Take My Hand

I looked ahead of me and I noticed the Utopian woman, among the group, she was the only one who chose not to take the Eucharistic bread. She knelled down and welcomed Father Danneker blessings without her taking the bread, her strange manner made me marvel.

Fortunately, I happened to stand beside her when we were ready to eat our lunch. She was a timid, demure, gentle lady. I noticed her already during the first day of our retreat because she was shy and always just around the corner. She only speaks when she needed to speak. Well of course, I can always empathize with her, because I am also like her but a little so out version.

So with that chance at hand, I introduced myself and asked her name. So we became acquainted right at that moment. And so, I guess you can figure out now what I did, I asked her why she didn't take the bread. (nosy as ever)

"I'm sorry for being so curious, but I just want to ask why you chose not to take the bread? and of course its okay if you don't want to answer."

She shyly smiled and replied to me;

"Oh no, its okay. It just that its been a long time that I haven't had confession, and I kind of lost my way for years, I don't go to church that much anymore and I guess I forgot about God and also, I have been living with my boyfriend for 5 years without the sacrament of marriage. So that's the reason why I couldn't take the Eucharistic bread and....."
She paused and hesitantly wanting to say more.

I gave her an understanding nod to keep on going for I am with her and intently listening to her.

"and.....my family is really religious and they take the sacraments seriously. So because of that I became accustomed with that tradition that I myself felt like its not okay to take the bread specially that I committed all those behavior without the blessings of the church and that I should cleanse myself first before taking anything sacred."

I held her arms lovingly and I then asked her, "What about you? What do you feel about it? What does your heart says?"

Her eyes moved like she was in state of confusion and trying to stone herself from crying.

"I feel defective, I feel that there is something wrong with me, I feel like a fallen angel that I don't belong, I feel like God doesn't want me because I took him for granted and disobeyed him. I feel like I'm a disgrace to my community, to church and to my own family. I disrespected God, my family and myself."

She didn't cry, her face were in a state of concealing her emotions and she blurted out helplessly "I don't know..."

I hugged her "You must be feeling awful."

"You know what? Come, eat beside me, I want to tell you some awful rebellious behavior from me."

She sat beside me and I told her my own story of rebellion.

"You know, I was married and I just got out from it but I am not going to tell you about the separation part. What I am going to tell you was when we got married. I was living with him for 2 years before we tied the knot and on top of that we got married outside the church, I should say at the court. As you know that is against the tradition of the church because we all believed in this kind of idea that the church is the source of all the blessings when we married someone and that the church should be part of it. "

"It didn't bother me for I know in my heart that God is everywhere whether in the presence of a priest, a rabbi or a pastor or a judge or whoever."

"And also, I never had confessions for years as well and add to that I still received communion whenever I am attending the mass. As sure as heavens, It didn't bother me."

"One day, I think a year after our marriage, My loving and godly friend in my religious community that I joined visited us at home, She was so nice to remind us the sacrament of marriage is really important. And she suggested that if we want, we can get married inside the church and they are going to assist us of the wedding.

"It was so generous of them to offer such assistance, but my Ex and I knew that Wedding in the church wasn't right for us during that time. You know that kind of instinct that we kind of knew already that the separation will happen. So we didn't want to rush ourselves and we didn't want to further any damage."

"I wasn't bothered with the idea of a wedding inside the church, until.... My friend mentioned to me that I CANNOT RECEIVE A COMMUNION BECAUSE ITS A SIN TO TAKE IT WHEN I AM LIVING WITH SOMEONE IN ONE ROOF WITHOUT THE CHURCH BLESSINGS.

"Of course I'm always ignorant with church policy and everything, but when she mentioned it, I felt that my blood got drained and was trying my might not to cry, while having the conversation,what's circling at the back of my mind was (So God? I Am not allowed to take the communion just because?) It bothered me."

"Of course I couldn't hate my friend for that information because that's what she knew and have been practicing, and of course, she had her own experience too of how God had blessed her marriage when she decided to get married inside the church. She was just concernedly relaying to me what I should do in order for me to get more blessings from God in a proper way and I was so grateful for the concern."

"When they left, I was crying my heart out. I couldn't accept the fact that I couldn't take my communion just because I committed such crime of marrying outside of church."

"It really bothered me and I wasn't able to sleep that night, my eyes were swollen when I woke up."

"I then went to the blessed sacrament that morning to pray and asked some bold question directly to God."

"When inside, I bombarded God tons of questions and one of those were (HOW CAN YOUR LOVE BE SO CONDITIONAL?)"

"Of course of all of my question, I never received a direct answers."

However, after minutes of grieving, my thoughts went silent.

The only feelings that I felt at that moment was how much God loves me.

