My Articulate Heart

Do you love your spouse? Do you love your children? Of course you do. You work hard for them, sacrifice your time, provide for their needs, and make countless decisions with their happiness in mind. But do they know they are loved? Does your spouse feel cherished, even when you disagree? Do your children feel wanted and valued, even when they are difficult, irritable, silly, or bitter? Do they experience your love as unconditional, or do they sometimes feel they have to earn it by being good, agreeable, or successful? Yesterday, over breakfast, a Salesian bishop shared with me a dream of St. John Bosco that has stayed with me. In the dream, Don Bosco noticed a stark difference between the joy of the past and the cold atmosphere that had gradually taken its place in his Oratory. His guide, a former pupil, named what was missing: “What is missing then? That young people are not only loved, but that they themselves know they are loved.” Don Bosco was surprised. Had he not given his life, ...

Christianity does not teach that God’s ultimate plan is simply to return humanity to the Garden of Eden. Through Jesus Christ, God promises the resurrection of the body, the perfection of human life, and the renewal of creation. Yet many questions arise when we consider this promise. Will we recognise our loved ones? Will animals and plants exist in the new creation? What happens to those who reject God? What is purgatory, and can we help those who are in it? Will the earth be destroyed? And can the suffering we experience now help purify us for eternal life? The following questions explore these mysteries in the light of Scripture and Catholic teaching. To help distinguish what the Church teaches from what remains unknown, each answer carries a label: Defined – solemnly defined doctrine Church teaching – taught in the Catechism (CCC) and by the Church’s teaching authority Theological opinion – a theological view that is not binding Open question – not revealed; we can hope and won...

I am beginning to see that my wife is able to love more than I do. That, I believe, is true spiritual maturity. Perhaps this is also part of the feminine genius: the ability to love not merely as a response to what is given, but to continue giving oneself for the sake of the good of the other. I see this in the way a mother continues to make herself available to a rebellious child, even when there is little or nothing in return. I have seen my wife do this with our adolescent children too. I struggle with this. When my children rebel, ignore my words, or show me no respect, I find it difficult to respond with charity. I now realise that my woundedness has often stood in the way of my maturing in love. Perhaps, in His wisdom and love, God allowed me to go through this dark night—a period of abandonment, addiction and purposelessness—so that He could gently expose the places within me that had become twisted and needed careful healing. In my woundedness, my neurological responses would i...

Healing can begin with a deeply personal question: “How can I become whole?” We want freedom from fear. Freedom from shame. Freedom from anger. Freedom from the patterns that have controlled us. And rightly so. But Christian healing does not end with me feeling better. The deeper purpose of healing is communion . We are healed so that we can love more freely. And as we become freer to love, something begins to happen around us: our healing can become a gift to others. Not because we become their saviors. Not because we can fix everyone. But because a person who has encountered healing can become a different kind of presence in the lives of others. What Happens When We Stop Passing the Wound Forward? Wounds can be transmitted. A father who was treated harshly may unconsciously treat his children harshly. A person who grew up with constant criticism may become highly critical of others. Someone who was never listened to may struggle to listen. Someone who was controlled may try to contr...

If the Fall wounded human nature, and Christ has already won the victory over sin and death, how does that healing actually reach us? The answer is not simply through ideas, information or willpower. Christ gave His Church the sacraments —visible signs through which His grace is communicated to us. The sacraments do not simply remove the consequences of the Fall overnight. They begin forming and transforming the human person from within. They restore communion with God, strengthen us against sin, nourish us with divine life, heal us in suffering and teach us how to become what humanity was created to be: a gift of self in love. Baptism: A New Beginning Baptism is the foundation of Christian life. Through Baptism, Original Sin is forgiven and the person receives sanctifying grace —a participation in the very life of God. The deepest wound of the Fall was separation from God. Baptism restores that relationship. But Baptism does not immediately remove every consequence of the Fall. The ba...

If Christ gives us His grace through the sacraments, an important question remains: What are we supposed to do with that grace? Does healing simply happen to us? Do we receive the sacraments, say our prayers, and wait for God to change everything? Christianity says no. God's grace is a gift. We cannot earn it or manufacture it ourselves. But grace does not eliminate human freedom. It invites our response. God acts first. We are invited to cooperate. This cooperation is where the Christian life becomes a journey of transformation. Grace Does Not Replace Human Effort The Christian life is not a choice between God's grace and human effort. It is God's grace working through human cooperation . St. Paul captures this mystery: "Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling; for God is at work in you." God is at work. And yet we are called to work. This does not mean that we save ourselves. It means that God's grace enables us to freely participate in the work ...

We often imagine healing as the moment when pain finally disappears. The wound closes. The memory no longer hurts. The fear goes away. The past stops affecting us. But real healing is rarely that simple. Sometimes healing hurts. Sometimes becoming healthier initially makes us more uncomfortable. Sometimes facing what happened feels harder than avoiding it. Sometimes the very habits that once protected us have to be surrendered, even though they still feel safe. Healing is not always the removal of pain. Sometimes healing begins when we finally become willing to face the pain we have spent years avoiding. We Often Protect What Needs to Be Healed A wound can produce a response that initially helps us survive. We withdraw because closeness once hurt. We become controlling because uncertainty once frightened us. We avoid conflict because conflict once felt dangerous. We become perfectionistic because failure once brought shame. We numb ourselves because feeling everything seems unbearable....

Healing is not simply a matter of changing what we believe. A person can know the truth and still struggle to live it. We can know that we are loved and still fear rejection. We can believe in forgiveness and still carry resentment. We can sincerely desire holiness and still react with anger, anxiety, shame or defensiveness. Why? Because we are more than our ideas . We are embodied persons—with a mind, brain, emotions, memories, habits, relationships and a will. And when we speak about healing, we have to take the whole person seriously. God's grace is at the heart of Christian healing. But grace does not bypass our humanity. Grace works through our human nature, heals it and elevates it. That is why healing can involve prayer and the sacraments, but also learning, practice, therapy, medicine, relationships and the gradual formation of new habits. Healing the Mind The mind is where we interpret our experience. Two people can experience the same event and understand it very differen...

If Christ has conquered sin and death, why do Christians still struggle with sin? Why do we still experience temptation, suffering, sickness, aging and death? If Baptism gives us new life, why doesn't everything immediately become new? The answer lies in one of the great mysteries of Christian salvation: Christ's victory is already won, but its fullness is not yet revealed. Christian theology often describes this reality as the "already and not yet." The healing has begun. But it is not finished. The Greatest Gift Is Restored First The Fall brought the greatest rupture of all: humanity lost communion with God. Through Christ, that relationship is restored. In Baptism, a person receives sanctifying grace and is brought into a new relationship with God. Original Sin is forgiven, and the person becomes a new creation in Christ. This is not merely symbolic. Something real has already happened. The Christian does not have to wait until heaven to belong to God. The restora...

In the beginning, humanity was different. Adam and Eve were not divine. They were human—but human nature existed in a harmony that we no longer experience. Their relationship with God, with each other, with creation and even within themselves was ordered toward the good. Then came the Fall. The great tragedy of Original Sin was not simply that humanity broke a rule. Something was lost. The special gifts that protected and perfected human nature were no longer present. And the effects are still visible in every human life. The four preternatural gifts traditionally associated with humanity's original state were integrity, infused knowledge, impassibility and immortality . When these gifts were lost, human beings became subject to something very different: disordered desire, ignorance, suffering and death. The gifts themselves did not literally transform into these conditions. Rather, once the gifts were lost, humanity became vulnerable to the realities from which those gifts had pro...