Sculpting a heart room.

I  picked up a book that had been given me recently,  “Mysteries of the Virgin Mary: Living Our Lady’s Graces” by Fr. Peter John Cameron, O.P. Those of you familiar with the monthly publication “The Magnificat” will recognize his name right off as the founding editor-in-chief of that most excellent work. I rarely start a book at the first page, I am a scrounger, I search the table of contents, and then I peck and poke about, if intrigued I stay for a visit.  A quick scan of the table of contents prompted me to turn to Chapter 8, Our Lady of Sorrows. I skimmed through nodding my way through quotes from St. Bonaventure and St. Alphonsus Liguori until I came to a line…

“Our Lady of Sorrows surrenders herself to such excruciating suffering in order to be in solidarity with us. We need suffering in our life.”

On a purely intellectual level I know that, we are less than we were meant to be unless we suffer. But the heart quails at the thought, and the will rebels as it did in Eden firmly saying “I will not serve.” For that is what suffering is, it prepares us to serve others with compassion in their need, without qualification of their need. We so often place parameters on how a crisis should affect someone, what is allowable, what is expected, and feel magnanimous when we have been patient or generous. We even feel we have the right to set those parameters and expectations to someone, even when we have not walked in their shoes. When we have not received that phone call, have not wiped the blood of a dying mother from our hands and clothes, have not had the scent of death permeate our nostrils and cling to our clothes and hair, have not sunk to the ground, head buried in a sweater breathing in the scent of a beloved son, have not been surrounded with the “personal effects” of the dead person, a person who had been fully engaged in life.  Personal effects, it is such a tidy phrase, brings with it images of a shoebox, a ziploc bag, maybe a single bankers box. Not so much.

A week ago had I read that line I would have agreed, but not with my heart, only my head. Slowly my heart embraces the reality of yes, we must suffer. Fr. Cameron cites writer Leon Bloy stating,

“that there are places in the heart that do not yet exist; suffering has to enter in for them to come to be.”

Suffering makes room in our heart to look into the red rimmed eyes of a grieving father, to grasp the weathered old hand, to feel his pain wash over you to the point where it is now your pain, not projected pain, in that gaze of the heart there now exists a bond. That is a heart room that did not always exist, suffering carved it from stone and grace has quickened it to life.

Fr. Cameron goes on to quote Louis Lavelle:

Suffering cuts through all the appearances behind which we hide, until it reaches the depths where the living self dwells…It is suffering that deepens our consciousness, making it understand and loving…The real problem is not to find a way to anesthetize suffering, since that could only be done at the expense of consciousness itself. The problem is how to transfigure it.”

Yes, I say to myself when I read that quote, that is the theme that has been so prominent these past two weeks in my brain. Emotions come spilling out…frustration, anger, relief…reassurance, confirmation and consolation. Grief and those who grieve are not a problem to be fixed, we are not diseased, we do not need to be anesthetized…we will never, ever be who we were…there is a transfiguration that will take place and it is not always for the better, but it can be. Don’t expect us to have the same thoughts, the same interests anymore, you may find you don’t like us anymore, and that is okay. We don’t always like who we are either.

I feel a rare quality this morning, an energy, a spark of something. There is a sense of change coming, but it does not frighten me, nor does the fact that the energy may last for only a moment. There is a delicious freedom is shedding the dross of what was once thought important. It all comes down to “heart room”, do I dare have the courage to say yes to God to another addition, another carving of a room. I would be happy to have a small tiny shack for a heart, it is far safer, easier to maintain, and not so painful. But to allow the Master Carpenter to build a castle, to take out walls, to rearrange and construct a heart that truly loves, that could be a rare adventure.