Shrine of the Divine

 Today we entered sacred ground and made a pilgrimage to the Shrine of the Most Blessed Sacrament in Alabama. https://www.olamshrine.com/ You can feel His presence here, it’s in the air, and I can feel a mystical, soothing in my soul upon every breath I take. This is why we’re here. It’s so easy to see life’s purpose our Heavenly Father laid out for everyone. The noise of the world is kept away. The very things that distract us from heaven are silenced. This is healing, from the ultimate healer. The first room we came to was the Holy Shroud.  I thought I had been taken to the foot of the cross, until today. I realized I had only been given a glimpse. It was a look between mother and son, so many years ago. I was praying the Rosary and meditating on the crucifixion. I was laying a particular struggle as a mother, at the foot of the cross and begging for guidance. Today I was shown in the form of the sculpture, Jesus on the cross. My mind could not comprehend what 5480 lashes looks like, until today. I know I still do not fully comprehend his passion, flesh gaping open, exposed bones, exposed wounds on every surface of his sacred body. It’s the sacrifice that opened the gates of heaven, and it all started with Mary’s Fiat. “Be it done unto me according to your word”. When she said yes to the angel Gabriel. it’s nearly impossible (from a humanistic standpoint) to ever look at the cross the same way again. I would meditate on the passion and today my heart changed. Today,  I was allowed to see an image, I pray, I’ll never forget. God willing. The tears came without warning and spilled over.  I didn’t feel worthy before for him, “to enter into my house…” and now I can pull up in my mind’s image this artistic rendering along side the Holy Shroud. I think about Jesus as an infant, a child, a teen. I think of his mother’s every step of the way to the cross,  and it causes me to pause in my own journey in motherhood. I think of all the times I failed to show up and to show my children true sacrificial love in action. Seeing our Lord, torn from limb to limb his sacred flesh surrounding him on the ground, opened my eyes, while breaking my heart, to the fact that all children deserve a love like Mary gave Christ. All children deserve to know the gift they are, and it is my life‘s purpose to show them the way. Mary please take my hand and lead me to your son. Heavenly Father, please instill upon me the grace that is needed, at every moment to seek you and ignore silliness.