Healing and Love

Thank you to everyone for letting me whine the past few posts about RS and GM over at The Hive. I had a wonderful priest say to me just this morning, "Maybe if these two men were doing this to a person newer in sobriety, they would cause them to drink. Maybe Our Lord is using you to protect someone else".

Oh goody.

Trying to be holy is a lot tougher than people think. I need to remember that I have a standard of behavior to aspire to which is different than that the standard held to by the secular world. I don't get to make up fake names and post half-truths on a blog site. Darn darn darn...I would be so much better at it then they are too!

But Mother Angelica used to announce to listeners that we are all called to be great saints. Well, what does that mean?

I think it requires certain things. A prayer discipline, for instance, where one prays when they said they were going to pray no matter how they feel at that moment or what might be on television.

I think it requires a fidelity to the teachings of Holy Mother Church, even if one doesn't always understand the ins and outs of those teachings.

I think it requires a commitment to a philosophy that must be encumbered: by Faith, by Hope and by Love.

I think it requires the Sacramental Economy of The Church and a willingness to be open to the sanctifying grace one receives through those Sacraments.

I think...well, I guess I know, that once one gives into the dark side of human nature it takes forever to fight your way back to the Light. The Father of Lies tells you the biggest lies of all - that what you are doing and saying to bring pain upon another is somehow justified. You hit me in the head? I slice your throat. You slice my throat? I kill your child. Each act is worse than the last but you are justified....the person looked at you with disrespect, disagreed with your politics, doesn't worship as you worship.

I think, therefore, that fighting back through the darkness means being willing to look at one's past with open and clear eyes, so that when evil attacks in the form of poor, sad souls needing attention, one is not afraid of being 'exposed.'

For instance, I have always been open about my abortions and how my pagan lifestyle almost killed me. So, a sad and sick man posting on an Internet site that I had 'four tax payer funded abortions' thinks he is causing me pain. No....but he is making it impossible for another post-abortive woman to come forward for help.. You know why? Because they see how he treats me, and then thinks, "This is how I will be treated if I come forward". And so they don't...and another post abortive woman lives in darkness.

One of the reasons I have decided to be honest about who and what I am is because I know there are women out there right now who would love to be able to come Home to Rome. They think they won't be loved, forgiven, healed and welcomed.

I can testify to the fact that Our Mother, The Church, wants Her children home where it is safe. It doesn't matter what you have done. It doesn't matter what others try to do to keep you in darkness and shamed. There is hope for your soul and for your healing and I stand here today, bloody but unbowed, with my arms outstretched and open wide to welcome you.

Don't let the Roberts and the Georges keep you for the Light. Don't let them keep you from healing. DO NOT let evil men keep you from being a Woman of Grace and Dignity.