Lord, I’m not worthy to receive you,
but only say the word and I shall be healed.
Communion
The Order of Mass
Catholics celebrate Communion at every Mass. It’s a reminder that no matter what struggles we experience during the week, we can use Com
munion as an opportunity to affirm our need for love and mercy; and we can use Communion as an opportunity to be forgiven and to be healed. All we have to do is ask.
The words in the Communion prayer are powerful. The intent of the prayer isn’t just to be a memorized appeal that is uttered weekly. The purpose of this prayer is to serve as a reminder about how to live our lives. Sometimes we just need to remember to ask for what we want.
When we are humbled in the asking; and when what we are asking for provides a benefit to ourselves and to others; we usually receive what we are seeking.
None of us are perfect. I’m not perfect and you’re perfect. A significant part of the human condition is our ability to make proper use of our Free Will. Most of the time, our Free Will leads us to making good choices.
Free Will guides us to our careers, our partners, and even our hobbies and interests. Free Will also causes us to make the occasional bad choice. Like I said, we are not perfect.
Even though it is impossible to go back in time and un-do, or not-do, whatever the bad choice happened to be, we can apologize and ask to be forgiven. Too often embarrassment or denial keeps us from acknowledging our responsibility or admitting to the consequences of our actions.
When this happens, guilt builds and feelings of shame surface. These feelings keep us stuck in the place where the bad choice happened and we are not able to move past it. Sure, we may stop thinking about it, but deep-down there is a voice always suggesting we need to admit to what we did wrong before our heavy hearts can mend.
This voice is powered by our sub-conscious and is more in tune with what we need than we realize. This voice will keep its constant chatter going until we cannot tolerate it any more and we make an attempt to silence it.
The first step in rectifying a bad choice is to admit it – on a conscious level. Perhaps we can admit it to ourselves first, and then we need to admit to the person affected by our actions.
It takes courage to admit when we are wrong. It’s damaging to our egos and to our self-confidence when we have to look into the mirror and acknowledge we have fallen short.
This past Sunday marked the 32nd Sunday in Ordinary Time, but when we can get down on our knees and admit we are not perfect, no matter how hard we may try to convince ourselves otherwise, and then ask for healing, an extraordinary thing happens – we find forgiveness; we receive what we have asked for; we find grace and peace; and we are able to go forward and continue to rely on our Free Will to live the life we are intended to live.
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