I Take off the MASK!

Grief and Healing - Download the eBook

“Arise, my beloved, my beautiful one, and come.” – Song of Songs 2:10, New American Bible

Love on earth will always be a struggle. Even with a perfect Spouse, one does not get away with tears, for the imperfect one will often misunderstand the other. How does one ever begin to understand the Lover who gives and gives no matter the failings of the other?

Oftentimes, all we need to do is to accept everything with love and we cannot even do it! We feel ashamed, we back out, we focus on our woes instead of focusing on the One who loves us. Do we think that love is always counting the cost and demanding of us something for everything we are given?

Far from it! Love does not count its gifts. Love is happy in giving, and it is grieved whenever we block its course, thinking it is always an exchange, something we should deserve.

If I really want to deserve love, I need only to recognize its generosity, its kindness, its desire to satisfy the beloved. I must not lift myself high, but allow myself to bow down low. I am loved. My Lover desires to bestow light upon my darkness, joy upon all my misery, beauty upon all the unloveliness I see in me. Is it not enough to lean with trust and to receive with gladness all that is given me?

Be comforted, for He Whom you have chosen as your Spouse has every imaginable perfection; but— dare I say it?— He has one great infirmity too—He is blind! And there is a science about which He knows nothing— addition! These two great defects, much to be deplored in an earthly bridegroom, do but make ours infinitely more lovable. Were it necessary that He should be clear-sighted, and familiar with the science of figures, do you not think that , confronted with our many sins, He would send us back to our nothingness? But His Love for us makes him actually blind. – St. Therese of Lisieux

“My daughter…why do you not tell me about everything that concerns you, even the smallest details? Tell Me about everything, and know that this will give Me great joy.” I answered, “But You know about everything, Lord.” And Jesus replied to me, “Yes I do know; but you should not excuse yourself with the fact that I know, but with childlike simplicity talk to Me about everything, for my ears and heart are inclined towards you, and your words are dear to Me.” – Jesus to St. Faustina, Divine Mercy in my Soul

Someone is listening to your prayer. Someone who knows you. Someone who cares for you and watches over you.

You may not know it yet, you may not even believe, for in His silence you may think He isn’t there.

But He hears. He catches your every tear.

And He weeps with you. With His whole heart He goes with you where all is painful and dark.

And when everything seems too heavy and impossible to bear, just when you feel you cannot make it through, He carries you. Silently but powerfully, He bears the burden you cannot bear. Your wounds become His, and by His wounds, you are healed.

You number my wanderings. You put my tears into your bottle. Aren’t they in your book? – Psalm 56:8, WEB

“A man should hear a little music, read a little poetry, and see a fine picture every day of his life, in order that worldly cares may not obliterate the sense of the beautiful which God has implanted in the human soul.”- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

What is beautiful? It is something which words rarely could explain, but which tears so often reveal so easily. Tears that come from the heart, and the heart, which alone can see.

Beauty moves us, changes us, redeems us. It allows us to have a glimpse of Him from whom all goodness could ever come.

We can’t help but be still when beauty comes to us. We have to be still. Beauty moves us, but beauty also captures our soul in a moment where everything is sacred, and where we want everything to remain as they are. They are perfect as they are!

It is beauty alone that gives us true humility, because before it, all other lights fade away and we remain in awe and in gratitude for Him who has allowed us to see His face.

Bless the LORD, my soul…
He covers himself with light as with a garment.
He stretches out the heavens like a curtain.
He lays the beams of his rooms in the waters.
He makes the clouds his chariot.
He walks on the wings of the wind.
He makes his messengers winds,
and his servants flames of fire.
-Psalm 104, WEB

We may give our human loves the unconditional allegiance which we owe only to God. Then they become gods: then they become demons. Then they will destroy us, and also destroy themselves. For natural loves that are allowed to become gods do not remain loves. They are still called so, but can become in fact complicated forms of hatred. – C.S. Lewis, The Four Loves

There is so much goodness in the love of another person. So much beauty and so much light! At times we think we have already caught a glimpse of eternity as we love another person wholeheartedly and without reserve.

But O, what pain when betrayal comes! What bitterness and anguish. How could the very person we loved break our hearts apart?

Have we not given it our all? Have we not excluded everybody else so we can give that person everything we ever had? Have we not emptied ourselves and looked to him or her as a god that must be served and adored?

Ah, but that is what we have forgotten. That though the love of another person is good, it can never equal the love of God. That no matter how beautiful it may be, it is still a love given to a fragile being, weak and vulnerable as we ourselves are.

It is always a blessing to love another. But let no blessing take you away from the One who loves you without measure, without equal, and without end.

You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your might. – Deuteronomy 6:5, WEBBE

A Beauty That Never Fades

I have seen so much beauty in this life,
I have felt overflowing love,
I have been happy,
I have been filled with so much joy!

But O, I have also seen so much hatred
and violence and apathy,
I’ve felt so much sorrow
that almost drained my eyes of tears.

I have seen how something so beautiful
could suddenly be corrupted, twisted,
decayed and left to waste.
I have seen how something so wonderful
could suddenly end,
and how something so precious
could suddenly be taken away from you,
tearing both your heart and soul.

What is this life worth then?
What does it all mean?

Why must darkness spoil the light?
Why must love be filled with pain?

Is there a way to restore everything
back to wholeness?
Is there some chance that good
might not end in evil things?

Only God holds the key.
From everlasting to everlasting,
the One who changes not,
whose Light has never grown dim,
and whose beauty never fades,
He alone can save
and keep what’s good and beautiful and true.

Left to ourselves we grow weak.
We turn love to hatred,
we hold something beautiful
and it soon withers away and dies.

With God however, all things are kept,
cleansed and made whole.

Sorrow turns to joy,
Suffering turns to strength.

We approach in ignorance,
and we leave with wisdom;
We approach in fear,
and we leave with courage.

We live forever in LOVE!

“The event of falling in love is of such a nature that we are right to reject as intolerable the idea that it should be transitory… Spontaneously and without effort we have fulfilled the law (towards one person) by loving our neighbour as ourselves. It is an image, a foretaste, of what we must become to all if Love Himself rules in us without a rival.” – C.S. Lewis, The Four Loves

The love of God can never separated from the love of other men because each of His children are called to be a reflection of Christ Himself. When we are able to truly love another, it is God also that we love.

We often complain that we do not see God, that we do not know how to love Him. He is there in our neighbor and our friends and our family. He is there among the sick, among the beggars, among those who walk in the darkness. We may not see clearly now, for Christ is hidden still in many. But one day we shall see when the fullness of light has dawned upon us all. In heaven we shall always see God because He is truly there wherever we may look. You will see Him in me, as I will see Him in you!

The chalice of benediction, which we bless, is it not the communion of the blood of Christ? And the bread, which we break, is it not the partaking of the body of the Lord? For we, being many, are one bread, one body, all that partake of one bread.– 1 Corinthians 10, WEB