THE HEART OF THE FATHER
Jesus came and stood in their midst and said to them, “Peace be with you.” - Jn. 20:19
At times in my own life, when I’ve faced real darkness and suffered at the hands of others, I have felt incredibly alone or even abandoned by God. The question has echoed in my heart, “Where are you, Lord?” But I often struggled to bring this pain to him. I regularly would try to distract or numb my weary heart as I sought to find some kind of rest or escape.
If my father, who is supposed to love and protect me, has abused me and people I love, how can I trust God who calls himself my Father, as he allows this to happen? God, do you care or do you just watch from the sidelines of my life with apathy?
Pain and sorrow surface as I’ve asked these raw questions. It has only been more recently that I have mustered courage to wrestle with the Lord and more genuinely face those very real places in my wounded heart and bring them to him. Through accepting the reality of the harm and consequences of sins against me, yet choosing—by God’s grace—to forgive, I have received profound peace and freedom. I’ve found that forgiveness is a process, and it is a choice I’m called to make over and over again. Mercy flows when we choose to love, to pray for, and desire what is best for someone who has hurt us—to desire heaven for them—even if they do not have remorse over their wrongdoings.
While leaning into the painful parts of my story, I’ve come to recognize a deep longing to truly know the heart of the Father and know who I am as his daughter. And slowly, I have been growing to trust him more with my heart and my wounds. Even simply praying, “Jesus, I trust in you,” throughout my day has been a huge help to me on this journey of trust.
While God does not promise to bring us out of our suffering, he does promise to draw near and be with us in it. As the psalmist from today’s readings professes, “My strength and my courage is the Lord, and he has been my savior.” Wherever we find ourselves, whatever pain we have faced or hurts we have endured, the Father will never abandon us. He fights for us. He fights for us on the cross. It is on the cross that Jesus shows us the heart of the Father. The cross sings of the Father’s reckless love and pursuit of our own hearts. He does know the pain caused by our own sins, but he also intimately knows and bears the wounds we carry from others’ sins against us.
Just as Jesus came in mercy, saying, “Peace be with you,” to the apostles hiding behind locked doors, the risen Jesus comes to us behind our own locked doors and seeks to offer us peace. And just as Jesus came to Thomas and said, “Put your finger here and see my hands, and bring your hand and put it into my side, and do not be unbelieving, but believe,” Jesus invites us to touch his wounds as he touches ours and to believe that he is who he says he is—that he is our Lord and our God, that he is the restorer of our souls, and that he offers us hope and the promise of new life.
As Peter says, “his great mercy gave us a new birth to a living hope,” we know that the story does not end with the cross. So, even when we feel far from God and “may have to suffer through various trials,” we can trust that Jesus bears all with us and brings us the hope of resurrection.
Just as mercy and life gushed forth from Jesus’ pierced heart on the cross, life and love and mercy can flow through our own wounded hearts when we bring them to the heart of the Father, the very one who made us and delights in us.
On this Divine Mercy Sunday and every day, let’s dare to hope. Let’s dare to place our trust in the overwhelming, never-ending, reckless love and mercy of a Father who constantly pursues our hearts and the hearts of the very people who have hurt us most. Let’s dare to be his mercy and peace in a hurting world.
I enjoy praying with the song, “Reckless Love,” which speaks of the Father’s great love for us.
The Chaplet of Divine Mercy is a powerful prayer asking for the Lord’s mercy.
Who is God inviting me to forgive? In what ways can I be an instrument of mercy, hope, and peace to the people in my life?
Maria Biggi