There are a lot of people, myself included, who are feeling burdened by life, by circumstances, by the cold, the snow, the gray … even here in North Carolina we’ve had a lot of gray days with no sun. I’m not complaining really. I mean, after all, I could be in MA! But the gray gets to you; it gets to your spirit, and somehow everything seems a bit more difficult. But when the sun shines … look out world!
I grew up loving the seasons in New England, and loving the way they fit especially well with the liturgical seasons of Lent and Easter. In fact, I think I liked the quiet and pensive solitude of winter and the melancholy of Lent more than the mud and lilies and lightness of spring and Easter. As I get older, I have to say, I tend to be a little bit more like, “Ok, Jesus, it is seriously time for you and the sun to rise!” And it can start to feel like I’m failing at being present to Christ in His Passion, neglecting to suffer with Him, running from my crosses …
But I’m trying to enter in to these last days of Lent; I want to console His heart with my life. And I’m reminding myself that it’s not those times I had great consolations in prayer, loved meditating on the Passion, and couldn’t get enough of Lent, that were the most efficacious. Sometimes the Lord allows those times and it’s a gift when He does.
But, as my old spiritual director used to say, it’s when if we had the “I’m done” card, we’d throw it down; when we feel like we don’t trust that God really does have everything under control; when doubts assail us and His loving Presence seems far off, and yet we still choose to say “Jesus I Trust in You” — those are the most grace-filled times. Those are the times that console Jesus and please the Father most. Because that’s when we draw close to Jesus’ thirsting heart and when we most resemble Him. That’s when the Father’s loving gaze rests on us as we fall imperfectly next to the perfect suffering Jesus in the Garden. That’s when we say, “I can’t do this, I don’t want to do this, but I trust in You; Your will be done.”
My friend Fr. Mike wrote a book awhile ago that I hadn’t opened in a long time. I opened it to this passage today and it seemed like a good way to end this; a perfect way for us to console Jesus and remove the thorns the poem speaks of in the video above, simply by giving Him our hardships and our hearts. May it give you comfort and purpose in the midst of the gray, a place to wait until the Son rises.
“When we discover that sometimes we don’t trust the Lord, we need not get discouraged. Rather, we simply need to turn back to him and give him our worries, surrendering whatever situation or difficulty might be oppressing us. A great prayer for this besides ‘Jesus, I trust in you’ is ‘O Jesus, I surrender this to you, you take care of it.’ By praying like this, we console Jesus and receive his grace. … Jesus himself told St. Faustina: ‘You will give Me pleasure if you hand over to Me all your troubles and griefs. I shall heap upon you the treasures of My grace'”
(Consoling the Heart of Jesus, p. 171).
(Taken from MercySong Ministries E-Newsletter, Issue No. 3: Trust & Consolation)
