Focus – February 14th – Sweet Heart of Jesus!!
I would like to begin with a moment of silent prayer for the
Holy Spirit to come to each of us wherever we are in our faith journey from the
words of this focus.
Jesus is my truest love, my sweetheart, and this Valentine’s
Day He has asked me to tell you all about it.
Why am I up here again!
Many of you may be thinking, I thought she said she hated public
speaking. Well, I did say that and I
still do. Jesus is asking me to step out
of my comfort zone and expose my vulnerability, so that we all may grow in our
faith. He is asking me to trust him and gain
confidence in sharing my faith. After
all, during this Year of Faith, we have all been called to just that. So, here I am!
After the first of the year I felt the “push” again to get
up and give another focus. After our
Christmas break I looked at the five open spots that Stephanie mentioned in one
of her talks. I didn’t feel any special
interest or calling to any particular one, so I decided to think, pray, and ask
Catherine, who has helped me decided on my last two topics. I got nothing for weeks, but I still felt the
“push”.
I went on a retreat to Our Sorrowful Mother’s Ministry
(OSMM) in Vandalia, IL. I was recently
introduced to this beautiful slice of heaven on earth last fall, OSMM is a lay ministry
focused on prayer, healing, reconciliation, and mercy. They
have monthly retreats, and I have been blessed to attend several retreats in
past six months. I decided I would bring my feeling of being “pushed” to the
January retreat to see if Our Blessed Mother or Jesus had anything to say about
it there. Well, much to my delight I got
my answer. After the healing service on Saturday night, I went to the back of
the sanctuary and knelt in silent adoration. I had a heartfelt moment with the
Lord with my eyes closed, praying ever so hard about sharing my deep love of my
Lord with others in this Year of Faith.
When I opened my eyes, I looked up and saw this statue, King of Love (on
the projector). I heard these
words. “You have my heart, share it with
the world.” Oddly enough after that
message the date, February 14th popped into my head. A few days later I emailed Stephanie to see
if February 14th was still open for the focus and sure enough it
was. So here I am!!!!
My focus today is called, Sweet Heart of Jesus. I see this two ways, Jesus is my sweetheart
and Jesus has a sweet heart for the whole world. Father Denis, at St. Joseph, has taught me a
prayer that I love to say. It is only a
few words, and I repeat them often as a mantra.
“Sweet Heart of Jesus be Thou my Love.”
This is sweet, simple prayer that his mother taught him as a child that
has stuck with him for over 80 years. I
too have fallen in love with it.
So, just how did I fall so deeply in Love with Jesus? I have very little bible knowledge, very
little church experience, but I intimately know Jesus and Our Blessed
Mother. Over the last few years I have
spent many, many hours of prayer discerning my deep and intimate love for Jesus
and Mary. Only recently, have the puzzle
pieces started to be revealed to me, I would like to quickly share a snapshot
of my faith journey with you.
For the first eight years of my life, I grew up in a home
full of love and Jesus. We didn’t attend
traditional church due to some complications with my parent’s faith walk. My mother was raised Catholic, but was
quickly pushed away by her family and community when she was seeking to marry a
non-Catholic in 1970’s, Vatican II, hadn’t quite taken up roots in their
community. My father was raised a
non-denominational Christian, exposed to many varieties of churches, with many
broken souls. After many difficult
encounters with churches he turned to a more personal faith focused journey
with very little church involvement. My
first exposure to Jesus was not in a church, but through my father reading the
gospel stories to me in our family living room.
I remember vividly him reading bible stories to us directly from his
well-loved bible.
At eight years old, my seeming perfect life began to fall
apart. Over the next few years, my life
as I knew eroded away until I was left completely alone. The details are far too involved and tragic
to discuss in this forum, but in these years as I child I had to face the passing
of two of my grandparents, murder of an uncle, the loss of my mother and father
due to the grief they had to endure from these deaths, the abandonment of an
aunt who cared for me while my parents were grieving, loss of my brother from
poor life choices, and marriage and moving away of my older sister. I remember many, many nights alone in my room
crying and praying with all my might. I
realize now, that during these times I was always being held by Jesus and
comforted greatly by Our Blessed Mother. My spirit was being filled with their deep
love from within, without me even knowing it.
At the age of fifteen, I turned my focus on making my life
better by working hard. I got a job, did
well in school, and just pushed forward.
Over the years the wounds closed, they didn’t heal completely, but they
closed. I was able to rebuild my
relationships with my mother, father, sister, and brother and begin to not feel
so alone. I was blessed with many GMC,
including meeting my husband Michael when I was eighteen, at the local DQ where
I worked. We feel in love and within a
year we were married in the Catholic Church.
Jesus was leading me home! To the fullness of the faith He wanted me to
have in my life. Ten+ years pass, and I
finally have my big day with Jesus! At the age of 30, I was baptized, received
the Eucharist, and confirmed! I often
say, this was my wedding day with Jesus!
The last three years since coming into the church have received
too many blessings to count, in many different forms, some trials and
tribulations, others in the form of spiritual gifts, beautiful friendships, and
increased faith. The greatest gift of all is that every day I am falling deeper
and deeper in love with the Sweet Heart of Jesus.
One of the great mystery’s to me is that the Blessed Trinity
has enough love to share with the whole world.
Every day I pray to be emptied of al that I am, and filled with this
love to the max. I feel Jesus fills me
over every day, and with the excess He gives me, He wants me to share it with
everyone I meet. In the form of smiles, hugs, prayers, random acts of kindness,
and for some (mainly the teenagers in my life) tough love!
This Valentine’s Day I would like to offer up a special
prayer for everyone, today I pray that as we all travel together on our various
paths, we seek to fall deeper in love with our Lord and Savior Jesus
Christ. Also, that we can continually
seek to share this love with every person we meet along the way. In Jesus name I pray. Amen!
No comments:
Post a Comment