Kiss Me
"Suffering, pain, sorrow, humiliation, feelings of loneliness, are nothing but the kiss of Jesus, a sign that you have come so close that he can kiss you." -St. Teresa of Calcutta
I was surrounded by light and filled with deep devotion.
“Kiss me…please just kiss me.” I said, adoringly to the one who stood before me as I knelt in reverence. I did not see features or even an outline of the man in front of me but I knew that it was Christ. For what seemed an eternity, I knelt there, just gazing, wholly in love and surrounded by light, full of adoration and pleading with Jesus, the son of God, to “…please! Just kiss me!”
It was at that point I woke up. Feeling very odd and a little embarrassed. I immediately knew I wanted to tell this to someone, a Priest, a friend, someone! There was no sense of anything romantic or inappropriate in what I had dreampt but I worried no one would understand. Yet being newly Catholic, and desperate not to lose any of my new friends I felt I couldn’t. Even in light of all the supernatural ways in which our Heavenly Father had interacted with me since the moment of my conversion a few months back, this just seemed way too weird. So, I kept it to myself and prayed for an answer to whatever this dream happened to be about.
Abba Father was good to me and provided the start of an answer a short time later. Which was good as I continued to feel embarrasment at this dream that was so much more than a dream to me. One sunday it was announced that there were many books in the back of the church that were free for any of us to take. I love books! Free books are even better and free CATHOLIC books were an absolute treasure to a new convert like me. As I perused the selection of titles, one stood out to me just as another woman picked it up and stuck it under her arm with a few others. It was titled, “The Kiss from the Cross, Saints for Every Kind of Suffering, by Ronda De Sola Chervin.”
I knew that there was an answer to my dream in this book and I began to start wishing the lady who picked it up would put it back down! ‘Put it back, put it back, put it back!’ I kept thinking to myself, as if I could simply will her to do as I wanted. I had given up hoping for such an outcome when she began looking at her stack of books she had selected and decided to put just one back. I felt such relief that it happened to be the book I wanted so badly and I snatched it up quickly.
Later when I could look through the book properly I discovered it was about how different saints dealt with different kinds of suffering. There were so many inspiring stories with so much consolation in the pages of this book. It covered every awful thing I had ever been through and it covered sorrowful things that I was going through but hadn’t realized them for what they were. I was still in the newness of my conversion and filled with joy every day. One new friend remarked that I was still in the, ‘honeymoon phase’ of my conversion. I was a little shaken up by that statement because her use of the word, ‘phase’ implied that this burst of ever present joy would come to an end some day.
Two years on, I discovered that it is not that the joy would end but that it would transform. It could no longer be likened to the giddy joy of a child filled with delight on Christmas morning. This joy was a mature and abiding, battle ready joy crafted out of an unconditonal love that stretched across time and culminated in it’s immense display on a cross at Golgotha. Through pursecution and suffering Christ was crucified for us. Nearly two thousand years later, I begged Him to kiss me and my suffering was joined with His on that day in 33 A.D.
So, as time passed for me I experienced many types of joy. Some of it came in the form of healing from depression and anxiety, I experienced the ability to forgive past hurts of others as well as the ability to forgive myself. (No small feat!) That was the giddy joy of a new convert fully enveloped in Gods love. However, during that time I also experienced different trials that seemed to come out of nowhere. These trials were a new kind of suffering that I had not been prepared for. I had known traumas before in my life but this was different. Yet, even in my most tearful moments, I knew Christ was with me and while these challenges proved disheartening and bewildering, I was not alone in them and as such they failed to consume me.
Mother Teresa once said, “Suffering has to come because if you look at the cross, he has got his head bending down — he wants to kiss you — and he has both hands open wide — he wants to embrace you. He has his heart opened wide to receive you. Then when you feel miserable inside, look at the cross and you will know what is happening. Suffering, pain, sorrow, humiliation, feelings of loneliness, are nothing but the kiss of Jesus, a sign that you have come so close that he can kiss you. Do you understand, brothers, sisters, or whoever you may be? Suffering, pain, humiliation — this is the kiss of Jesus. At times you come so close to Jesus on the cross that he can kiss you. I once told this to a lady who was suffering very much. She answered, “Tell Jesus not to kiss me — to stop kissing me.” That suffering has to come that came in the life of Our Lady, that came in the life of Jesus — it has to come in our life also. Only never put on a long face. Suffering is a gift from God. It is between you and Jesus alone inside.”
So, it would seem that in my earnest desire to be as close to Christ as I could be, my pleading cries for our Lord to ‘kiss me’ were not only heard, but answered. This strange type of suffereing wasn’t a cruel punishing sadistic type of suffering. Rather, it was a tearing down of all the pretty lies I had covered up my traumas with. The trials that seemed new turned out to be ones I had already been drowning in but didnt yet know. Christ, my beloved one, had revealed them for what they truly were so I could escape them and begin, truly, to heal and claim my identity as a beloved daughter of God.
We all know that this world is wrought with ‘monsters’ and harrowing tribulations. As a species we have tried to find our own ways to triumph over the beasts that taunt our souls from the day we were born. this was the case in my own life, but what have I ever tried, that actually made anything easier? Friends I want to tell you, I include my new found Faith in this distinction. Being Catholic does not make your life easier. Rather, it makes it real.
Everything else I ever tried in an attempt to make things better; to hurt less; to be happy; to feel loved…only ever covered over the reality of the ever constant wounding of existing in a fallen world. Finally allowing myself to be embraced by Gods gentle but persistent loving call unraveled the distractions of this world that kept me bound to a false life that only led to death. There is no way to move beyond that without Christ. Uniting my suffering, my hurts and disappointments of this world with the suffering of Christ makes everything I have ever gone through, worth it.
Remember that ‘battle ready joy’ I mentioned? It is still there. Everyday. It grows stronger with each new challenge. I smile at my struggles now because I know they move me closer to Christ and with Him a love that is pure, true and best of all, real.