Transcription
Welcome to Metta, a podcast with the Sisters of Life. We invite you to join us for conversation looking at life through the lens of love. You are loved. You are made in God's image, and your life matters. Let's talk about it.
Hello and welcome back to Let Love Podcast. I've been pretty good. I just got back. Some sisters and I were in California recently. Parish got a little sun, but it was really funny. One of the things we did, we visited a school, and it was awesome because it was superhero day. Okay, that's amazing at this school, and we fell right in because we wear capes, you know? One of the best things I saw, I just want to recommend to everyone, is somebody walking with knee-high Superman socks. Okay, but the socks had capes. Anyway, just this little joy. Okay, that's amazing. Yeah.
Anyway, like, well, it's funny that you asked me that and that you speak about superheroes because I was recently also doing some traveling and was on a plane for a real long time. And so, yes, I thought I would tap into what the rest of the world is tapping into, this whole superhero theme. And I actually watched Avengers: Endgame. Oh, yes. It's like all the superheroes together, and I have to tell you, sister, I absolutely loved it. I totally caught the superhero fever, and I was actually amazed, truly, truly. Like, you know, the Hulk's compassionate heart, the sacrificial love, Captain America's virtue. I mean, they, I mean, truly. And then their unity, their striving for something for the more together, and that they all actually worked together to to fight this, this end battle, and it was beautiful. The creativity of the good again. I was, there's beautiful themes, sacrificial love. I have to, I will admit, I actually, I definitely cried. Sacrificial love. It was powerful. Yeah. The superheroes, yeah, they inspired me to be honest. And again, ultimate superhero, Jesus Christ. You know, but I, there's something to it. It stirred something with him to me. And I think, you know, I think we're all called to greatness. And I think we all know that inside of our hearts. We all know that we're called to a great love, to do something greater than ourselves, and to join together in that effort and in that, that battle. So I'm into it. Super into it. I'm trying not to invent my own superheroes on the side, but anyway, having fun and did enjoy it. Yeah, it was a gift. But and actually, it's kind of why I'm excited. I think there's, there's relevancy here to what we have kind of on the docket today to talk about, which is to love define us. Yeah. Define you. Yeah. Define me. Wow.
Well, maybe we could just jump in with a prayer. Sounds awesome. Yeah, I would love to. In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. Jesus, we thank you for your love. We thank you for your redemptive gift of love. And we ask that you draw us into your Sacred Heart, into the fullness of its mercies, of its peace, of its grace, its abundant, personal love for us. We ask for every grace of openness and receptivity, for great docility to receiving the gift of love that you've won for us on the cross. We ask for the grace to be vulnerable to your merciful love and to welcome it deep within our hearts, in those places that need it most, need it most to define, redefine, restore, and bring life to our lives. We ask in a special way that you send your Holy Spirit to anoint this time. And we ask, Blessed Mother, that you join us too, with your prayers, as we say, Hail Mary. Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death. Amen.
So, let love define you, sister. I don't know, where do we start? This is, it seems big to me. It was kind of thick, you know? It's, I think it's, I mean, it's such a great topic that love define you. And what actually came to mind first is the story, well, one story of Saint Francis of Assisi. And there was a man who came to see him because he had heard about how wonderful Saint Francis was, and he really wanted to catch Saint Francis in prayer. Mmm. You know, so one night, after Saint Francis thought everyone had gone to bed, you know, he, he fell to his knees and he began to pray. But this man was secretly spying on him, secretly watching him as he prayed, you know? But he was so moved and struck because all night, Saint Francis prayed one single prayer: "Who are you, most sweet God, and who am I?" "Who are you, most sweet?" I feel like that captures actually something really deep in the human heart. I think this is the cry of the human heart: "Who are you, most to be God? Who am I?"
