TBC Easter Grace

          Upon reflecting about this past Lent and the beauty of the joy of Easter, I am still at a loss… did I really do anything these past 40 days to grow? Lent was uniquely hard for me this year. It has been a long time since I have wrote here so just to remind you I did the skirt and dress challenge, gave up my hair for the true beauty challenge instead of make-up, and a few different spiritual ventures to help with the journey. The physical things on the outside that affected my appearance didn’t seem too bad, but on the inside I felt a spiritual dryness that I never had before. A lot of reasons brought upon this distance I had with the Lord, but nonetheless it made keeping up with my Lenten challenges even more difficult. I was in the dessert where the Lord was tempted, within my heart. 

 

There were days when I did not want to pray, to go to Mass, to bring my pain to the Lord. Every day brought forth its own challenges and sometimes I could visibly see the devil putting obstacles in the way of my faith and thwarting the intimacy the Lord wanted to offer to me. I was aching and prayer was not, is not a magic marker that will fix everything, I discovered that during this Lent in a very real way. This is ok. This can be a good thing, the Lord works through our wounds. I have to keep telling myself that, repeating that. 

 

  I have always been Catholic, but my initial conversion that convinced me to “make my faith my own” happened around 8 years ago and was upon the cross with our Lord. Since then I feel a huge intimacy and closeness to Jesus within his sufferings. This Lent was hard to not feel him as close to me, to come to understand a little bit of the distance Jesus felt on the cross when he says, “my God, my God why have you abandoned me?” I was not expecting the distance, so it was extremely uncomfortable and many days I did not know what to do with myself. I woke up each day and tried again. 

 

To top things off after Good Friday happened; I had to work Holy Saturday morning…. Who wants to go to work the day after their best friend and beloved dies in the most brutal way through all of human history?!? Not me. All morning I was so sad, and just really in a funk. Jesus had died for me less than 24 hours ago, and I missed him so much my heart literally was restless and I wanted to stop living my life, roll under the covers, and wake up when it was time for Christ to rise on Easter Sunday. I couldn’t do that obviously, so I went through my Holy Saturday carrying the loss in my heart with the hope of the Resurrection right next to it.

While I was contemplating missing Jesus when he was in the tomb on Holy Saturday words from a homily I had heard once came to mind and I want to share them with you, as I think this is what I am seeking to learn from my Lenten experience, “do not let yourself be defined by your own wounds, but let yourself be defined by Christ wounds.” Even though I heard these words a few years ago, my heart finds so much comfort in them now.

 

I know my Lent wasn’t all “gold stars” or the perfect performance, but I know I was able to give the Lord the thing he wanted all along, myself. I had to forget my own battle scars and remember how the Lord covers me with his own wounds and fills me with his goodness. I am beautifully protected and cozy within the contemplation of the depth of his sorrow upon the cross to help shed light and understanding upon my own sufferings. It is not so much about what we chose to do more of or to give up during the 40 days, but how we enter in and allow the Lord to renew us. As we go into the Divine Mercy Sunday, I hope you are able to find ways to define yourself by the Lord’s wounds, and to be renewed by him throughout this Easter Celebration!

 

Wrapped in His Wounds,

Chloe