Knocking at the Door of Your Heart

Ave Maria Meditations

Whoever believes in Me:

Who are the sick and desperate people that the Gospel talks about? They are not just those who have physical ailments. Jesus reveals to us a deeper sick­ness, the only true sickness: sin, a life without Him, without belief in Him. If we have good physical health but are sad and discouraged, what good does it do?

Only if we have the courage to abandon our lives at the foot of the cross, do we learn that health is a gift to be poured out for others and not something that belongs to us. It is a gift received that must be given. That is why God has left us the poor, so that by open­ing our heart, arms, and our lives to them, we may be filled with wonder that serving them helps us to become good. We discover our true identity, which is to be good, meek, and merciful.

Those who suffer help us to understand who we truly are inside. We enter again into that sacred place of the heart where man is moved to cry, suffer, and rebel. With the eyes of faith it can be seen that pain and suffering are the presence of Jesus Himself in the family. If you receive suffering and welcome suffer­ing, it will save you.

One day a mom came to visit me and said, “Our baby girl, who is already six years old and has never been able to walk, has saved our marriage and our family.” This family looked with eyes of love, faith, and truth, perceiving in that mysterious cross the even greater mysterious light of the Resurrection.

Some families of our young men were present at a recent Eucharistic celebration. One parent prayed, saying, “I thank you, lord, because through the drug problem of my son and, then, through the sickness of my son, our son, you have restored and saved our family.” Thanks to an encounter with Jesus, what seemed like a heavy cross became an instrument of salvation.

Our God is love. He waits, knocking at the door of our heart until He can enter and transform it. We must commit ourselves, not to live alone, but to live in the constant presence of Jesus. He helps us to understand the poor, the sick and the suffering and pushes us to help them, to get out of our comfort zone and give up something that belongs to us for them. Then we realize that an infinite joy is born within us. We need one another to encounter the joy of embracing the cross.

Mother Elvira Petrozzi