intensely anointed for me, almost every word. What do You want to say to me through the first verse, Father? He responded: “You are being sanctified.” Thank You, Father. I want for the little handmaids, my sisters in Jesus and Mary, to also be sanctified.


Will You speak to me about that, Father? He responded: “That is My desire that you are experiencing in your heart.” Is there anything else I need to do to help you to bring that about? He responded: “I am bringing it about through you. You are putty in My hands.”


Jesus is “Thy Word,” Father. Do You want to speak to me about this? I had an image of me, a little child, sitting cross-legged on the ground beside the manger. I am smiling the joyful, care-free way that only children can smile. The Father says, “Just be with Him.” Please give me that grace, to “just be with Him.” I think I have so much worry and anxiety in me, still.


How can I let go of the anxiety and worry, Father? Again He said, “Just be with Him.” Okay, Father, I’ll try.

 

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 “But Thou, O Lord, art…the lifter of my head.”

 

Jesus is the lifter of my head. He is the one who encourages and strengthens me in the most difficult circumstances of my life.


Without faith in God we feel utterly alone. I remember once, when I was about 25 years old, that I was living alone in a furnished room in New Orleans. There was only one door leading into the room, and I didn’t have a telephone. I was lying in my bed half asleep one day, and I thought I heard someone jiggling the doorknob on my door. Still in the half-sleep state, I was frightened, and I remember thinking that, since I no longer believed in God, I had no one to call upon for help. Fortunately, when I woke up, I found that there was no one outside my door in that dangerous neighborhood where I lived. It was one of several times in my young adulthood that I felt totally alone in a very frightening or traumatic situation. Without faith in God, even those who have supportive families can sometimes feel completely alone when facing the most frightening or painful events in their lives, like the death of a spouse or a child.

Through faith in Christ difficult times in our lives can become opportunities for sweet intimacy with Jesus, as revealed in this beautiful experience that I share in my reflection called “The Beloved” (www.sorrowfulmother.net/the-beloved.html). This is an excerpt from it, describing a profound spiritual experience that I had while trying to comfort my daughter, Sofia:


 

…Sofia is still a little child, developmentally. Her life is still very much a challenge for her, and for my husband and me. Several weeks ago my husband was working all night, and so Sofia and I were alone at our house. At 4:30 in the morning I woke up to Sofia’s scream, and I went immediately to her bed, where she was whining loudly. Without knowing what the problem was, since she cannot tell me, I tried to calm her by speaking to her soothingly. She screamed again and hit me. I think she may have had a nightmare.

And so, I sat next to her and prayed for her. After a little while I began praying the Divine Mercy chaplet. “For the sake of His sorrowful Passion, have mercy on us and on the whole world.” This is my “urgent need” prayer, because Jesus told St. Faustina that we can obtain anything that is God’s will through praying this chaplet, if we trust in Him as we pray it. I was meditating on the sorrowful mysteries as I prayed it, and when I got to the fourth mystery—Jesus carries His Cross—a powerful image came to me, and I experienced the Lord’s presence through that image.

In that image Jesus was sitting on the ground underneath His Cross, too tired to get up, and I was sitting next to Him, feeling the same way. In the image Jesus and I rested our heads against each other’s, and I felt one with Him in our suffering. I cannot describe to you the consolation that I felt through that experience. As I was experiencing this, Sofia became totally calm, and Sofia and I were both able to go back to sleep.

“Surely He has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows; yet we esteemed Him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted.” (Isaiah 53:4)

I have been pondering that image ever since. It occurred to me that I only saw one Cross in the image, and I wondered why I didn’t see my cross and Sofia’s cross. The Lord has given me the understanding that, when we share our suffering with Him, there is only one cross: the Cross of Jesus Christ.

"Love is also the fullest source of the answer to the question of the meaning of suffering. This answer has been given by God to man in the Cross of Jesus Christ. (apostolic letter “On the Christian Meaning of Human Suffering” (#13) by Blessed John Paul II)

 

As a little handmaid of Our Sorrowful Mother, Our Lord, through Our Lady, calls us to share with others the comfort we have received from Them.

 

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our affliction, so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God.  For as we share abundantly in Christ's sufferings, so through Christ we share abundantly in comfort too. If we are afflicted, it is for your comfort and salvation; and if we are comforted, it is for your comfort, which you experience when you patiently endure the same sufferings that we suffer. Our hope for you is unshaken; for we know that as you share in our sufferings,

you will also share in our comfort. (2 Corinthians 1:3-7)

 

My sisters, as little handmaids, we are called to comfort others primarily through contemplative, compassionate intercession for all of our suffering brothers and sisters. May God grant us to grow in this our charism!

 

Into His Marvelous Light

(through Mary’s Seven Sorrows)

 

“But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God's own people, that you may declare the wonderful deeds of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.” (I Peter 2:9)

 

Preface

 

In 1992, the year that I returned to the Catholic Church after being separated from it for almost thirty years, I went through ten months of counseling with a Dominican sister to help me come to that decision to “come home.” Part of the process of that counseling was a powerful beginning of the healing of my heart and soul from the wounds of four abortions that I had had as young woman.

As I stated, it was a very powerful beginning in which I actually experienced the presence of God loving me. When I ended my counseling relationship with Sister, I immediately had a strong sense that God was calling me to share the story of my spiritual journey—the story of His infinite Mercy—and  I began to write it. When I shared the first couple chapters with two Catholic friends of mine, they immediately said, “No, don’t ever share this with anyone else!” I knew that they wanted to protect me from being condemned by others, and I was afraid to share it with anyone else.