I then thought that God's love for me is not conditioned by anything in this world. His love for me doesn't stop me from taking his grace through the holy Eucharistic bread and his love for me doesn't see me as a sinner instead a child that he love dearly."

"And I then told him. (Lord, I don't care if I commit a sin by taking the bread due to my circumstances, for your bread is my food, your bread is sustaining my being and my soul. So I don't care if you get mad at me which I know in my heart, you won't.)"

"So yeah, after awhile, I acted like I didn't hear It and kept taking the bread of life every mass because; what was important to me was not what the crowd was telling me but what I was feeling inside which I know was wrong in the eyes of the church society; in spite of it,  even it was wrong; it was giving me graces of acceptance and love from God."

"The reason why I just want to hug you right now is that I wish and pray that one day, you are going to allow God to supplement you with his grace of acceptance and love for you."

"We are Human Being built with our blisters and discolorations. Unfortunately we are in this world to blend in. If we follow the crowd, there is a tendency that we might get swayed, but if we follow the voice of God within us, He can guide us to the direction that we are meant to go without any condemnation of ourselves because the truth as I perceived it, is we lived to balance the Good and the Bad in this lifetime, and if we can't accept that fact, we might vanished in the crowd."

"My marriage didn't work and sure as heavens, our relationship went through the test of hell, not because we didn't listen to what the church says but because in my own understanding God allowed it to happen so we could gain more wisdom out of our experience. My Ex and I doesn't hate each other instead we love each other in ways that people couldn't understand and I guess that is because we allowed God to maneuver our lives without judging life."

"I hope one day, you will allow God to come into your life without conditions, and I hope one day, you'll find that small little piece of you to forgive yourself. It doesn't matter if we take the Eucharistic bread or not, what matters is how much we embraced God's love into our life. God's love heal if we opened up to him our naked wounds because His understanding is beyond our own understanding."

"Let us not be too hard on ourselves. Every little things in our lives happens for a beautiful reason. Of course I learned this the hard way, but thank God because of it, I get to accept it and I became more lighter on myself and I was able to see and feel God's love in my life."

"Honestly, When I looked at you awhile ago, I felt mercy on your soul, not because of the things that you think you did that gone you away from God but because of that burden that you have been carrying with you that prevented God from coming to you. You closed that little door because you felt that you are not worthy enough of his grace."

"God can only enter into our lives when we know how to let go of unnecessary condemning thoughts and feelings that is burdening us. He wants us to accept who we are as a human being, a wounded being, a sinner in every way so we can find that little piece of forgiveness that we deserve. Feven, God doesn't need to forgive us. He knows our  inadequacy to perfection. He loves us so much and its beyond any love anyone can give."

"I chose not to listen to some people and I chose to only pick that can only serve my soul. I chose to listen to my heart with tremendous amount of prayers because I know whether I do bad, I know God's grace is always with me, and that grace will lift me up in darkness; darkness in which I clasped in my arms"

"I love myself even on my ugliest me just like how God loves me, And you should too. Don't isolate yourself, blend with the crowd, be always proud of your scars, because those scars will be the light of God's unconditional love."

I then held her hands and asked,

"You are here Feven because you love God right?"

She nodded agreeably,

"So that Love that you feel towards him is enough. He loves us so much that whether we love him or not, It won't matter because He loves us more than we could ever imagine. We are talking about Unconditional Love here Feven; which no man's Love can grasp and I think God would ask only one thing from us, and that one thing is TO LOVE OURSELVES so we can love the people around us more and that love would expands on the farthest side on the realm of our reality. It helps us embraced the humanity of how they really are."

"Think about it Feven, You don't need to listen to me or anyone. Listen to your heart, because that is where God will speak to you and you need to really listen carefully, because the only time that God can enter into our lives is when we know how to finally forgives ourselves and to accept reality of how it is."

I smiled at her and told her "Cmon' give me a hug!"

She then told me "I feel so much better Sheila"

We tend to convict ourselves to things that shouldn't be convicted in the first place. The result of our malfunction as a human being is fleshing out this side of us of how much we need God and how much God needs us. If we didn't experience the bad side of life, how can we know God's unconditional love?

The consequences of our misbehaving decisions always leads us to him. A blessing in disguise that we don't even notice.

There are people in this world that is fortunate enough because their lives is without any doubt, pretty normal. and our normalcy pity those people who is living life out of misery because of the choices that they made.
Yet, pity not because when we are normal. Our knowing and experiences about life is also normal.  Depth-less and shallow. However, when we are tested to the deepest core of suffering in life, our intelligence is also measured by the deepest foundation of it because out of those suffering, it filled our soul a tremendous amount of kindness and acceptance to human kind.


Think about it =)