My conversion to Christ is ongoing. Our Savior’s Love for us is so hard to put into words. What we know — and, can try to express — is that Christ and the Father and the Holy Spirit made each soul unique and unrepeatable. We are made by God to reflect the immense Love of God for sinful man. He is patient and kind to sinners, so much so that He expects that we who live in His graces ought to extend the same patience and kindness to others, beginning with our very selves.
Do we really believe in our Redemption? Are we gentle and kind with ourselves so that, in turn, we are gentle and strong toward the souls God places in our paths? These shorter days of winter can give us pause to reflect on the price paid for our salvation and on our own readiness to help save souls.
Winter is my hands down favorite season. As a born-and-raised, Southern women, I have always enjoyed the lack of leaves on the trees, the dimmed light, the shorter days, the inky blackness of the bare branches swaying against the often white-grey swirl of sky. In the South, summer saps you, but winter can energize a contemplative spirit. The very season here lends itself to quiet, to calm and to interior musings.
My conversion to Christ is ongoing. Do I believe it? Do I allow Him Who Loved me first, Who made me, to continue to bring me back to who I am…
…now, we are getting somewhere.
Now, we see, as did St. John Paul the Great, the poetry of who we are as members of the Church Militant. Christ shows us who we really are. He is the Bridge to the Father’s Mercy. We, in turn, are bridges of His Mercy. The times show a bursting forth of conversions and re-conversions to Mother Church. It is time for Catholics to storm the world with Christian friendship.
We are here as earthly pilgrims only for a breath or two, then we move on to eternal life. I see in the world, and even in the most “die-hard” worldlings, inclinations to value a higher Love. The recent elections showed that people want to trust again, want to hope. Hope that does not come from Faith fizzles and sputters. Like atheistic communism, it is human in its ideology and trickery. Souls are tired of being duped.
In recent times, I experience many personal encounters in my day-today life where I notice that there is an expectation of a Savior. Often this expectation is unspoken, undefined.
Nevertheless, people are on the edge of their seats about God and the things of God. Ungodliness has spent itself. Our culture and our people want depth, want truth, want the abiding Love of God our Savior in its fullness.
I see in my own faith journey how God looked at the mess I was making of my baptismal garment and stooped down and said something like this,
“Sara, you are such a mess, climb into the lap of my dear mother. She wants to kiss your face and give you to Me Who is your One and Only Savior. I Love you, poor sinner that you have been, and see you living better, Loving yourself and others as I Love you….”
I’m still a poor sinner but my attitude has changed, and it is truly an about-face-forward-march attitude that, with sacramental graces, with God, all is truly possible. If a hardened sinner like me can allow God to turn her life around, it can happen to anyone at any time. And, you, or I, could be the conduit!
Oh, how I could go on and on and on about the Mercy of God. I co-lead a Mom’s group in our parish on Wednesday mornings and a few weeks back, I said to the group that I was sad to see the Year of Mercy come to a close. Well, my friend, Lydia set me straight,
“Mercy is just beginning! We are not at an end at all, Sara! I am surprised to hear you say it!”
“Lydia, thank you! What am I saying! You are right, right, double right!!” The room broke out in laughter; we smiled and were happily quiet for a while.
Let’s, this winter, stop and pause.
The Mercy of God is flooding souls. As another friend of mine told me recently…she told me souls are drowning for want of real Christian friendship. Extending our hand out is to extend the very hand of Jesus. Our means for spiritual growth in Regnum Christi are simple. They are orderly and ordered toward the happiness of eternity now. Now in the dishes. Now in the apostolate.
Now in that soul standing knocking on the door of your heart. Won’t you please answer? Praise God for all those who answered me and helped Christ bring me back to myself. Grace is given to us for souls, souls yearning to be just who they are, just as God made them to be.
Souls.
Only souls matter. It is stark and bare like the inky black trees of a beautiful Southern winter.
