Unfolding Love

By Elizabeth Walsh

I recently experienced something wonderful about making a commitment.

Consider people before they make a commitment to marriage or make a commitment to religious life. Generally, they believe they have a solid understanding of what that commitment will be (the joys, the positives for sure, but also the possible difficulties and struggles). Once they make the commitment, the lived reality of the commitment gradually unfolds over time. And, when they cooperate with God, God participates with them drawing them deeper into the reality of the commitment, which far exceeds their original imaginings.

St. Max has a parish-wide goal to increase the number of people spending time with Jesus in Adoration before the Blessed Sacrament leading to continuous Adoration. I was asked to help with this, and I said, “yes.” After all, I visit Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament routinely according to my schedule, when I can fit it in, when it is convenient for me, when I am “ready” with my agenda. I thought what I was doing was good enough. Perhaps with this mentality, I was the worst person on the planet for the parish to have working on this goal.

After a few months, I could not take it anymore. I realized that I could not continue to be duplicitous in asking fellow parishioners to do something that I was not willing to do myself. So, I signed up for a weekly Holy Hour.

This commitment to a weekly Holy Hour, coincided with some spiritual reading that I was doing about Jesus being fully God and fully man. He has a human heart and experiences feelings like mine. With His human heart, He loves. He desires to be loved. He experiences loneliness and rejection. He is alone in the tabernacle most of the time. He is God with an abundance of gifts to give, if only someone would come to visit Him.

My human heart desires to love and be loved.  My heart knows loneliness and rejection.  When I felt compassion for the loneliness and rejection Jesus feels when he is left alone, I realized that I was being invited to love Jesus more personally, more deeply, and to demonstrate my love by being faithful to my commitment of a weekly holy hour.

Then, the reality of the commitment started to unfold.  Although I tried to pick an hour that I thought would be easy and convenient for me, it is not always.  Sometimes it is easy.  Sometimes it is not.  It may not be the best time of day that day.  I rarely have my holy hour agenda ready.  Sometimes I am very tired.  

At first, I was pretty embarrassed when I arrived to visit with Jesus because I was not prepared or at my best.   I have talked to Jesus about my embarrassment.  My heart perceives that He seems quite satisfied that I keep my promise and show up.  He seems to have His agenda.  He is taking me on a journey of His heart and teaching me about my heart as well.  The gift of this journey continues to unfold as I live the reality of the commitment I have made and allow love to fuel my faithfulness.

I encourage you to commit to one hour each week of adoration of Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament.  Be faithful out of love for Him.  Cooperate with Jesus through faithfulness and in your conversations with Him.  He has gifts to share uniquely with you.