Hit with Reality

This past Saturday, I attended a young adult Catholic conference in Milwaukee.  It was only a one day conference that lasted 12 hours but it was so impactful.  It was one of those experiences that was very refreshing and much needed.  One of the speakers in one of the sessions spoke about how we often think we can move on from the basic messages of our faith because we want to get to the deeper theological ideas.  But we must spend our whole lives becoming more aware and responding to the most seemingly basic message that God loves us.  It is easy for us to become numb to this statement.

God loves us.  Of course we know this.  We’ve heard this so many times in our lives that we can easily brush off this statement.  But how many times do we really soak this in?  How often do we really reflect on the fact that God loves each and every single one of us so much that He suffered and died for us?

We know in our minds that God loves us.  But we often don’t think about it because we don’t let it really sink into the depths of our hearts and lives.  And sometimes, we need to be hit with this realization again to let it really impact our lives.

In one of the sessions at the conference, the speaker told us to close our eyes as she prayed aloud.  The band played a song as we prayed.  All of a sudden, my eyes were wet and tears were rolling down my face.  And they just kept coming.  In those moments, I had no idea why I was crying.  The only explanation I have is that God broke through the surface level of my heart and I was hit with the reality of God’s deep and unconditional love.  In those moments, I was hit with an overwhelming experience of God’s love for me.

We all need these experiences sometimes because it reminds us that God’s love for us changes everything.  It reminds us that it is His love alone that gives purpose and meaning to our lives.  As St. John Paul II said, “What really matters in life is that we are loved by Christ and that we love Him in return. In comparison to the love of Jesus, everything else is secondary. And, without the love of Jesus, everything is useless.”  These experiences where we encounter God’s love for us moves this reality from our heads to our hearts.
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When was the last time you experienced God’s love in a way that really hit your heart?  When was the last time you were hit with a deep awareness of His love?  My prayer for today is that you would experience God’s love for you in a real and tangible way in the next week, whether in mass, adoration, confession, or just in an ordinary moment of your day.  Allow this truth to overwhelm you and flood the depths of your heart and soul.