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About twenty years ago, I was at a Mass celebrated by Fr. Richard McAlear, OMI (frmac.org), a well-known priest with the gift and charism of healing. Fr. McAlear prayed over each person who came forward and spoke a few words with them. When it was my turn, Father held my face, looked into my eyes and saw.
He began to smile and lightly chuckled. He said, “You love Jesus and desire to follow Him. But sometimes you get scared and just want to cut and run.” He kept looking at me with that gentle smile. I said, “But where would I go?” referring to this exchange between Jesus and St. Peter:
Jesus then said to the Twelve, “Do you also want to leave?” Simon Peter answered him, “Master, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life. We have come to believe and are convinced that you are the Holy One of God.” (Jn. 6:67-68)
Fr. McAlear nodded slowly, and with his face turning more solemn said, “Pray for courage and strength, courage and strength.” He patted my cheek lightly and went on to the next soul.
I cannot convey the depth of power those few words, that brief exchange, have had in my life. Jesus gave Fr. McAlear insight into my two biggest problems: lack of trust in God and an inability to persevere in difficult situations. Ever since that day, when confronted with these two important weaknesses, I recall Fr. McAlear’s words, I stop what I am doing and pray, asking Jesus for more courage and strength, courage and strength.
My Vocation Is…
St. Therese of Lisieux, after a long struggle to discover what her life as a Carmelite was about, famously said, “My vocation is love!” If she couldn’t be a missionary or a soldier or a priest or any of the other things her wildly generous heart wished to be, she realized that she was to be love burning brightly inside the cloister.
“At last I have found my vocation. In the heart of the Church, I will be Love!”
One of the reasons St. Therese’s revelation is so important to each member of the Body of Christ is because her vocation is also ours. We are all called to be love in the midst of whatever else God calls us to be and to do.
That “whatever else” is a difficult matter, one that requires hours of prayer and discernment by anyone serious about the spiritual life. But the heart of our vocation is to be who God created us to be, shedding our own and others’ expectations which comprise a false self. This is an important step in becoming the unique person God had in His mind’s eye when He first thought of us.
Together this vocation to be love and this work of becoming our true self allow the person God intended to emerge. That person is needed and irreplaceable in the world. If we do not choose to be love and shed the false self, then the world will lack what God intended it to have.
Can You Receive Love?
St. Therese had a gift for receiving love. She allowed herself to be cared for to such an extent that she did not learn to dress herself until well past normal age. No hard exterior of self-protection formed on St. Therese’s soul within the loving embrace of her doting family. Instead, a uniquely loved and lovable person was nurtured and then sent forth to Carmel for God to do with as He would.
Are we as capable of receiving love? I know that often I am not. I have defense mechanisms and prideful barriers to love in place, though I wish it were not so. In this inability to receive the love that comes to me, even from God, I fail to become whom God created me to be.
I reverently suggest that many if not most of us have a need to learn how to be loved. To fulfill our vocation to love, we must first learn how to receive love. To be and do all God asks of us for His glory, the salvation of souls, and even for our own good, we must first let go of our protective mechanisms and courageously become the beloved. St. Irenaeus famously said, “the glory of God is man fully alive.” To serve that glory we must shed our false selves and become fully alive by receiving the love God gives.
Only in receiving His love, only in being His beloved, can we truly know God. There is no other way to know Love Himself than by being His beloved. All else is knowing about Love, about God, which is important and good, but it is not the same as knowing Him.
The love of God has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us. (Rom. 5:5)
This love of God has been poured out into us so that we may be able to receive it, live in it, possess it, and be it. We can do all of this only by letting go of the protective measures we have built around our hearts over a lifetime of injuries from others and from our own sins, faults, and failings. Letting go of these protective measures can only be done through the graces of courage and strength.
It takes courage to let go of the false protection we have created and be vulnerable to new hurts, trusting God is with us in it all. It takes strength not to fall back into old patterns of being that stop us from becoming the people God created. Knowing that God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, we will be able to respond to the graces of courage and strength.
If you recognize even a little of yourself in the face held by Fr. McAlear’s gentle hands that evening twenty years ago, then consider that his words, given to him by the Holy Spirit, may also be for you. You may want to cut and run at times. But like St. Peter and me, you know there is nowhere to go. Jesus is our source of all peace and love. Let us continually ask Him for the graces of courage and strength to become who He created us to be, the beloved lovers the world needs right now.
Dear Lord, source of all Love, please reveal to our hearts all the barriers we have erected to Your Love. Help us to let go of them by your grace. Give us the courage and strength to be the people you created us to be. Day by day may we live more deeply as the beloved and bring that love into your world. Amen.
Image from Wikimedia Commons
