Jesus Needs a Hug

 

The Divine Mercy picture has the words: Jesus, I trust in You.  The Surender Novena has similar words:  O Jesus, I surrender myself to You, take care of everything.  There are so many crises in the world right now; it is hard to pray and not to be distracted by them.  I think one way of doing that is to “put on the mind of a child,” as Jesus told us. 

Last night as I prayed in the back of the adoration chapel, I was reminded of that, as a mother and young daughter came into the chapel.  I saw them kneel before Jesus.  They made no noise, and only stayed a short while.  The girl was about 3 years old.  Then they rose and were heading toward the exit, when I heard the little girl’s whispered gasp: “Wait a second.”  Then she ran back to the center of the chapel, in front of Jesus in the monstrance, and looking at Him clasped her arms around her chest and twisted a couple of times, as if in a big hug.  And then she displayed a big smile.  She was showing Jesus that she hugged Him, that she loved Him.  Then she ran to catch up with her mother.

Jesus, I trust in You.  I pray it often, but without using the words I think she said it a lot better. And she said it with a smile, totally focused on Jesus.  

Everything we have is a gift from God.  A spiritual hug is offering it all back.  Jesus, I trust in You.

Sr. Miriam James Heidland, in her book “Restore”, offers Lenten meditations.  The book focuses on

1.       Prayer, healing our relationship with God.

2.       Fasting, healing our relationship with ourselves

3.       Almsgiving, healing our relationship with others, and

4.       Sacrifice, Jesus takes on our sin and death, and restores us to life.

Those first three are things we can/should do during Lent.  They often seem like such big things for us to do.  Until we see and reflect on the fourth thing, what He did for us during Holy Week.  We may think our Lenten sacrifices are such a big deal, until we ponder His sacrifice.  He loved us, so that we might love in return.

Instead of thinking of our prayer, fasting and almsgiving as being difficult things, we need to meditate on what He did so that we CAN do those things.  He gave everything, so that we can love God and neighbor.  He gave us a gift, life everlasting, so that we can give one in return.  Heal ourselves from all those worries about our lives.  Smile.  Hug.  Love God.  Love Neighbor.  Offer all of His hug back.