So thank you for bearing with me and for taking a moment to read this post today.
If someone were to tell me during my time at Belmont that Justin Bieber and Kanye West would be the reason why I returned to public writing about the Christian Life, I would have told them that they were crazy. But it's true. I will write more about their impact in future posts, but there is one thing I would like to point out before I get to the point of this post:
Both of these artists give credit to their marriages for their deeper conversion.
But I am getting ahead of myself.
Told people God was my mission
What have you been hearin' from the Christians?
They'll be the first one to judge me
Make it feel like nobody love me
Make you feel alone in the dark and you'll never see the light
Man, you're never seein' home and you never see the domes
~Hands On, Kanye West
This quote from Hands On, which this post got its name from, is the reality of what so many people experience in our faith community. Regardless of denomination, I have heard countless stories of souls that either were never accepted or lost their sense of belonging over time. Some were more understandable situations, but others were just this slow progression of not belonging.
I don't want to make excuses.
I don't want to make this some adolescent vent session about how lonely I felt in the Church, nor do I want to sound like I am accusing anyone. (Please Note: I am not condoning sinful activities that distance oneself from God though. I want you to know that the Sacrament of Confession is there to bring you Home. You are always welcome in the Father's House.)
I am writing this to tell each and every lost soul I can reach that you are truly loved and that you belong, no matter what this cruel world may be trying to tell you.
I am writing this to tell y'all that True Love is real, and you were made to love and be loved.
Just because you do not fit in now does not mean that you will walk in to Heaven lonely.
This for everyone who has felt unwelcome in their parish, for everyone who felt excluded from their Alpha small groups for not knowing as much or for knowing too much, for everyone who was judged for a particular devotion, for everyone who was judged for using one form of NFP over another, for everyone who is out there, sitting in the pews of their church or standing in their congregation or bowing before the Blessed Sacrament, crying out to Jesus for an answer as to why they no longer feel like they belong in His Mystical Body.
True Love is real, and He is in your midst in every moment, loving you exactly where you are.
Allow me to share an example from what may be one of the happiest memories of my adult life:
It was 2:30am, and I was trying not to scream from the pain of my stomach acid burning in my esophagus and my intestines. Because Shawn giving me a hug was the only thing that deterred the pain, he suggested that we moved to the living room so as to not end up falling asleep in a bed together.
"Shawn we can't do that!" I blubbered from my guest bed in Tampa, "They'll judge you. You'll lose your friends. I can't do that to you."
"No they won't, Felicity," Shawn said sternly, "They love you."
"They won't after this!" I cried. After the amount of rejection I faced from people before for "not just sucking it up," I couldn't help but fear the worst. I didn't want Shawn's friends to start rejecting him because of me and my weirdness as I've heard said about me before.
However, exhaustion and a desire to live a chaste life won me out, and we ended up in the living room.
I awoke to the sound of pots and pans moving about in the kitchen behind me. Shawn looked so peaceful, and I wanted to be as peaceful as my beloved. Sadly, my anxiety took over at the thought of our friend in the kitchen. He could see us. He probably heard me the night before. I was going to get that disapproving look I knew too well, and soon enough we would no longer be welcome with this family that reminded me so much of my own.
I knew that I couldn't continue to pretend sleeping, so I swallowed the acid in my throat and turned to look at our friend.
There have been many grace-filled moments in my life, but what happened next might be one of the happiest moments of my entire life.
He smiled at me.
I don't know why he smiled. I don't know if he was just happy to see Shawn finally resting with his future wife, if he was just being polite, or if he was just happy to see me. Regardless of the exact reason, someone smiled at me as I did my best to bear the cross my Jesus entrusted to me. Someone recognized Christ's Sacrificial Love in my Shawn's suggestion to rest on the couch after a night of suffering and didn't judge me for not bearing everything in silence on my own.
Every time I was rejected by my peers, by my mentors, by my attempted Spiritual Directors, by Confessors, by anyone really...
I remembered that smile.
And I knew that I must belong to the Church as a whole.
Not because I was perfect, but because I was striving to live a life of holiness in spite of my suffering. Not because I knew the answers, but because I was willing to listen and learn from Christ and His Servants. Not because I was the perfect girlfriend/promised/fiancée/wife, but because I was willing to let my Shawn lead me as best he could and received as best I could.
I know it sounds like I got a lot from that smile, probably more than what was intended, but that's because the smile was a reflection of something greater.
It was a reflection of Christ's Merciful Love, the love He holds in His Most Sacred Heart for every single person He created.
