Author: Lana Kaczmarek

“The Holy Spirit will teach you everything and remind you of all that I told you.” Our memories are so important to our daily lives and such an essential part of our ongoing living and yet they remain so fragile to us. Memories can be precious moments. The kind we wish to remain forever like a sacred keepsake but in reality, memories can also prove to be shattered hauntings that we pray will go away but seem to last and linger like a bad penny that never goes away but keeps returning and turning up when we least expect and desire them. A bad memory can be like that, always wanting you to take notice. Always wanting you to pick it up and recall the last time you experienced that painful bad memory. Always wanting you to continue the endless dialog of revisiting and reliving that painful situation again. Wanting you to pick up where you last left off and experience that unpleasant bad memory once again, forever. A good memory, on the other hand, can prove to be a powerful instrument in a critical moment of crisis. A good, holy, and pleasant memory can aid and shelter us in those unfortunate torments and dreadful moments of life. Those ongoing trials that never seem to end or go away. The haunting memories that tend to sweep us away suddenly, quickly and gradually over time from the pleasant peace that God offers us and hurls us into life’s unfortunate circumstances and storms. A happy memory can help us in those critical moments to forget the unpleasantness of difficult situations. They offer us sacred moments of God’s grace to help us recall and remember a happy thought, a blessed memory, or a pleasant moment to help us forget those unpleasant memories caused by a fall, failure or life’s embarrassing moments. Those unfortunate situations we could not change or control. Those lifelong mistakes we hope everyone forgets. Those situations that never seem to heal. Like a scab, we keep picking at it. The enemy is a master of forgetfulness but God is greater. The enemy is very good in causing us to recall and remember but God is better at it. The enemy wants us to forget God’s love. He wants us to remember our past, to recall all of our hurts, to relive traumatic experiences, to renew our sinful folly and never let go of painful failings or let go of life’s most embarrassing moments. Remember that our gracious God loves us faithfully and unconditionally. When he forgives, he truly forgets.

“Behold, I make all things new.” Most of us, given an opportunity to do so, can from our early childhood years of catechetical instruction and teaching or through the sacramental formation we received, easily recite, probably word for word, the classical definition of what is a sacrament: “The sacraments are efficacious signs of grace, instituted by Christ and entrusted to the Church, by which divine life is dispensed to us.” Nevertheless, what does that mean? What does that mean to you? How would you respond to the text? How would you describe what a sacrament is in your own words? Where is God leading you in thought and heart to consider explaining a sacrament to a child, a neighbor, a person who does not believe or to a person who has lost all hope but wants and needs to believe? Where is God graciously inviting you today to grow, know, change or simply be inspired? Given my own lack of intellectual wisdom, knowledge, and comprehension and in the little ways that I can provide any sort of explanation or can claim any confidence of understanding a textbook definition, I probably would complicate the matter and add further confusion to any definition. Thankful that God has graciously helped me to understand sacraments in simple terms and in a simple language that I can understand and in a language I can share: a sacrament is simply a life giving, lifesaving and life-changing gift from God to make us new again. When we encounter Jesus in his real presence and the gift of sacramental grace, we simply are not the same. How can anyone who truly encounters the real presence of Jesus remain unchanged? We are touched by God, changed by grace, transformed by love, made into a new creation. God makes all things new. He renews us and makes us new in, through and with the sacraments. The Church teaches us that Jesus himself, through and in the power, peace and unity of the Holy Spirit, graciously bestows himself and celebrates the sacraments with and in us. It is Jesus who truly baptized and confirmed you. In and through his poor priests, Jesus consecrates you and gives himself freely as gift to you. Jesus sanctifies you and sacramentally feeds and nourishes you in Holy Communion and through special graces in, and through and with the Blessed Sacrament, the Holy Eucharist, with his Precious Body and Blood conforms you, heals you, loves you, transforms you, restores you, makes you good, holy and new once again; a living sacrament.

