Tag Archives: Brokenness

Resurrection: A Daily Event

Andie Tong, Senior Anchor Intern – Evangelization 

We laugh about it now, but at the ripe age of seven, I accidentally cut my dad’s finger with pruning shears. This learning moment, seared into my memory, comes to mind every time I read John 15:1-3:

“I am the true vine, and my Father is the vinedresser. Every branch of mine that bears no fruit, he takes away, and every branch that does not bear fruit he prunes, that it may bear more fruit.”

Though I didn’t have the best track record with pruning, I asked God to show me what needed to be pruned in my life. Spoiler alert: He answered.

The end of junior year brought to a close one of my most challenging years of college; a year full of learning how I love, or fail to love others, and a tough goodbye to a cherished relationship. What resulted was a brokenness I had never experienced. Slowly and painstakingly, this season of change seemed to prune away my pride and attachment to my plans  – things of comfort that I wanted to keep.

In tandem with the inner pruning at work, I embarked on a journey of professional growth. Through towering concrete, mountains, and forests, I traveled 7,000 miles around the country working for a non-profit that prioritizes community through justice education on college campuses. No words can fully articulate my gratitude for the vineyard workers whom I had the privilege of working alongside; their openness, generous questioning, and dedication to community building have shaped some of the best parts of me. Despite this felt growth, I sensed a restlessness in my bones. I presumed that God, the vinedresser, was rustling in the leaves – drawing close for reasons I did not yet know.

The Break Away office in Atlanta where I worked as a Programs Intern
The Break Away office in Atlanta where I worked as a Programs Intern

At Break Away, I was surrounded by beautiful people, people passionate about social justice and fueled by a healthy dose of righteous anger. Anger wasn’t an emotion I had dealt with often, so it was disorienting to feel the chords of anger others struck resounding within myself. My heart clutched onto withering branches: holding onto my pride, shame, and anger on behalf of others.

Brokenness in my relationships, brokenness in systemic injustice, and brokenness in our church. My withering branches steeped in frustration that the Lord wanted to take so much away. Exhausted, I set out to find balm that would heal these painful wounds.

I saw two paths crystallizing before me: one of reckoning with shaking fists and one of mercy with open hands. Out of fear of the unknown, I was resistant to taking a step in either direction, until I read the following excerpt from Just Mercy by Bryan Stevenson:

“We are all broken by something…Sometimes we’re fractured by the choices we make; sometimes we’re shattered by things we would have never chosen…But simply punishing the broken – walking away from them or hiding them from sight – only ensures that they remain broken and we do, too.”

The mountains of Salt Lake City where the words of Bryan Stevenson left me shook

Though not all at once, I began to realize that forgiveness and mercy were the hands I needed to extend, rather than walking away or hiding. I knew I couldn’t will myself into it; day by day the Lord faithfully walked with me, revealing that brokenness is not something to resist but something to bring to the light.

This is not just any light; it’s not the stark, fluorescent glare of a classroom nor the warm glow of Edison bulbs in a coffee shop. It’s the brilliance of the Resurrection in everyday life. For me, the Constitutions of the Congregation of Holy Cross has served as a beacon of what this looks like:

“Resurrection for us is a daily event… We have known the forgiveness of those who misuse their neighbor; we have seen heartbreak and defeat lead to a transformed life; we have heard the conscience of an entire church stir; we have marveled at the insurrection of justice… We walk by Easter’s first light, and it makes us long for its fullness” (Constitution 119).

Finally yielding to the vinedresser allowed this light to peek through the overgrowth of my dying branches. Delicately and assiduously (unlike seven-year-old me), the Father helped me lay dead branches to rest – making room for trust in the truth of the Resurrection.

The contrast of stepping back into the familiarity of campus as a new person has been the surest sign of growth, as confusing as it may sometimes feel. From heavy talks about injustice redeemed by the hope of grassroots change to simply making new memories in old places: the Resurrection, an event I used to think of as a one-time miracle that occurred 2,000 years ago, is now something I experience daily.

Meaningful conversations offer glimpses of the endless depth of another person that meld my anger into mercy. Placing relics of a past self along with evidence of brokenness in our institutions at the foot of the Cross transforms my shame into trust that all has been and will be made new. Every day, I see goodness and brokenness come into tension; every day, I recommit to the eternal perspective that this is what makes life whole. Dreaming of eternity: this is the fruit that lasts.

Seeing Christ in Our Division

Ben Swanson, Senior

On Wednesday, November 9 I walked into the chapel of the Coleman Morse Center and sat down for the adoration slot I had signed up for months before. I had gone to adoration at this time every week before that day and I will continue to go at this time for the rest of the semester. This time, however, meant just a bit more. I had spent the day watching people make their way around campus as if there was a great weight on their shoulders. Some were talking; some couldn’t find the words to say anything at all. I realized that regardless of the results of Tuesday’s election, people in this country were divided and many were feeling broken.