The Church is filled with sinners. We're all sinners. We all suck at loving each other well. God knows that, but He doesn't want us to allow our past hurts to stop us from loving one another. In fact, He calls us to love our enemies, to turn the other cheek, to go the extra mile...even for the people persecuting us.
Not because we're supposed to be passive punching bags.
But because we need to show the world that True Love, unconditional love, is real.
And that love comes from Him.
Know that you are not alone, Dear Reader. Heaven is filled with Saints that felt out of place in their faith community. Heaven is filled with Saints that were even ignored by the Church or rejected for their particular devotions. The Doctors of the Church: Sts. Teresa of Avila and John of the Cross were outright rejected and hated for their desire to reform the Carmelite order. St. Faustina was rejected by so many, even after her death. Heaven is filled with Saints that didn't belong, that never really belonged, but they knew one thing:
"I made known to them your name and I will make it known, that the love with which you loved me may be in them and I in them." ~John 17:26
They knew that all love, any love, was a reflection of Jesus Christ in the world.
True Love is real, and He is alive in each and every human being, no matter how ignorant or cruel they may be.
And when it is exceptionally hard to see...
There is something better: The Holy Eucharist.
Shawn and I took our seats near the back of the Basilica of the Sacred Heart so as to not disturb the d'Nicola Conference attendees with our severe lack of church attire for Daily Mass. Shawn has a terrible shoulder injury from a car accident years ago, and it was acting up because of the cold. During the Offeratory Hymn, I used my thumb to make the Sign of the Cross over his injury and I asked him who we were offering up his pain for.
We were barely audible, but we were close together.
Seconds later, we hear someone from several pews back clamoring out of their pew. Swift heeled footsteps rush up towards us and stop right next to our pew.
"Hey!" a girl no more than 21 snapped at us. She glared straight past Shawn and into my eyes, "You are being totally inappropriate right now! Stop it!"
She grunted and walked away. Within a couple of seconds, I heard her continue spewing hateful things about me, including how it was inappropriate for me to be in leggings and how my hair was a disrespect to women everywhere. She couldn't have known that I had a gluten reaction that afternoon and basically limped to Mass, but I could hardly take it. Not because she was being a jerk...but because her friend next to her was joining in on the hate.
It was just like everyone who judged me for not drinking wine at events, for wanting to talk about Jesus more at faith events, for wanting to reflect more on The Paschal Mystery, for loving Vatican II, for believing in True Love.
So I started to cry.
Which only gave them more fuel to mock me on...the worst statement being: "She shouldn't even be in the Church. Gosh what a loser."
I wept throughout the Mass. Over and over the words "she shouldn't even be in the Church" rang in my head, echoing loudly over the Eucharistic Prayers and all of the hymns. No matter how many times Shawn tried to overcome the hate, there was nothing to console me.
Until I made my walk up to Communion.
I could hear the hateful girls behind us continuing their hate. They were saying that I didn't deserve to receive the Eucharist because of my behavior. I ignored them, because I knew that Jesus never rejected a sinner. He never rejected me before, and he would not reject me then.
I looked up with tears flowing down my cheeks at the Communion Minister.
He held up Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament to me and said, "The Body of Christ."
In the milisecond before I responded, I saw my Jesus before me. I saw my Savior, my Redeemer, and my Crucified Spouse. And in that milisecond, a memory rushed to the forefront of my mind:
The smile I got this summer.
It was not Shawn's friend that I saw this summer. It was my Jesus, reflected in one of His Children. It was the love of God the Father reflected by a soon to be earthly father that I received that morning. That sense of belonging, that sense of being seen and loved, was real, and it was far more than just a nice moment on a summer morning.
True Love is more than just something in ourselves. It is the emulation of Jesus Christ, who sees us from upon His Throne on The Cross and smiles down upon us.
Because He sees you.
And He loves you.
We will all face opposition in this life. Some of us will only experience external pressures against the Faith, some of us will face prejudice and disdain from within the Church. Regardless, we must always rest in the hope that there is at least one more person who loves Jesus like we do.
And when we see them, we ought to smile at them.
Because, as a later Carmelite nun and Doctor of the Church who never fit in either once said, "A word or a smile is often enough to put fresh life in a despondent soul"
I can feel it when I write, point of livin' in the right
If they only see the wrongs, never listen to the songs
Just to listen is a fight, but you booked me for the fight
~Hands On, Kanye West
God Bless,
Felicity