“The disciples were filled with joy and the Holy Spirit.” Have you ever experienced authentic joy? That kind of joy that is real and true joy. The kind of authentic joy that simply comes deep from within? The kind of authentic joy John the Baptist displayed in his mother’s womb upon hearing the greeting of Mary’s sweet voice and upon nearing the real presence of the Lord in the holy tabernacle of Mary’s holy body and Immaculate Heart. The kind of authentic joy Mary sang in her beautiful hymn and song of Magnificat responding with great authentic joy of being the lowly handmaid and the Mother of our Lord. The kind of authentic joy that caused the disciples to leap for great joy in knowing they were found worthy to suffer imprisonment and endure harsh words and threats from local and religious authorities for proclaiming Jesus Christ crucified and risen from the dead. Authentic joy is the kind of joy that is real. It is not fake or plastic and cannot be masked or covered over by a fake put on smile, or an impersonal greeting, or a fake good morning. It is simply pure joy. A pure joy that is authentic, truly from the heart, unselfish and lives in the glorious freedom of the beloved children of God. This kind of joy is seriously authentic and childlike. Not childish as in the joy we might get in pulling off the world’s funniest prank or the joy we might get in finally proving someone wrong, or the feeling and sensation we get from embarrassing a friend or foe or even the joy we might get in doing something dirty, deceitful or illegal and never getting caught. That is not joy. We cannot and can never feel good about doing harm or wrong to another. Real authentic joy seeks the good of the other. The real joy found and experienced in doing something authentically good, helpful and truly supportive to another or someone with a special need. The kind of joy we experience from truly listening to the Holy Spirit’s promptings interiorly guide, counsel and direct us from within to the joy we manifest in doing what is truly good in God’s eyes and avoiding the evil he detests. The kind of joy that causes us to sing with our Beloved Mother Mary in knowing we are so loved, have been saved, and are now called by the Good Shepherd to graciously and joyfully follow him as he leads us to authentic joy and profound holiness.

None of the disciples dared to ask Him, “Who are you?” I think how often our person, our identity, the very source of our being, who we really are, is so often misunderstood, questioned, attacked and quite simply misguided and ever put to the test. Challenged and confronted in so many ways and questioned and threatened so many times by so many of His own people, Jesus faced the opposition’s questioning with humility, silence and truth. Those who opposed Jesus constantly questioned His identity and directly challenged His person by asking, “Who are you?” – “Who do you think you are?” Questioning is Satan’s favorite tactic and preferred method of distraction. His direct aim in disturbing our peace, stealing our joy and introducing His chaos in order to bring harm and confusion to the beloved children of God and wreak havoc on God’s glorious kingdom. We certainly know that feeling. Having to prove your own innocence so many times or regularly having to back up your own words or even constantly having your own faith, values, belief or courage challenged because of the fear and insecurities of others. When we are not certain of our own identity, who we are, who we have become, our broken image of self, the fake personas we have created, the identity crisis we interiorly face and cause, we attack others to justify who we want to be or become. This is our false, negative self. Rather than seeking God’s help and assistance to understand and know who we really are, how God wonderfully created us and the joy and freedom of being God’s glorious and beloved children, we seek to destroy the identity of another because we are not sure or certain of ourselves who we are called to become. How often for lack of control or fear of being revealed, unmasked, or properly identified as a fraud, does the darkness of our own wounds directly target and question the innocence of Jesus or that of His beloved disciples in order to feed our unfortunate sinful weakness, in order to lower the esteem of another. Our broken self-image starves our good name and our good nature then seeks to hurt and harm the good portrait of another in order to feed our own sinfulness and relieve the hurt of our own painful brokenness. Knowing Jesus personally, directly and intimately is God’s reflection of who we really are and meant to become. Jesus truly knows who He really is even if others continue to keep questioning Him. He also really knows you.

“The love of God has been poured out into our hearts.” Many times, we are unaware of how much our past, our wounds, our hurts and disappointments guide and direct our thoughts, actions and responses. We tend to avoid the mistakes of others. Avoiding the consequence of being hurt further by their words, thoughts, actions and reactions. However, we often do not want to learn or grow from our own hurts, failures and shortcomings so we tend to do, say and respond in disbelief, negatively avoiding what we know could be helpful, useful, beneficial and true. To avoid further hurt or past utterances, we will make ourselves believe a lie we know is not true or we believe telling a lie is our only option or we say the truth hurts so we told a friend or a loved one a lie. However, that form of thinking lacks love and is far from the truth that Jesus Himself says is easy and sets us free. Telling the truth always and always telling the truth is always the right, loving and only thing to do. The love of God has been poured into our hearts, and this love is righteous and true.  It seeks gently to uncover a lie so that the only way, the only truth and the only life of God can be discovered in us. This love gives us the strength to endure, the confidence to believe, the hope to trust and the love to forgive sins even when they are our own. This love consumes the past, redeems the present, gives way to the future. This love endures all things, conquers all things and is greater than us, our sins, our death and surely greater than any of our enemies especially the enemy of our human nature and will. The love of God never disappoints and never fails. God’s love is constant always, always active, forever healing, always forgiving, life preserving, life giving, life changing, always available. God never ceases to provide grace, mercy, healing, pardon and peace. God never stops loving. He loves always and will always love us and love you even when you do not believe it, cannot feel it, choose to avoid it, pretend it does not exist or believe he cannot forgive you, does not want to forgive, you believe your hurt and disappoint is greater than God’s love. God still loves you, will never abandon you, will always provide for you and has truly forgiven you. True love can never stop loving because love is forever. 

