The One True Love

While on retreat, we focused on being victims of love. The whole theme fit perfectly with Good Friday, the day that we remember Christ's sacrifice of Love on the Cross. This is some of my reflection from the retreat. I would like to offer a special thanks to all my beautiful sisters and our excellent guest speaker who gave the talks and allowed God to speak through them!

"I want this love which men reject. I open my heart wide to the Divine Love. Let it invade me, let it burn me, let it consume my heart completely. Thus I shall console my divine Savior. Thus I shall die a victim of love, immolated in this ocean of flames." ~from St. Therese's "Act of Oblation to Merciful Love"

He is the Divine Furnace of Love. We come as we are and He will cleanse us by purifying our hearts. Sometimes He uses suffering to purify our hearts--He knows exactly what He is doing! When we broke off into small groups, one of my sisters prayed for God to purify our hearts. I looked down at my water bottle and read the bold word, "Purified." It was as if God were telling me, "Done. Aaand done!" In a sense, I felt the reference to my past heartache, that God has purified me of the suffering. I no longer felt it negatively; rather, I felt the effects of it, the change that God had made take place in my heart. I felt the wild roses blooming--flowers from My Love. But I also felt the reference to all of humanity: He has already purified us. By His passion and death, He has washed us clean of our guilt by His Blood.

A beautiful image given by one of our sisters: Imagine that you are kneeling at the foot of the cross with Mary, Our Mother. You suffer as she suffers watching the Blood of Christ pour out of His wounds, from His hands, His feet, the places where the crown of thorns has pierced His sacred head. These are wounds He received fighting for your love! Let the Blood wash over you, cleanse you of your sins, purify your heart. This is His Divine Mercy. His Mercy is greater than our sins, breaking down the walls of all that keeps us from Him.

"Don't you know you take His breath away? Because He is madly, deeply in Love with you!" He died for us out of love for us, Loved us until His last breath. His Love for us literally took His breath away! He is the One True Love! (Click on the link for a video to the song "True Love," by Phil Wickham--the perfect Good Friday/Easter song!) Let us seek to be His victims of love, to let His Mercy wash us clean and His Love to flow through us. He calls us to love as He Loved, to set the world ablaze with love!

One way we can do this is by praying the Divine Mercy Novena (for more information on the Divine Mercy devotion, click here). It begins today (Good Friday) and ends on Divine Mercy Sunday. I will be posting the specific prayers for each day on this blog (see "pages"), if you'd like to come here for a reference!