Pierce our Hearts, Lord
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| Elver with a wood carving that he made for Santa Maria Magdalena's Home and excited his wife is returning home. |
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It is a challenge as
Christians not to have a hardened heart, not just for me a full-time missionary
living in the mission field, but I would adventure to say that the challenge
can be the same for everyone.
Today’s Gospel reading is Mark 8:14-21
The disciples had forgotten to bring bread,
and they had only one loaf with them in the
boat.
Jesus enjoined them, "Watch out,
guard against the leaven of the Pharisees
and the leaven of Herod."
They concluded among themselves that
it was because they had no bread.
When he became aware of this he said to them,
"Why do you conclude that it is because you
have no bread?
Do you not yet understand or comprehend?
Are your hearts hardened?
Do you have eyes and not see, ears and not hear?
And do you not remember,
when I broke the five loaves for the five
thousand,
how many wicker baskets full of fragments did you
pick up?"
They answered him, "Twelve."
"When I broke the seven loaves for the four
thousand,
how many full baskets of fragments did you pick
up?"
They answered him, "Seven."
He said to them, "Do you still not
understand?"
In today’s Gospel, we
hear Jesus outright ask his disciples if they have a hardened heart, after
hearing them discuss the fact that they forgot to bring bread with them.
Therefore, they were in the boat together with only one loaf of bread. Needless
to say, they were worried and I can only picture that they were squabbling
among themselves a bit.
Jesus questions them
about their lack of faith and asks “Do you have
eyes and not see, ears and not hear? And
do you not remember.” Jesus desired them to remember the miracle that he
performed with the 5 loaves of bread. Wherein he fed 5 thousand
people with just 5 loaves of bread and after they all ate the disciples were
able to collect 12 baskets full of fragments that were left over. The point of
the Gospel is that Jesus is pointing out the disciple’s faithlessness
and the fact that they still cannot comprehend nor grasp who Jesus really is.
Much
like the disciples for the last 3 or 4 weeks, I have been in the boat like
disciples wrestling with myself over the fact that I did not bring enough bread
with me. It seemed I was offshore with no land in sight, and I felt like I was
not prepared for the mission at hand.
You see
I felt a lot of anxiety and apprehension when my friend Iris called me crying
telling me that her husband wanted a divorce. She and her husband Elver
received the sacrament of marriage in 2021. I felt like it was my fault, after
all, I was the one who prepared them for the sacrament of marriage. Ha ha, what
a great job I did, I thought! I obviously did a really sucky job at that as you
can see. Then well Satan himself had his part in it, the prince of lies made
good and well with wreaking his Havok on me making sure he threw in my face the
fact that I was a divorced mom and how in the heck did I think I could lead and
prepare this couple for the sacrament of marriage.
I
started to doubt even my vocation to missions and even worse I forgot that this
wasn’t about me. Which of course was the slinky snake’s little deceitful plan
all along.
Praise
the Lord that during my prayer time one morning, I heard Jesus ask me if I had
a hardened heart. He said did you forget who I am? What I have done for you,
and what I can still do? Hearing those words made me realize that I gave up, I
did in fact have a hardened heart. I didn’t even take Iris’s and Elver’s
problems to the foot of His cross. I was in disbelief that “I”, could do
anything to help. “I”, jumped straight to the conclusion (with help from the
prince of lies of course) that their marriage was doomed to fail because “I”,
was not good enough to save it.
That
little sneaky devil, I tell you gets me every time. “I“, of hardened heart, was
faithless and I had forgotten how important intercessory Prayer was. It wasn’t
“I”, who needed to bring the bread, “I”, simply needed the eyes to see and the
ears to hear and to remember who Jesus is. All of a sudden, I felt
that Jesus had pierced my heart and my soul, like that of St Teresa of Avila
when an arrow of God’s love pierced her heart. My heart felt pierced with the
truth and the immense love Jesus had for not only me but for the love he had
for Iris and Elver.
It was
very much like what we read in Psalm 38:2 “Your arrows have
pierced me, and your hand has come down on me”.
With
that said, I wasted no time in bringing Iris and her husband’s problems to the
foot of the cross. Everyday I prayed for
their marriage and that the graces that they received during the sacrament
would flood their hearts. That the special gifts that they had received would
perfect their love for one another and that, it would strengthen their
indissoluble unity. CCC1642
I
prayed that Jesus would put everything between Iris and her husband in right
order and that he would make their hearts burn for one another again. I
fervently prayed each day that they too would experience a transverberation of
heart. A heart pierced with the truth of his love for both of them and for one
another.
An
angel must have indeed pierced their hearts with the Love of God because it was
just a few short days after I began to intercede for them that they both called
me to tell me that they had reconciled and that they were no longer fighting.
Iris had told me that she could not wait to return home to her husband. And
Elver told me that he just could not live without his wife any longer and that
he remembered that one of his many duties as a husband was to forgive and start
anew each day and that it was the only way that their marriage was going to
work. It was as if their hearts had been healed and made new again,
that in some mystical way, their hearts were both pierced by the same arrow
containing Jesus’s love and they no longer had eyes that could not see or ears
that could not hear! Their hearts had been transformed! Praise be to GOD!
May we
always remember that
Our
prayer acknowledges before God who we are and our need for Him: “we are
creatures who are not our own beginning, not the masters of our adversity, not
our own last end. We are sinners who as Christians know that we have
turned away from the Father. Our petition is always a turning back
to Him.” And so we “ask, beseech, plead, invoke, entreat, cry out”
for each other and all of our needs. (CCC 2629)
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| Elver and Iris on their wedding day in November 2021 |
Saint Teresa of Ávila Pray for us!
Saint Valentine Pray for us!
So that we may always hunger for the Lord and that he will find his way into the depths of our hearts!
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May the Love of Jesus Pierce our hearts!
Love Karen and Gabriel Del Castillo
Mission Post : Cajaruro - Utcubamba- Amazonas - Peru
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