His Heart Pursues Me

What I say to you in the darkness, speak in the light; what you hear whispered, proclaim on the housetops. -Matthew 10:27

Deep breath. Here Goes. Illness kept me from attending Mass on Father's Day today where we also said good-bye to a too soon reassigned beloved priest. He often spoke of the Sacred Heart and encouraged us to allow Jesus to tend to ours. Today's Gospel, Father's message, and the recent consecration by the bishops of the US compel me to share what has been told to me in the dark. 

As a child, I recall thinking of the paintings of Jesus with an anatomical heart afire over his clothes as being what "heartburn" was and left it there until I began teaching at Sacred Heart in my early 20s where we regularly recited devotional prayers and I grew in my understanding about St Margaret Mary Alacoque and her visits from Jesus. Here it became a fascinating history lesson, but my heart wasn't particularly involved. 

Jesus waited patiently another 15 years or so before laying the trail of breadcrumbs that lead to my consecration first to the Immaculate and then the Sacred Heart with my miraculous physical healing accompanied by the appearance of the flaming Sacred Heart in the Italian sky sandwiched between. Jesus invited my surrender. And I gave it as best as I knew how.  

Though He physically healed it for a time, He wasn't finished working on my heart. That first Good Friday after being strengthened, as I prepared to walk up to the cross for veneration I felt a surge of skipped beats and a strange sensation in my physical heart. I wondered if my illness was returning and I recommited my surrender. As I knelt to kiss the cross, I "heard" inaudibly "My Heart beats in yours." The physical symptoms faded and I was left pondering this impossible phrase. 

My reprieve continued for two wonderful years before Covid brought an onslaught of physical challenges including new cardiac ones. Though I sought medical advice and treatment for these ailments I felt somehow resigned to these burdens and didn't ask God to remove them. Perhaps I felt he'd already taken and then given. He must want this for me. This was confirmed when a friend prayed over my headache and while I had my eyes closed I sensed a picture of a crown of thorns being gently placed on my head and a wooden cross lovingly pressed against my right shoulder, as if encouragement to carry. 

I was struggling particularly with my heart rhythm and light headedness in May of 2024. I missed Mass on Pentecost, May 19. That night, I had a dream I walked up to two enormous golden doors of rich architectural detail. They reminded me of the doors of St Peter at the Vatican that are sealed closed until Jubilee years only much taller and wider, larger than a human could open. There was a mail slot to my left, at shoulder height and I came to know that admission was one faithfully worn scapular. I removed mine from around my neck and fed it through the slot. After it was gone from sight, the doors began to move imperceptibly away from my feet as the dream ended.

I awoke the next morning and realized my scapular was missing. I found it hours later tucked behind the headboard of my bed and I remembered the odd dream. 

On May 21st, Tuesday, I still wasn't feeling well, but made it to Mass. I was physically trembling, trying not to pass out as I went up to receive Eucharist and Father took a few steps toward me to shorten the journey. The moment Jesus touched my tongue, it was as if I was back at the doors of my forgotten dream. The mammoth golden doors opened even wider, the floor growing before me. Pillars of light appeared and room after room of possibility in every direction of colors and lights not repeated in my human experience moved about me. I inaudibly "heard" the words, "I have prepared a place for you." I opened and closed my eyes and "saw" the same thing regardless. I felt immense, overwhelming joy and peace, a dwelling place! My interior castle! I have no memory of making my way back to my pew or standing for the final blessing. Tears wet my cheeks but I don't recall crying. 

The next time I received Eucharist, I was again taken into a realm of experience not of my doing, but not visual, and this time, though it was still a sense of lifting up, it was into an immense sorrow and was accompanied by physical aching of my head and right shoulder and intense heart racing. 

This continued every time I received Eucharist, 40 in all. I'd have a heart pounding, in the depths, trembling, tearful, sorrowing experience. My head and shoulder throbbed. At these Eucharists, I felt union with Jesus, but not in the joy-filled buoyant way that I experienced at heaven's door or in the cloud of the Sacred Heart at my healing. This was deeply sorrowful, as if being helplessly at the foot of the cross, though not at the foot- at the heart.  

I generally felt helpless to respond or act or even think during these experiences. I was just taken up and brought into His sorrowing presence. But on June 5th I managed to ask, "What do you want of me?" I heard, "Console my heart." I had a sense that the rapid heart beat I not only felt but heard each time was somehow both our hearts. "My Heart beats in yours," I remembered. I don't know how I ever could be able, but I desired to obey. This instruction gave me peace and sense of purpose and it lessened the concern I felt about others seeing me in this trembling, crying, state at church. 

June 7 we celebrated the feast of the Sacred Heart by having our family's image of the Sacred Heart enthroned in our home. 