Well, I think there's a lot of ways to approach that question. But I mean, I think just speaking as a daughter of God the Father, right? Someone who, like the Catechism, JP2 did it, put out a great addition there. You can tap into the mystery of the Blessed Trinity, and that's where you'll kind of quickly find yourself, I imagine, right? This communion of three persons, Father, Son, Holy Spirit. The Father pouring himself out, all of his love into the Son. The Son receiving this outrageous gift of love, and forth from this exchange of love, this total reciprocal giving, comes new life, comes the Holy Spirit, right? It's always baffled me, the Trinity. It's amazing, actually. It speaks to an incredible communion, three distinct persons, and yet one united, a communion. And to think we've been made in the image of this, this communion, this gift of love. I mean, that's spectacular. Kind of the gist is, originally, just the idea that the Lord God is a communion of love, a communion of persons, three persons, one God. Hmm. And we've been made by this communion of love for this community of love. It's all about love. No wonder there's so many songs on the radio. Yeah, it's because it's like the hue crying out because it's intrinsically, no matter how entrenched in darkness we are, whatever, wherever we find ourselves, there's always this cry of the heart reaching out for love. You know, every song you hear on the radio, basically, basically, what it makes a lot of sense, right? Because if we've been made in the image and likeness of this mystery, of this God, then I'm gonna have this, this unique, this place in my heart that can only be satisfied by love. That, in a sense, it's my, it's my origin, it's my identity, and it's my destiny. It's, it's kind of where I'm on the way towards, right? I hear it's actually the most quoted quote I hear, Saint Augustine, right? "Our hearts are restless until they rest in you, my God." You know, he had a pulse on this. And I think if we're real with ourselves, this is what we're after. This is what we want. It's love. Mmm. And it makes a lot of sense. It's kind of how we've been, we've been handcrafted by it. Mmm-hmm. It's stitched into our reality. And it's profound. That's profound.
You make me think actually, it's what you said was so beautiful, and it made me think of something that the author, Royce Schumann, relates. He's the author of "Honey from the Rock," a collection of stories about those who have converted from Judaism to Catholicism. But he was saying, doing his own process of conversion, he was walking one day and he all of a sudden had this experience realizing, like, "Oh my gosh, how much time I wasted in my life worrying about being loved at every moment." And he found, felt it very profoundly, "Every moment, I have been immersed in an ocean of love." You know? And that's, that's what we all long for. And that's the reality, actually, we're living in, like we talked about last episode. But, but like you're saying, it's what every waking moment, every one waking moment of our lives is pointing to, because God is ever-present, ever knocking the door of our hearts. Hmm. Never pouring himself on us, surrounding us with infinite love. It's tremendous. It is. It's just good to call to mind. One even, it gets me thinking, it's like, I don't want, how can I tap into this? How do I even begin to see this, right? Because, yeah, it's a struggle sometimes, right? But it makes me think of, well, I got to put on the right glasses, right? I have to posture my mind and my heart, my vision in a particular way, perhaps. And I want to toss out the word that comes to me is, I know John Paul II coined this in the document, "Evangelium Vitae," the Gospel of Life. I think for us Sisters of Life, it's like the fifth gospel. It's a really beautiful document, and it celebrates 25 years this year. This year, actually. And he speaks of this reality of the contemplative outlook, this this vision born in prayer, kind of carried on the wings of faith, enabling us and ennobling us to see a God who is alive in and through my life, in and through the person next to me, in the events that I face each day, the challenges I wrestle through, in a new creation. I don't know, a beautiful cut from that. He speaks that this is essential, actually, this contemplative outlook to building a culture of life. And he said, "Such an outlook arises from faith in the God of life, who created every individual as a wonder." I just love hearing it. Yeah, I love being thinking of myself as a, it's really profound to think of not just like every person I encounter, you know, the man sweeping the sidewalk, the lady at the grocery store, my mother-in-law. I mean, not that I have a mother-in-law, but, but yeah, but every person I meet is a wonder created by God. And I am a wonder created by God. I mean, that that totally revolutionizes the whole outlook of our culture right now, because we were seeing everyone else or ourselves as often through a utilitarian point of view. Hmm. You know, you are, your worth comes from what you can do or achieve. You, your, your breath comes from how good you are to me or for me. But it's, it totally flips it on its head. You are wonder. You know, there is such a thing as a Wonder Woman, you know, in the true sense of the word, and Wonder Man, you know, it's really something. In and of myself, before I do anything, regardless of ability, regardless of capacity, capabilities, I'm a wonder. And it's because of my origin. It's because of, of essentially this reality that I'm created in the image and likeness of God himself. Hmm. I'm an icon of the Living God. It's, it's an incredible thing to ponder. It is.
And even, I'm just struck, I was, I just find that so moving about what you spoke about, the contemplative outlook, but that God himself actually looks upon us as a wonder. You know, you think of Genesis, and after he created man and woman, and what did he say? You know, before was creation, was it as good? And as good? "Very good." And then after he created the human person, he said, "It is very good." He looks at us as a wonder. Hmm. It's a God himself. It's amazing, isn't it? Beautiful, sister.