However, I continued to experience a deep inner sense that the Lord wanted me to share my testimony with others. Yet I was deeply conflicted about it, so I prayed and prayed, asking the Lord over and over again if He truly wanted me to share my story with others.

One night I had a dream that I was kneeling at the end of Mass, making the Sign of the Cross very reverently, bowing my head before the Lord. Then I looked to my left across the aisle from me, and I saw a monk. His name, I knew, was Brother Raphael, and he was looking at me very intensely. Then, in an instant, he was standing behind me, saying, “Be in the world in the truth of your life. Christianity is your master.”

 

Since these words came at the end of the Mass, I saw them, when I pondered the dream, as the “dismissal,” which is also the “sending forth” of us as disciples to share with others what the Lord has so generously given to us—Himself! I believe that the Lord was communicating to me that the way to love and serve Him was to “be in the world in the truth of my life, who is Jesus Christ; not to be concerned about what the world thought of His plan for me.

 

For many years I struggled to write a book about my spiritual journey. At first I would write a couple pages and then throw them away, sure that my writing was not any good, and ashamed to share the story of my life with others.

My healing journey continued, and the more I healed, the more I was able to accept writing about and sharing the story of my spiritual journey with others. I would go for months without writing, but I stopped throwing away the chapters.

A few years ago I completed my first spiritual autobiography, and I submitted it to several Catholic publishing companies, but none of them were interested in publishing it. One editor was kind enough to write and say, “Don’t stop writing,” even though, she said, they were not publishing that kind of book at that time. The spiritual director that I had at that time said, “Well, maybe the Lord just wanted you to write it for your own healing. Let go of it now.” It was disappointing, but I let go of it, giving thanks that I had received a lot of healing from the writing of it.

Then in the last three years the Lord started communicating to me again to write a book about my spiritual journey. “Why would I do that?” I thought, with some irritation. “No one would want to publish it.”

Recently the Lord has become more urgent and intense in His direction to me to write the book. One morning, when I began to pray, an image came of Ecce Homo, Jesus standing—mostly naked, bleeding from large gashes all over his body, crowned with thorns—before the crowd who had gathered to condemn Him. His hands were tied, and He said in a frustrated tone: “My hands are tied!” My heart sank, because I guessed correctly that I was the one who had tied His hands.  “Your hands are tied about what, Lord?” I asked Him in my journal. He answered: “It is important that you share your testimony…Share it in every way that you can share it. I am speaking through you. You are My voice.”

 

I called my spiritual director, and he reminded me that St. Teresa of Avila (a saint that he and I both love) wrote her Life in obedience to the Lord and to her spiritual director. “I admonish you,” he said, “to obey the Lord’s command to you.” The word admonish got my attention and reminded me that obedience to the Lord is not an option, if I want to love Him in more than just words. “If you love Me, you will keep My commandments”

(John 14:15).

 

As I pondered all of these things it occurred to me that I (as well as my two Catholic friends who had strongly “counseled” me not to share the sins of my past with others) had been like St. Peter in the following Scripture:

From that time Jesus began to show his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things from the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and on the third day be raised. And Peter took him and began to rebuke him, saying, "God forbid, Lord! This shall never happen to you."  But he turned and said to Peter, "Get behind me, Satan! You are a hindrance to me; for you are not on the side of God, but of men."  Then Jesus told his disciples, "If any man would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it. (Matthew 16:21-25)

 

 

And, so, “here I am, Lord,” finally beginning again to write the story of my spiritual journey, in obedience to You and to my spiritual director. You will decide what to do with it. I’m sorry that I kept Yours “hands tied” for so long. It seems to me that you are in a hurry for me to share this testimony, so I plan to send it to my spiritual director, one chapter at a time, and, when he approves it, I will send each chapter out to the little handmaids and others and post it on our website.

Father also communicated to me again that my writing is primarily for the   sake of the Little Handmaids of Our Sorrowful Mother, the women’s prayer apostolate that the Lord, through Our Sorrowful Mother, called me to found in July, 2010. Again he referred to St. Teresa of Avila, who had written her spiritual writings primarily for the sake of her Carmelite sisters. He told me that the little handmaids need to be “fed,” as all souls need to be fed.

So, little handmaids, my beloved sisters, I am writing this account of my spiritual journey with the hope and prayer that it will feed you: your souls and your hearts. I trust that God will call any others that He has in mind to be fed by it.

 

“…we have received grace and apostleship to bring about the obedience of faith for the sake of his name among all the nations…” (Romans 1:5)

 

The Catechism of the Catholic Church states:

148 The Virgin Mary most perfectly embodies the obedience of faith. By faith Mary welcomes the tidings and promise brought by the angel Gabriel, believing that "with God nothing will be impossible" and so giving her assent: "Behold I am the handmaid of the Lord; let it be [done] to me according to your word."12 Elizabeth greeted her: "Blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfillment of what was spoken to her from the Lord."13 It is for this faith that all generations have called Mary blessed.14

149 Throughout her life and until her last ordeal15 when Jesus her Son died on the cross, Mary's faith never wavered. She never ceased to believe in the fulfillment of God's word. And so the Church venerates in Mary the purest realization of faith.

May we, my sisters, in union with Our Sorrowful Mother and her Suffering Son Jesus, grow in obedience of faith…for the sake of His name among all the nations”!

Jesus and Mary’s little handmaid,

Cami



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Little Handmaids of Our Sorrowful Mother
www.sorrowfulmother.net
And Mary said, "Behold I am the handmaid of the Lord; let it be to me according to your word." (Lk 1:38)