The longer I am here at Maryknoll, the more I realize that the path that we were invited to and have chosen, is not easy. Once our eyes are opened to the suffering, once our hearts ache with those of our brothers and sisters who are forgotten and neglected and abused, we cannot unsee. At first, I was all jazzed up to be journeying with and learning from those whose lives have known so much suffering. What better place to learn compassion and the healing power of the Spirit? But it was reiterated to me over and over again, "You will see so much suffering...your heart will ache from all that you see...you will just have to do your little bit and be content with that." Slowly, my idealistic enthusiasm got chipped away and I was left with the fear of a 25 year old about to go off to mission. I realized how different a path I could have chosen and how different the burdens would have been on that path. In my mind, all of a sudden I was preparing for a lifetime of suffering, suffering with God's people, yes, but suffering. I wasn't sure that I was ready to carry all of those stories and all of that hurt. But, as God always does, he spoke. Yesterday, I met with Sister Grace and she called my attention to the passage from Matthew which says, "Come to me all you who are weary and burdened and I will give you rest." She said, "Do you think rest means that our burdens are taken away?" That blew my mind. I had always thought, of course rest means the taking away of burdens...but does it? She went on to say that maybe rest means that the Spirit kneels down in service to us, in service to our burdens. Jesus emptied himself to put love into us and to take on our mess of stuff: our hurt, our brokenness and to redeem it. We are made more whole when we suffer, when we are burdened and hurting and broken. It connects us more to our humanness and to one another. It is an invitation to go deeper into ourselves and to speak, act, and love from that newfound place within us. So I invite all of you to go a little deeper with me, to journey into the hurt and love from that place all of us know God to be.
The longer I am here at Maryknoll, the more I realize that the path that we were invited to and have chosen, is not easy. Once our eyes are opened to the suffering, once our hearts ache with those of our brothers and sisters who are forgotten and neglected and abused, we cannot unsee. At first, I was all jazzed up to be journeying with and learning from those whose lives have known so much suffering. What better place to learn compassion and the healing power of the Spirit? But it was reiterated to me over and over again, "You will see so much suffering...your heart will ache from all that you see...you will just have to do your little bit and be content with that." Slowly, my idealistic enthusiasm got chipped away and I was left with the fear of a 25 year old about to go off to mission. I realized how different a path I could have chosen and how different the burdens would have been on that path. In my mind, all of a sudden I was preparing for a lifetime of suffering, suffering with God's people, yes, but suffering. I wasn't sure that I was ready to carry all of those stories and all of that hurt. But, as God always does, he spoke. Yesterday, I met with Sister Grace and she called my attention to the passage from Matthew which says, "Come to me all you who are weary and burdened and I will give you rest." She said, "Do you think rest means that our burdens are taken away?" That blew my mind. I had always thought, of course rest means the taking away of burdens...but does it? She went on to say that maybe rest means that the Spirit kneels down in service to us, in service to our burdens. Jesus emptied himself to put love into us and to take on our mess of stuff: our hurt, our brokenness and to redeem it. We are made more whole when we suffer, when we are burdened and hurting and broken. It connects us more to our humanness and to one another. It is an invitation to go deeper into ourselves and to speak, act, and love from that newfound place within us. So I invite all of you to go a little deeper with me, to journey into the hurt and love from that place all of us know God to be.
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