” I say to you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you”
Mt 5:44
This Wednesday is Ash Wednesday, the start of the catholic journey of Lent.
Lent is a 40 day journey of fasting and the giving up of something, that you think you need, but in reality you never needed it to begin with. This journey will hit us with many feelings, and feelings that unless we understand totally, they are feelings that, will either turn us into someone we truly are, or someone that we truly are not. We all at one time or another, will experience the feeling of anger, this feeling will turn you into someone you are not, and most of the time over something small and meaningless? We let the anger take over everything we do, just because we really do not understand this feeling and let it control us. When someone or something angers us, we need to learn how to let it go and move forward better for it, or because of the anger, we now let that dreaded feeling of denial, control every fiber of our being, and through denial, is when the black clouds of the storm, hover over our heads, so we never see any light of salvation anywhere along our paths. Now I get things happen, I get that we all are not perfect, yes, there will always be someone who will cross your path, that for whatever reason, will upset you and anger you, there are also ones you know that will do the same as well, but when you do not truly understand this feeling of anger, now you will lose all the trust of anyone who may cross your path, no matter if it is for the good or the bad. When trust is lost, now this journey gets covered with deep dark clouds, that will cloud your judgments, as you can’t see clearly along your path, then lose faith in yourself and Jesus Christ.
There are consequences for everything you do along your path of this journey, but when you lose the trust, and the love, then all becomes suppressed so deep within you, that now you become someone that you are truly not. You will never even recognize yourself as you look into the mirror. When you suppress everything deep within, now you turn into the aggressor, simply because you want to take back the control that you have lost, you want to try to move forward like nothing happened, but do not realize that, this is not the correct way to move forward, and are only putting a band-aid on something that will leave a deep scar, as this journey keeps moving in front of you. The band-aid may cover up the scar, but it will never take away the pain from the hurt, this has to come from within, so you can heal properly moving forward, to be better and stronger with each step.
Empathy is another feeling that, when buried deep within, now you will never have compassion for others, let alone yourself, and when empathy is lost, so is the love of Jesus that flows through your heart and warms your soul, so you can share that love with all those around you. Without the empathy, you now can not forgive those who have hurt you, or the ones who have persucuted you? This is how you become someone you are not, let the hands of denial grab a hold of you, as now you go from the victim, to the agressor, and when in denial, you never see anything wrong with what you have become. Now I get that, there are some who will think that to forgive someone, will make you look weak? But on the contrary, when you forgive one who has hurt you, or who has persucuted you, only makes you stronger moving forward, because now you can heal properly, without suppressing and letting the hands of denial grab a hold of you, and even better, help you understand the anger, so you can have the empathy, to keep moving forward along your path ofnthis journey.
The anger only leads to much hatred, and through the hate, we will never know what true love is. True love is having compassion and empathy, for everything and everyone around you, and when you have the empathy and compassion, the darkness of the clouds, gets replaced with the true light of salvation, which brings forth, all the happiness and peace, that this journey is all about, and what Jesus showed us, as he walked his path through this journey of life. True forgivness is how we let go of the pain and the hurt, as we escape the hatred, to heal properly and truly feel the love of Jesus within our hearts to warm our souls, so now we can share this love with each other.
When someone comes and disrupts us, when someone comes and hurts us with real pain, and yes this will happen to us all at some point of the journey, this is how we grow moving forward, as we learn to let go, learn to forgive, and learn to love as we keep the hate in control, so now we can heal properly moving forward. This journey of Lent is there for us all to walk no matter of who you are. Jesus will never judge you, as well as, he will also never discriminate. Jesus loves us all, it is us who learn not to love and hate on one another, simply because, we refuse to understand anything around us, which leads to all the anger that brings the pain and the hurt that we bring to one another. I get the pain and the hurt can be so overwhelming some time, but through the faith in Jesus Christ as well as ourselves, we also learn that the pain and the hurt will also go away. Yes, the pain and hurt will leave scars, but, ” it is the scars that should never determine of where we are going, only help us move forward better and stronger”.
As the anger brings the pain and the hurt, it are the tears that help us heal, it are the tears that cool us off from the anger, so now we understand properly what the anger is, as we let it go, to move forward with the love, instead of the hate. Through the love there are no dark clouds to cloud our judgments, there is only the light of salvation, that brings us all the happiness and peace, to move forward throughout this journey. Anybody that says the tears make you weak, clearly does not understand of what this journey is all about. There are so many emotions we will feel along our paths, but none as important as, the feeling of sadness that brings the true tears that will heal us properly, from our iniquities. Some of us do not cry the tears, only because we are taught that it is showing weakness, so instead we completly show no tears, to keep us in a light to others of strength, even though it is the wrong light and not the light of salvation. Jesus cries for us all the time, because he is saddened at the way we are walking this journey today, we don’t see him crying, only because we have lost his faith and the faith of ourselves as well. You do not have to ba a crybaby and cry for or at everything, you simply just need to, get back in touch with your true feelings and emotions, then the right tears will help you heal properly moving forward.
In this broken society of today, we all are guilty of persucuting each other, we are all guilty of bringing the pain and the hurt to one another, If only we get back to our true feelings and emotions, get back to the faith in Jesus Christ, as well as ourselves, stop trying to persecute each other and bring each other the pain and the hurt, just maybe all the dark clouds of hate will be lifted for the, light of salvation, to bring us the faith with great hope in front of us along our paths. When we truly understand all that is around us, we than can feel the true feelings and emotions within us, which then will have us feel the warmth of the love of Jesus within our hearts and warming our souls, so we then take that love and share it with all that are around us. It is okay to have enemies, it is okay to forgive those who persecute you, so now you can truly learn to let go, and not bury deeply all that you truly are. Then you can look at the scars from the pain and hurt, to heal properly from them, cry some tears to give you the strength, to move forward along your path, as now you can walk this journey like Jesus showed us, within the peace and the happiness of Jesus Christ our Savior.
” Life will totally knock you down, we will knock each other down as well, but it is not how you get knocked down, as much as it is about how you get up from the fall and keep moving forward better and stronger”
” The light is always right in front of us, but we let the darkness hide ourselves in plain sight of one another, just to keep the pain and the hurt from hurting us further throughout this journey”
” When you truly fast through the journey of lent, you then will see that, it is really not about what you gave up, and more of, how we treat each other to end the hate and bring more love to one another”