He Gives Us His Peace
By Gabriela Cuellar-Torres
For the next several weeks, SFA parishioners will share their personal accounts of how the Eucharist has impacted their spiritual journey and life. We know they are not alone. If you wish to share your story for publication in the Bulletin regarding your encounter with Jesus in the Eucharist during Mass or during Eucharistic Adoration please submit your witness to fidel@sfassisi.org by the end of February. You have the choice to remain anonymous if you prefer.
Hopeless, afraid, depressed, lost. My last year as an undergraduate student was challenging beyond what I had thought possible. I went to university thinking I could help relieve some of the pain and injustice surrounding me in my beloved Colombia. But the more I learned, the more it seemed like there was no way out; no idea would penetrate the sickness of our society. The only thing to do was to keep studying that illness with unscrupulous curiosity, to witness how much worse it could get. Because not being surprised by evil meant I was smart, and I thought being clever was the way to success, that building up walls around my heart was the way to safety.
Looking for truth, I had believed all the lies. They came from everywhere: from the professors I admired, I learned hope was for fools and innocence was to be balked at. From close friends and even some family members, the advice and the way they lived their lives was at most superficial. It was clear that I had to focus on looking well and finding MY truth and MY way. That would somehow numb the pain.
I was doing things "right." By the measures of the world, my published undergrad thesis meant I was successful. But I had this tremendous weight on me, which now I see as a hole in my heart that kept growing instead of shrinking as I fed it with all the wrong things.
As a true millennial in the middle of the 2008 financial crisis, the next step after graduation was to move to my parent's basement and attempt to find a job.
As it was our family tradition, I returned to Sunday mass. It was family time. Outwardly, I didn't want to make a big deal out of it. At home, I wasn't asked about my faith, so I just went back to the motions. Like many, I had received the sacraments but wasn't catechized, and any conversation about the faith as an adolescent or college student had started and ended with me balking at the small-mindedness of believers. But for some reason, going to Mass on Sundays was what we did as a family, and I respected that.
We went to Sunday Mass at a small church that wasn't particularly beautiful, with a liturgy that wasn't particularly well executed and a priest that wasn't particularly engaging. And yet, something happened in my heart, as it was in that unassuming parish every Sunday morning that my heart could rest. It was on those Sundays that I finally experienced peace.
My mom always told me about all the graces you receive at Mass (even when you don't want to be there), but I didn't get it. I always felt anxious and distracted during high school and college, even at Sunday Mass. But by the time I moved back home, I had hit a breaking point and was finally ready to hear Him crying out for me. He invited me to Him, and I couldn't ignore it anymore. Because my heart, soul, and body were so broken, His healing presence in the Eucharist was the balm I desperately needed.
With patience and lavish love, He filled me with peace when I was clinging to fear; He revealed His extravagant beauty in the most ordinary of places. At Mass, where He humbles Himself every time, I understood that the Lord of the universe was waiting for me. So when I was ready to listen, be, and receive, I noticed the outpouring of graces my mom talked so much about. First, He gave me His peace. When I had my fill, He asked me if we could walk together. I no longer fought against hope but found it in the person of Jesus, truly present in the Eucharist at every Mass.