“Whose sins you forgive are forgiven them, and whose sins you retain are retained.” We tend to believe forgiveness is the most difficult thing to do and perhaps even to accomplish. Not because we cannot forgive. Certainly we can by the love of God who conquers all things especially sin, death and the ability to forgive, and by the grace and outpouring of the Holy Spirit who sanctifies, heals, reconciles and renews all things making all things new again. With the Lord’s help, we can accomplish all things including forgiveness from the heart for nothing is impossible for God. Just ask our Lady. Forgiveness can feel like the most difficult thing we have to do and perhaps even the greatest impossibility we believe we experience in our own life however, recall and remember not because we cannot do or accomplish forgiveness but perhaps because we are stubborn of heart and resistant in spirit that we tend to avoid forgiveness from the heart, fail to forgive, or simply just do not desire forgiveness for fear of getting hurt or the pain of being used again. Sometimes the people we call friends and family tend to do that. Hurt us the most but Jesus forgives them, and we must as well for the sake of our salvation and our own freedom and happiness. We just do not want to forgive. Even when we know what Jesus said, taught and did regarding forgiveness. He always forgives a repentant sinner even those who blaspheme against His sacred name. Even those who use His holy name in vain. He still forgives them if they ask Him to and truly want to be forgiven. It is not that we cannot forgive another, we just fail to ask Jesus for the grace. We just do not want to. Even though we hear Jesus say from the foot of the Cross, “Father, forgive them for they know not what they do,” we seem to ignore Jesus and pretend not to understand or hear the call to mercy or active forgiveness. We choose to neglect the throne of merciful love when it comes to forgiving from our own hearts. We forget that Jesus said, “unless you forgive from the heart, you cannot be forgiven.” We still fail to forgive. Jesus encourages and commands us to forgive as often as He has forgiven us, which is always. However, we still say and believe we cannot forgive or worst yet, we say and believe we can forgive but will never forget. Thank God, He has truly forgiven you.   

“Jesus led them out as far as Bethany, raised His hands, and blessed them.”  Where is your Bethany? That place where God extends His sacred hand out to you, welcomes you, embraces and hugs you, makes you feel as if the world revolves around you, where He draws all His attention to you through the grace and gift of special bonds, friendships and spiritual relationships. That special place you can call your home away from home, your spiritual house of prayer, your sacred spiritual place, where you can laugh, learn, grow, be childlike and play like Jesus in those hidden years. That special sacred space where Jesus waits for you, welcomes you, blesses you among those special spiritual extended family members we happily call friends. That place you miss being in even before you leave and cannot wait to return even before leaving the threshold of the door. That place where you can truly rest and relax and really recreate and be yourself. Not the place you escape from reality or becomes your distraction from personal duties and responsibilities but rather your place of formation and refuge. Bethany for Jesus was that long for place. That place of friendly, personal, intimate encounters. Bethany for Jesus was His home away from home, an extended family, a faith filled encounter and a retreat like experience. Bethany for Jesus was that place where he did not have to worry or think, be troubled or concerned, defend Himself or be tested. It was the place He enjoyed visiting. A place He could return, stay and remain. The place He could share a gracious meal amongst trusted friends, listen with attentiveness to their personal sharing and engagement, trust that he would hear the truth told and shared in His presence and know that he was truly loved, believed, cared for and respected. Bethany was such an important part of the journey, that Jesus took His disciples with Him and taught them to go there often. It is a house of blessing, a safe place to shed a tear, a shoulder to cry on, a friend to laugh with, a comfort, a sturdy shelter, a treasure. At times, life puts us in places where we are not welcome, places we would rather not be. Places that yell, bicker, argue, and lie.  Places of disordered sinful pleasures. Dishonest workspaces that lure us and rob us of our peace, patience and joy. Bethany rather, is that special place where we feel loved not judged, welcomed not an outcast, truly part of God’s family.