I could see the light that came out of that surrender.
I was recently reading Dr. Bob Schuchts’ book Be Healed. It was my birthday, and I was recounting the blessings and hardships of 2024.
There is a part in the book that speaks about the healing power of the sacraments. Dr. Schuchts quotes the Catechism of the Catholic Church, “Sacraments are ‘powers that come forth’ from the Body of Christ, which is ever-living and life-giving” (CCC, 1116). They are the same power that “came forth from him [Jesus] and healed them all” (Lk 6:19b).
After recounting many miraculous healings, some of which he witnessed himself, Dr. Schuchts asks if we have had any healing experiences in our lives through the sacraments.
A moment from my first visit to Madonna House in 2017 came like a thunderbolt into my mind. I was coming out of an abusive relationship of many years, and I felt totally broken, like spilled water. I wasn’t able to contain myself; I was one big wound.
At first, Madonna House felt awful because I felt I needed personal space, and here, sharing a room with 15 other people, I didn’t have any. But, little by little, I started to love it. It was just what I needed.
Near the end of my first two-month stay (I am Chilean, and my visa was running out), as on every regular day, I went to Mass. That day, the priests were administering the sacrament of the Anointing of the Sick. So, during Mass, people started getting up and going to receive the sacrament.
Something caught my attention, particularly about some of the Madonna House members. They went to Christ, present in the priest, with total meekness and surrender, defenseless, like trusting lambs going to the slaughter.
I don’t know if this is true, but I once heard that lambs trust so much in their masters that, when they are going to be slaughtered, they extend their necks to take the blow. No wonder we speak about Jesus as a lamb.
There was something of this meekness and surrender present in the Madonna House members, an attitude that extended also to the guests who were going to receive the sacrament.
And in a moment, as Dr. Schuchts puts it, God “turned on” the light switch, and I could see the light that came out of that surrender. I saw things as they really are: I saw that our lives are immersed in light. The light came out of wounds accepted meekly and from Christ accepting joyously that surrender.
This light came like thunder and lightning into my heart. I heard an interior voice saying, “If you walk like this, you will be able to give everything to the Lord.”
I stood still, receiving the transforming grace of the sacrament, standing in that light. Though I didn’t receive the sacrament directly myself, through others’ meek and trusting surrender to God’s will, I did receive a grace.
I am trying to walk like this in life. Maybe, if I walk in this way, not only can I give everything to the Lord, but other people might receive the grace of the sacraments through my own surrender, as I did from my Madonna House friends.
(Barbara was former guest at Madonna House.)
[Icon of the Woman Bent Double, by ©Helen Hodson, Madonna House.]
