TERESITA TANSECO-CRUZ
The string of events started with a Jewish teenager, living in ordinary circumstances. But one day, Extraordinary arrived through an angel, probably startling her off her feet, changing her life forever and affecting ours thereafter, millenium after millenium. The news of her virgin pregnancy had to be quite discombobulating for this innocent 15 or 16-year-old. Imagine the slew of questions rushing through her dazzled head! And yet…her heart had but one answer: a TOTAL SURRENDER TO WHAT GOD WISHED OF HER.
Meanwhile, her betrothed, a righteous man, would be totally unsettled with the shocking news, deciding with kindness and compassion to quietly divorce his “unfaithful” fianceé and spare her public humiliation and punishment.
Time for an angel’s visit, in a dream. Not only is the “betrayed” man to marry his beloved; the angel supplies the name for the child yet unborn. Again, imagine the flurry of why’s and how’s that must have whirled inside this man’s head! And yet…his unwavering heart’s response was a TOTAL SURRENDER TO WHAT GOD WISHED OF HIM.
And so later the child was born. From the baby in the manger, we next hear of him at age 12, attending to his “Father’s business” at the temple.
And then he was 30, being baptized at the river Jordan. The active running of his “Father’s business” on earth had begun, as the baptismal water of life is poured over him. Three years later, the earthly business ends on the Cross, as the redemptive water of life pours out from him, body pierced with a lance.
Leading to his Crucifixion, deserted at the Garden by human company, he had momentarily prayed to be spared. And yet…he gives himself unto death, in TOTAL SURRENDER TO WHAT GOD THE FATHER WISHED OF HIM.
We know this sacred Trio as The Holy Family of Jesus, Mary, and Joseph – gentle, peaceful, tender, meek.
But how about Fearless, Tenacious, Tough?! Not the swaggering “tough” teeming with arrogant bravado, but the authentic, humble toughness of the brave heart steeped in love. Resolute, uncompromising in their trust, fidelity, and surrender to God.
Jean Pierre de Caussade prays for “the grace to remain habitually in this union of my will with Your adorable will, in which all is accomplished by allowing You to act…one is saved trouble since the care of all things is confided to You.” Just watch out, he warns, for the mortal enemy of God’s grace: self-absorption (aka ego).
I don’t think this implies a passive, easy ride. I believe it means that we latch on to God as closely as we can so we can do the work He assigns us on the ground, and then… relax and leave the results to him.
The Tenacious Trio of Jesus, Mary, and Joseph locked themselves to God’s will and simply left the “toil” to Him. No matter how unsettling or excruciating or deadly some chapters of the journey were, nothing could beat the joyous, sacred power of their total submission to Him, their FIAT fixed at the very core of their being.
Meanwhile, I doggedly surrender to my impatience or sense of importance or need to control or win a debate or pass judgment on another. Among other things.
When I say I trust God but start a countdown to check how or how soon he will answer my supplications, I don’t leave the “toil” to him. I want to be assured of the results. Waiting is so stressful! I need an RSVP asap! Do I really trust God as I claim? Not so much.
So I am no tough cookie but a quivering anxious softie, always fretting and worrying about “What If …?”
As if God didn’t have my back.
That is why I turn to JESUS, MARY, and JOSEPH. I pray daily to learn from them how to say Yes! I give my TOTAL SURRENDER TO WHAT GOD WISHES OF ME!
Lord, grant me the grace to humbly follow the trail that JESUS, MARY, and JOSEPH have blazed tenaciously, indelibly for us.
Help me to prevail over uncertainties in my path, with the sacredness of complete submission to wherever you want to take me.
Grant me the grace to trust you fearlessly in grateful response to you, for You were the first to show me Your trust, giving Yourself to me with unimaginable, absolute abandon.
Teresita put into words the precise feelings I have….I also wait for the RSVP from Jesus, Mary , n Joseph as I lift up my concerns. I pray that I would be able to TRUST HIM CO.PLETELY when I tell Him I lift up my concrns to you. To Trust that God has my back at l times, particularly the toughest times.
Thank you, Terry for your very rich sharing for my reflection. Indeed, I have uncertainties and fears along the way and I need to totally trust in Him- to always do my best according to His will and He will always take care of the rest.
Thank you again and again Tita Baby for your thought-provoking reflections. Yes to follow the Holy Family is to understand “tough love” not as the world knows it but as Jesus, Mary and Joseph lived it. To be tough in living out the will of God in our lives, constant and immutable because we KNOW we are loved.
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