Do This in Memory of Me: Forgive

By: Laura Catherine Worhacz

Dearest Eucharistic Family,
 
It is a privilege to bring Holy Communion to the homebound. When driving with my PYX, there is a silence that divinely comes over me. I listen to our Lord attentively as I carry His true person. Through the silence, the other day in my travels with Jesus, a sign that I pass often seemed to jump out to me, “divided highway will end.”

I began to think with our Lord and hear His voice, “I have taught you to pray.” The Our Father started to echo in my mind. It was like a hymn that passed through me, the forgiveness of sins. Forgiveness is the way to the heavens, to eternity. There are so many signs of division in our society, with people looking for pathways to follow that are apart from God. “Divided highways” that tear us apart at so many levels.
 
St. Teresa of Avila, whom we celebrate on October 15 each year in our Catholic Church, found the Interior Castle, a place within that was still through the turbulence and division life may bring. She lived in awareness that divided highways would end and courageously dedicated herself to prayer and ways to lead others to the mansion of God’s love.
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“In my Father's house, there are many dwelling places. If there were not, would I have told you that I am going to prepare a place for you?”  (John 14:2)

​There is one Body in Christ, one house of love, and a Kingdom to hold us. Our service to one another, even to those who have hurt us, will grant us a place in the tower of God’s eternal dwelling. Faith will take us there; hope will give us the grace to act, and love will desire for all to be with us.
 
Saint Teresa of Avila embraced love through suffering and recognized that God had few friends because of this. However, the friends He would find through the Cross would be good ones. She tells us this: 

 “For mental prayer, in my opinion, is nothing else than an intimate sharing between friends; it means taking time frequently to be alone with him who we know loves us. The important thing is not to think much but to love much, and so do that which best stirs you to love. Love is not great delight but desire to please God in everything.” 
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​​The Eucharist, our sacramental life, keeps us in the cenacle. In prayer, we can give everything to our Lord and live. We need not hold on to anything as painful as it may be. God wants us to live, to love now by the Eucharist, raising us to the divine life. There is no other way. 

“I believe I shall see the LORD’s goodness in the land of the living.” (Psalm 27:13)
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​Saint Peter Julian Eymard lived as a person ignited through his baptism, and his soul truly burst into flames through his awareness of God’s love and true presence in the Eucharist. He would ask the Lord what he could do to please him. Grace was poured into him as he held close to Mary and the Eucharist.
 
There is much to be done to restore the decline in the practice of the Catholic faith.
 
The Sacrament of Reconciliation watered in prayer can keep us in forgiveness with the desire to pray for others in concern of their souls.
 
If we divide in our hearts, if we separate, there will be an end of life, for it is only love that lives forever. God’s love holds no measure, and it is infinite.
 
Spiritual guides and friendships are essential to help us be released from the pains of this life; they help us find true forgiveness and to live in the freedom of God’s love.
 
How do we know if we have genuinely forgiven others and been forgiven by God?
 
In prayer, specifically the Our Father, and through the CCC/Catechism of the Catholic Church, we may find true freedom in placing our entire selves on the Altar to be transformed in Christ’s merciful LOVE and forgiveness. To genuinely will the good for another in hope they be with God is an inclination that we have forgiveness; charity expressed to others and prayer will crown this in God’s merciful love.

CCC/Catechism of the Catholic Church:

2843 Thus the Lord’s words on forgiveness, the love that loves to the end, become a living reality. The parable of the merciless servant, which crowns the Lord’s teaching on ecclesial Communion, ends with these words: “So also my heavenly Father will do to every one of you, if you do not forgive your brother from your heart.” It is there, in fact, “in the depths of the heart,” that everything is bound and loosed. It is not in our power not to feel or to forget an offense; but the heart that offers itself to the Holy Spirit turns injury into compassion and purifies the memory in transforming the hurt into intercession. 
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​​Saint Peter Julian Eymard says:

“You give your heart as a life-giving field that needs to be ploughed and harrowed to receive the grain of wheat. Without that preparation, the seed will not penetrate the soul. You give your heart as a living field, a land full of love that the Lord harrows with his Cross. It needs to be cultivated and cleared of weeds. The process is painful, tearing out whatever blocks our Lord’s entrance. This is why our Lord works on this field with the instruments of his passion, his Cross. Often, there are clumps formed by feelings of devotion that lead to a bit of self-love; with determination, we must destroy these pets. Our Lord ploughs the heart that was hardening since his royal way was being obstructed; our Lord will pass with his thorns; he must pass.”
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​The pathway through the Cross is the undivided highway that will lead us to Communion of life and true love into THE KINGDOM OF HEAVEN now through the Eucharist.

Laura Catherine Worhacz

Laura Catherine Worhacz is a Lay Associate of the Blessed Sacrament and author of Consecration to Jesus Through Our Lady of The Blessed Sacrament. She is also the Director of Mothers of The Blessed Sacrament. She lives in Trinity, FL with her husband and their two daughters.