We have many examples in the saints of those who received abuse and intolerance as young men and women who, yet, became tremendously holy.
So, the answer is "Yes".
Now, the charismatics want everyone to be healed before they can experience God's love. But, God is not hindered by a lack of human love and even care. Healing comes with belief, as a man told me yesterday.
SS. Catherine of Siena and Thomas Aquinas were not loved by their parents, who were secular and did not understand the call to holiness in their children. Both saints, as young persons, were held captive for a while.
Blessed Margaret of Castello was not only imprisoned by her parents, but abandoned. These two horrible people took her to a church and left the blind, ugly, little hunchbacked girl there, where she sat for twelve hours until a priest came and took her to kind people.Blessed Pier Giorgio Frassati had atheists for parents, and he died alone, ignored, not cared for by his own family.
The great St. Francis had to leave his father, who did not share the love of poverty or the radical love of God with his son. But, Francis knew love and could communicate this love to all.
Blessed is the servant who loves his brother as much when he is sick and useless as when he is well and an be of service to him. And blessed is he who loves his brother as well when he is afar off as when he is by his side, and who would say nothing behind his back he might not, in love, say before his face. St. Francis of Assisi
And, this list is much longer. St. Barbara was cruelly treated by her father. St. Damien the Leper's father never spoke to him again after the young men went into the seminary. Not all of us have been loved by one special person in this life, a husband, a wife, parents. Not all of us have had a relationship of mature, committed love. Not all have had loving parents or loving siblings.
It does not matter if we have been deprived, as God can fill in the blanks, and He does, if we are willing to face the suffering and join with His Passion. This is key to becoming holy, even giving up the desire to be loved.
Weekly, in the prayers of the Auxilium Christianorum, I say the great Litany of Humility of Cardinal Merry de Val. One must really get to the state of each line in the Dark Night, in order to find Love. All these desires and fears keep us from Love. This is a real deliverance prayer.....a deliverance of unlove in order to find Love.
| O Jesus! meek and humble of heart, Hear me. From the desire of being esteemed, Deliver me, Jesus.From the desire of being loved... From the desire of being extolled ... From the desire of being honored ... From the desire of being praised ... From the desire of being preferred to others... From the desire of being consulted ... From the desire of being approved ... From the fear of being humiliated ... From the fear of being despised... From the fear of suffering rebukes ... From the fear of being calumniated ... From the fear of being forgotten ... From the fear of being ridiculed ... From the fear of being wronged ... From the fear of being suspected ... That others may be loved more than I, Jesus, grant me the grace to desire it. That others may be esteemed more than I ... That, in the opinion of the world, others may increase and I may decrease ... That others may be chosen and I set aside ... That others may be praised and I unnoticed ... That others may be preferred to me in everything... That others may become holier than I, provided that I may become as holy as I should… |
From Sermon 63:
Catch us the little foxes that destroy the vines.' This text has a moral import, and taking it in a moral sense we have already shown that these spiritual vineyards signify spiritual men within whom all things are cultivated, all things, are germinating, bearing fruit and bringing forth the spirit of salvation. What was said of the kingdom of God we can equally say of these vineyards of the Lord of hosts - that they are within us. We read in the Gospel that the kingdom will be given to a people who will produce its fruits. St Paul enumerates these: 'The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, forbearance, gentleness, faithfulness, modesty, self-control, chastity.' These fruits indicate our progress. They are pleasing to the Bridegroom because he takes care of us. Is God concerned about bushes? The Man-God loves men, not trees, and counts our progress as his own fruits. Unflaggingly he watches for their season, smiles when they appear, and anxiously strives that we should not lose them when they do appear; or rather that he should not lose them, for we are as dear to him as he is. With foresight then he orders that the cunning little foxes be caught for him, lest they pilfer the immature fruits: 'Catch us the little foxes,' he says, 'that destroy the vines.' And if someone were to object: 'Your fears are premature - the time of fruiting has not yet come', he answers: 'it is not so, already "our vineyard has flowered".' Between flowers and fruit there is no delay: while the flowers are falling the fruits are budding forth, they begin to show at once.
We spend so much time worrying about our psychological states, that we forget that God heals in Confession, in the receiving of the Eucharist, and in Adoration. We forget that thousands of canonized saints have been brutally tortured and murdered as martyrs, experiencing hatred not love. We forget St. Bernard, thin and ill, enduring the cold of winter at Clairvaux, leading his monks to the most sublime spirituality of love ever written by a man.
The love of the saints for God transcended hatred. But, this love is the result of prayer, focusing on Christ, and not the self. Christ spoke words on denying the self after He announced His Own Passion. St. Peter rejected Christ's prophecy, and these words were part of Christ attempting to explain to Peter, and as a rebuke to the evil one, the necessity of death of self.
Matthew 8:34-39 DR
34 And calling the multitude together with his disciples, he said to them: If any man will follow me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me.
35 For whosoever will save his life, shall lose it: and whosoever shall lose his life for my sake and the gospel, shall save it.
36 For what shall it profit a man, if he gain the whole world, and suffer the loss of his soul?
37 Or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul?
38 For he that shall be ashamed of me, and of my words, in this adulterous and sinful generation: the Son of man also will be ashamed of him, when he shall come in the glory of his Father with the holy angels.
39 And he said to them: Amen I say to you, that there are some of them that stand here, who shall not taste death, till they see the kingdom of God coming in power.
St. Therese is the perfect saint for our times, a little person, unknown to the world, who suffered greatly for the sake of love. She knew in her strong faith, that although she languished in the Dark Night for years, God never forgot her. She knew Jesus was there, only asleep in her soul, her little boat.
If God forgot about us for one nanosecond, we would not exist. The world's peoples are looking frantically for love. They miss love because they are not looking for Christ. As Catholics, we are given Love daily in the Eucharist, if we so desire. God has not forgotten us.
But, we forget Him. He is here, He is Present daily to us in the Eucharist, in the small white Host.
Every day He humbles Himself just as He did when from from His heavenly throne into the Virgin's womb; every day He comes to us and lets us see Him in lowliness, when He descends from the bosom of the Father into the hands of the priest at the altar. St. Francis of Assisi
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| by Darren Tanti, Malta |
This is Love.