Well, and even it speaks to what he did after he created, right? All the fishes and the hippopotamuses and the trees and the flowers, the sun and the moon, all good. Human person, very good. And then what did he do? On the, on the seventh day, he rested. He rested. And I love this document, again, from John Paul II, great Saint. He said, basically, the God, the Father, stood back and gazed upon all he had made with joyous delight. I don't know, that can break the cloud on any really bad day. Yes, God the Father is looking at me with joyous delight. He took time, the Almighty God, creator of heaven and earth, God took time, paused to reflect on the beauty of his creation. And I tell you, that's the word I want to keep. That's the frame, the gaze that I want to keep as I consider myself, as I consider the person next to me, as I consider my worth. Because I think, I think there can be a real struggle to feel like I have, or many can feel that we have worth and purpose. But to think I've been made so particularly for this time, for this day, actually, it makes me think of the reality of being made in the image and likeness of God, being called to conform my life after Christ, and through my baptism, this reality that my, my life also can be a living gospel each day, a page in scripture, right? Revealing love, revealing this, this beautiful God, He who is all beautiful. I don't know, I just like thinking about that. That's stunning.
Yeah, but I love that thought though, that my life can manifest the Father's delight. My life can manifest the Father's delight. And so, and that actually spills over. When you, when we can live like that, that actually spills over and blesses the people around us, and they begin to experience the Father's delight. Hmm. You know, like, I just think, like, kind of like you're saying, just just slightly before this, but to be able to wake up in the morning and look in the mirror, you know, different in the morning, like crazy or whatever, look in the mirror and to see, "This is the one whom the Father loves, and whom the Father takes his delight." Me, you know? "I'm the loved one." You know? And it's, to live like it's really something. I think it, it's a challenge, but I think it can be very powerful. It kind of like St. Seraphim said, he said, "A soul at peace," and I would venture to say, "a soul who lives within the Father's delight can save a thousand souls," just by this nature of the overspilling of that.
Well, this is getting to the how-to, because again, we're having a lot of fun here, sister, talking about how beautiful it is, but how do I? How do I live this? What does this actually look like? And I love this overspilling analogy here. Can that be true that I've been made not to kind of for this to flow through me like a channel, but for me to hold it? To hold God's glory, to hold God's love as a reservoir, and as I do, my life starts splashing others because it's so, I'm so fat with love now. This is where we want to go on the full binge diet. Yeah, the non-diet. Sure. We never want to fast from God's love. No. But how do I live that way? Yeah. Which, because it sounds like that's the way we've been made to live, and it's possible, actually. It's actually possible to live that way. We see that in the lives of the saints. I see that in analyzing my sisters. I see that in the lives of some of my family and my friends. They lived that way, and it's beautiful. What do you think? How do we do it?
I think it's a big and great question. Big, big, and great question. It's fabulous. Yeah. I think I was, when you're saying that, the first thing that struck me was the sense of living the overspilling love, receiving and it overflowing. But I think it almost requires a posture of poverty in the sense of, and this might be getting, we might have to extend this episode to another episode to talk about this more further, and that's okay, but compelling. But to stand before God as loved, but also to note, I, in myself, I can't. I cannot fill myself. I can't. I mean, I wake up in the mirror and look, and hopefully we see the Father's delight, but more often than not, I think often we can see, "Oh, I have a wrinkle here. I have a watch here." And we see all the imperfections, you know? But I think the first, and standing before the Lord in a spirit of transparency, guess poverty, the sense of transparency. Mmm. With open hands. And that's, it's kind of a bigger, bigger practical thing. But I think the first way to live this is we can often tend to live with our hands clenched and designed control, you know, and trying to prove ourselves, control over our life, control over how others perceive us. But I think part of this, and one might have to talk about this a little bit more thoroughly later, but just is, is turning those hands over and opening them to receive. And in a spirit of, "If my hands are empty, in a way, I don't have anything." Hmm. But also transparency. "This is, this is who I am with all my flaws and blemishes, and Jesus, I believe that you're looking at me with love." So I think it's not quite answering the question, maybe, but it's, it's a willingness and even a practicing, I think, starting to let go of the places that we're holding on really tight control in our lives, to be able to open our hands. That's the first step in order to be any kind of reservoir. You need a space to be open. Hmm.
