After living with a violent father, psychotherapist James Finley found himself retraumatized by an abusive priest as a young man. Finley shares how Jesus met him in his deep shame and suffering:
I was now a young man living at the edge of a precipice of knowing that if God loved me and cherished me as real and lovable in his eyes, I could not pretend that I was not the real person God loved and called me to be….
It was in the midst of this road to nowhere that I began to sense that God was inviting me to give up trying to overcome my fear and to instead bring my feelings of fear and shame to Jesus. I was already committed in my heart to follow the directive of Saint Benedict in his Rule that the monk should “prefer nothing to Christ.” But at this point I needed to go beyond a theological understanding of the universality of Christ by praying my way into the deathless presence of Jesus.
The felt need to pray in this way led me to imagine, as in a kind of waking dream, that I was alone on a moonlit night in the garden where the Gospels tell us Jesus would go to spend whole nights alone in prayer. In my mind’s eye I could see and feel myself searching here and there, looking for Jesus so that I might share with him how powerless I was to be true to who I sensed he was calling me to be….
Then suddenly, looking this way and that, I saw Jesus sitting alone in the moonlight at the edge of a clearing. I walked across the clearing and knelt at his feet. I could feel his hand on my shoulder as I leaned in close to whisper in his ear, revealing the burdens of my shame-based weakness and fear.
Having poured out all that my wounded and hurting heart was moved and able to say, Jesus drew me in close and whispered in my ear three words that set me free, words that still echo inside me to this day. I heard him whisper: “I love you!”
Dazed and amazed in being so unexplainably loved, the spirit within me let me know what both Jesus and I were waiting to hear me say. So I leaned in close and whispered my secret “I love you” to Jesus. And there in that instant there was the realization between us that the matter was settled once and for all. The matter being that the good news of God’s love for us is never measured by our ability to be true to who we know in our heart God is calling us to be. For the sole measure of God’s love for us is the measureless expanse of God’s merciful love, permeating us and taking us to itself in the midst of our faltering and wayward ways.
Reference:
James Finley, The Healing Path: A Memoir and an Invitation (Orbis Books, 2023), 84–87.
Image Credit and Inspiration: Elianna Gill, untitled (detail), 2023, photo, Unsplash. Click here to enlarge image. A group of people, regardless of background, welcome each other into community.
Story from Our Community:
So often when I read the CAC’s Daily Meditations, I am astounded to find that the questions in the back of my mind are being discussed with deep spiritual tenderness. This has profoundly changed my focus. Previously, I was a conversative Evangelical who focused on leading an unachievable “perfect” Christian life, never feeling I was good enough for God. Now, I am someone who has been healed of shame and is daily transformed into the likeness of the Risen Christ. I am confident that I am deeply loved by a Perfect Parent.
—Janet C.