Photo by Matt Cashore/University of Notre Dame
Matt Cashore/University of Notre Dame

I went around campus trying to look beyond the division to see if Christ was still on the fringes, but people were just too divided to see Him. I went to adoration to ask Him where he had gone and to rise above all the brokenness. I stepped into the chapel, grabbed the Bible from the table, and sat down. This semester I have been working through the gospel of Luke, so I flipped, and read from the next passage:

“I have come to set the earth on fire, and how I wish it were already blazing!
There is a baptism with which I must be baptized, and how great is my anguish until it is accomplished!

Do you think that I have come to establish peace on the earth? No, I tell you, but rather division. From now on a household of five will be divided, three against two and two against three;
father will be divided against his son and a son against his father, a mother against her daughter and a daughter against her mother, a mother-in-law against her daughter-in-law and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law.”

This is not what I was hoping to hear. I wanted the Bible to tell me everything was going to be alright and all divisions would soon fade. Instead, Jesus tells us our houses will be divided. Our families will be split. Sound familiar?

 My fault had been trying to look beyond the division as if somehow Jesus couldn’t exist in that context. Jesus tells us the exact opposite: the division is exactly where Jesus is. Jesus works in our brokenness because it is in times of brokenness and division we turn to Him and to the Father. We cry out as a lost child, “Where are you?” and he responds with the tenderness and care of a parent by scooping us up and holding us tight. We didn’t see Him because we didn’t expect Him to be there with us. We think God is too good and too pure to dirty his hands in the broken lives of humanity. All I had to do was look up and I would have seen how wrong this mindset is. There at the end of the chapel was Jesus hanging, crucified. On that cross is brokenness and division. On that cross is everything we would never want God to see. God entered fully into the darkest places of human existence because every bit of us is worth saving.

Photo by Matt Cashore
Photo by Matt Cashore

As I have walked around campus since that day, I have not tried to look beyond the division. Instead, I look closely at it and see that Jesus is there waiting for us to turn to Him. We must be willing to let Jesus be with us in our fear and brokenness for we cannot get to Him on our own. Jesus has come to us where we are and he wants to hold us in His arms for he loves us dearly. He is our source of hope and the only way we can fix the brokenness. Jesus will carry us close to his heart. We must only have the trust to let Him see us as we are.  

 

A Work in Progress

Thomas Wheeler, Senior

After an especially tough week last semester, I sat down on a Friday in my hall  chapel to pray Night Prayer. The psalm for the night, Psalm 88, finishes with the line: “My companion is darkness,” which leaves us with a call to faith and to trust in God’s promise of redemption even when we feel all alone.

January 3, 2012; The Symbols of Christ on the outside wall of the Hesburgh Library. Photo by Barbara Johnston/University of Notre Dame.
The Symbols of Christ on the outside wall of the Hesburgh Library. Barbara Johnston/University of Notre Dame.

On this particular night, however, I was not having it. The struggles of school, relationships with friends, a scary and unexpected visit to the doctor, and my (not uncommon) failures at avoiding habitual sin had left me in pieces. I finished Night Prayer and sat in a state that can only be described as worn out and emotional.

I went upstairs, got my journal, and went back to the chapel, but the only thing I wrote that night was “Jesus, I’m done.” That week, I had said my prayers, spent time in adoration, led my small group, helped at Youth Group, and tried to love those around me with an open heart. I tried so hard to be mindful of the goodness of God’s promises and live a life of joyful witness to Christ’s saving love. But at that moment, I wasn’t filled with joy at all. All I could think of was how much pain and stress I had suffered that week. Yet here I was, reading prayers from my book even though my heart wasn’t in it. I felt alone in my struggles, and this last line from Psalm 88 did not help heal the wound.

It was in that moment of brokenness I could feel God telling me, “I want to know.” I felt comfort in bringing my suffering to God and letting him know my weakness, even if I had directly offended Him. I looked across the chapel to the Tabernacle and reminded myself that God does not keep His distance from me. In the Eucharist, He enters me and dwells within me. He knows already, knows everything that is going on inside me, so why not go ahead and be honest with Him about where I am. God doesn’t want me to act like I’m doing alright when I’m not. If I’m struggling, God wants to hear it. And God wants to help.

What I learned from this experience is that through all the times in our lives, especially in the times of our most piercing brokenness, God wants us to be real with Him, because He wants us to know we need Him. It is so easy to go through the motions of prayer, and even to commit to spending a certain amount of time in prayer every day. But none of this amounts to letting Jesus see our wounds, and begin the process of healing them.

It isn’t easy to let Christ into the depths our hearts; to allow him to tear down the hidden walls of pride and sin, and give him the space to build God’s kingdom there. But that’s where holiness lies. We cannot grow in perfect love and joy if we do not first let God perform surgery on our hearts. He fixes what is broken and fills the holes in our hearts with himself.

Even when my relationship with God is stable and my prayer life is flourishing, I am still a work in progress. I am not a saint yet, but I earnestly want to be one. While I know I’ve committed my life to following Christ, I still fail him all the time. But God is still performing surgery on my heart, and the most important thing I can do is let Him see my wounds so He can heal them.

“The sacrifice acceptable to God is a broken spirit; a humble and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise.” – Psalm 51:17