But how do we open ourselves to, to God's love? You know, whether that be letting go of sins or habits or, you know, things that people have said about us. Hold on to receive more and allow ourselves to be that kind of, like you spoke about, that reservoir versus just a channel that we constantly feel emptied, so we remain full. Hmm. But even, sister, I love it. Hands out, palms up. It sounds like you're speaking to, "How do we begin this?" Because you're right, like, we're tackling a, "How do you eat an elephant?" Which, and I think what's, we're trying to eat right now, we eat it one bite at a time, right? And this first bite, it sounds like, is, "How do we dispose ourselves towards life?" And even circling back to this contemplative outlook, it's the way we look at life. But he continues, it's beautiful and it echoes what you were saying, "It's the outlook of those who do not presume to take possession of reality, but rather accept it as a gift, discovering in all things the reflection of the Creator and seeing in every person his living image." So we receive life as a gift. It sounds like we expect good things are coming, which actually is a profoundly humble disposition to expect from the Lord to provide, to care for us, and he's taking that responsibility. It also reminds me, kind of, we go back to the beginning, in the garden, Eve took, she grasped, she pulled that fruit down, much to her woe, and all of our woe. That was a pretty bad day for humanity. But praise be to God, he's always got another plan to bring about his good, his love, and his intention towards us. And verses, you look at Eve's hands versus Our Lady's open-handed receiving, "Let it be done." And not in a spineless way, not, "I'll float on the wings of the, I'll be a dust kitty, right? Just blown around by whatever gust of wind comes." It's not spineless. It's actually, it is an ennobling, anchored interior disposition of receptivity. Of, I would offer, filial receptivity. That we are anchored first and foremost in the reality that we are God's beloved sons and daughters, and we have a Father who has placed himself as a Father over our lives. So all those places I feel exiled, all those places I feel orphaned, all those places I feel like I'm not lovable because I really screwed it up, maybe I should let the Father talk to that. Maybe I should let the Father speak to that. And there it is, I, the image of a child. Right? I remember when I was four years old, me and my twin sister, we found flour. And while Mom found us about an hour later, and we had flour all over our faces and our hands and her, all over the kitchen and the floor. And I remember just offering my two little dusty hands to my mother. And God bless her, how graciously she responded. That she received me in that moment, accompanied me towards a deeper understanding that, you know, maybe there's other ways to spend my time. A God of love and mercy. And perhaps, perhaps that's something we can hit later on, yeah, as we've come to know who God is. That's one of the attributes that kind of flash behind before my eyes, his outrageous mercy as the answer to all my ills. Yeah. Tender, tender, beautiful.
So, I don't know. I think good life is good. And I think there's so much more to talk about. There's more. We're just getting a pulse on on what love can do for us in our lives. But I wonder, before we go, you got anything to add? Yeah, I would say, I, here's a challenge for you this week, you who are listening. I would say, pull out some pictures of yourself when you were a kid. Hmm. And pull them out and look at them for a while, and receive the gift of yourself then. You know, you're a kid and cute, and, you know, life was not complicated. Receive the gift of yourself then. And then now, you know, it's the same you, you're just a little smaller, a little chubbier, who knows? First, to receive the gift of yourself. That's that's my. Before you go, pull out some pictures of a little you. Amen. How beautiful. My goodness.
Well, what about you, sister? Any thoughts before you go? I really like that one, actually. Can't wait to go do it myself. But I think too, you know, it's all about relationship, is what I see. And I would say, pray for the grace of those three virtues that hold us, that draw us into relationship with God, which is faith, hope, and love. In a sense, yeah, it drives us into and towards God's very heart. And that's where we've been calling me to live. So that would be just a little challenge and grace to pray for. And that we need to pray for every day. Amen. I wonder, sister. Yeah. Yeah. Praying for for everyone, for all of you listening. And, yeah, may God bless you. Amen.
Father, we thank you for your love, for giving your entire self to us in each moment. We ask for the courage and grace to say, in all the moments that we face throughout this day, not "if" you're loving us, but "how" you are loving us. And we invite you, Lord, and ask for the eyes to see your love, your eternal, infinite, personal love for us. Father, we just entrust to you all the needs and intentions of our hearts and of the hearts of those listening. And Blessed Mother, we simply ask that you be a good Mother to us now and pray for us, as we say, Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee. Blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus. Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death. Amen. Our Lady of Grace, pray for us. God bless and keep you all. Let's say see you next time. This was Let Love Podcast for the Sisters of Life, a religious community of women consecrated for the protection of the sacredness of human life. Be assured of our prayers and learn more at SistersOfLife.org.