We long.
In the heart of every man is the longing to be whole, complete, and undivided. And yet, one doesn’t have to take too many steps down the path of life before this desire is hindered and frustrated. The experience of sin empties us. The event of death brings loss and pain. And the heart twists, turns, and agonizes as it encounters suffering and the endless shades and colors that it can paint on the canvas of human life. Equal to the pain, has been man’s search for a remedy, and through the centuries man has learned it is not to be found within himself. No matter how great the determination, how brilliant the thought, how rich the indulgence in pleasure or distraction, or how much we allow our hearts to become numb to the wounds we carry through denial and pride – the pain, loss, and darkness cannot be overcome. This is because the remedy can only be found by turning our hearts and minds back to the One who made us.
He took on our human experience.
When Adam and Eve fell from grace in the Garden of Eden, God the Father went to work devising a new way for man to rise and claim His dreams of love, fulfillment, and eternal happiness. God, a Father, so in love with His creation, when the time was right, sent His own beloved Son to answer man’s cry for restoration. Incarnating the love of His Father’s Heart, Jesus Christ came down from Heaven. By ascending to the arms of the Cross on Calvary, He descended into the depths of all the suffering, death, and sin of humankind. Man’s debt was paid. A new justice was established. Jesus assumed the whole of the human experience, and therefore redeemed it. And the name of this love? Mercy.
“The cross is like a touch of eternal love upon the most painful wounds of man’s earthly existence.” -Saint John Paul II
Originally printed in IMPRINT Magazine Spring 2015.