July 8 was to be the last Eucharistic sorrow I experienced. July 11, Feast of Benedict I was not plucked out of the church, lifted to the cross and immersed in Jesus' agony. I could think about it, remember it, with my usual distractions, but the Presence and physical manifestations were gone and have not once returned. And I'm left pondering still. 

While with Him on the cross, I was sitting with all the times I've failed to see Him in the Eucharist, received Him unworthily, or forgotten Him. I could be there in that sorrow for eternity for my failures alone, but he will not leave me there. Perhaps He gave me that time to make it up to Him in a little way. I trust He can multiply my little offering and make it holy fuel for others. 

Before this experience after receiving Eucharist I would often pray, "Jesus, stay with me." Followed by the concerns of the day. When I was lifted up to the cross, it was as if I was now invited to stay with Jesus, to console him in His suffering. It isn't the physical suffering that is most painful to Him. It is the hardened hearts of those who refuse His love. He is in agony over those who do not love him in return. Before, when I'd look at a crucifix, I'd see Jesus dead, as a corpse. Now I see him suspended still in the act of waiting for every beloved son and daughter to receive His mercy. 

Three months later in October 2024 I was struggling with suffering well and still taking care of my responsibilites and I took this to adoration. I brazenly told Jesus to pick one because I couldn't do both and that I knew he could just reach His hand down and touch me on the head and heal me if he wanted and take back this cross and crown. I guess I didn't think He was really listening to my rant because I was surprised when I "heard,"

My priest's hands are the closest things to my own hands on earth. Go to him and ask him to lay My hands on your head.

Yikes. Does that mean he'll take the cross and crown?

I didn't hear an answer, but I sensed His rhetorical question, 

Do you want Me to take it?

To which I hedged, well, no. Not if you want me to carry it. But I can't do it all! 

I left adoration thinking I would need courage to ask a priest to lay his hands on my head and immediately saw one across the parking lot walking away. I didn't think he was even aware of my presence quite a distance behind him but he paused and turned and raised his hand waving at me, only I saw it distinctly as Jesus' hand saying, "Here I Am." 

Ok then. 

 

Father did not seem at all surprised by my request and soon met me dressed in robe and stole of anointing as I tried to explain that I didn't think I needed anointing, he quieted me, laid his hands in the person of Christ upon my head in prayer, not anointing, and the Holy Spirit came and I felt as if He poured spiritual and physical waters over me. As Father prayed, I "heard," 

I Am with you.

I love you.

I DO ALL THINGS WELL.

emphasis on the I

When it had ended, the little cross and crown remained. I wasn't ready for Him to take them back. I'm sorry I yelled at you, Jesus. I can't be trusted. 

For two years I wondered HOW to console the Sacred Heart of Jesus. I'd receive little consolations and challenges to console the sufferings of others, to endure my own suffering better, and to console through joy. I'd find glimmers in homilies and scripture, but Jesus was mostly quiet and somehow I wasn't at peace with the how and I continued to ask. A lot. 

June 4, 2026 I asked again in adoration. Feeling no answer had been given, I got up to leave but my eye caught a paper on the chair in front of me with the quote. "I firmly wish that My face reflecting the intimate pains of My Soul, the suffering and love of My Heart, be more honored! Whoever gazes upon Me already consoles Me." 

I found peace in this answer. Gaze upon His face and His Heart is consoled. 

I am a sinner. I cannot fathom why the God of the Universe would deign stoop down to even toss breaths of life or rays of sunshine toward me, much less all these consolations. But the rain falls on the good and evil alike. He abases Himself to the lowliest. It's like His whole thing. See every example ever. I have shied away from sharing these whispers here for fear of what others will think of me, either for well or for ill. But I've been moved to proclaim that God does all things well and He is waiting for us to love him back. Love him back. He has big hearts to fill. 

Thanks, We're Doing OK

I've let too much time pass and now the only way out is through. Since last post we celebrated the birthdays of Ben and my mom, Mother's Day, and our wedding anniversary. Jason was in a musical and now he and Gigi are rehearsing for two summer shows together. The school year concluded for Gigi and Alex. Jason's father passed away. Alex flew from the funeral to begin his semester in Florence, Italy and immediately had a brief medical emergency. 

My Pots symptoms have greatly improved but now I'm dizzy, as regulating the vestibular system is another role my brain considers optional. Luckily there is efficacious therapy for that at the St Luke's Pots lab too. Feeling like I just stepped off the teacups does make tasks a wee bit more challenging so this particular Maycember feels like a lot a lot when it's probably just a lot. 

Jason's dad, Terry had been in an assisted living facility in his home town of Cedar Rapids for a few years. Last year, after a series of declining events where he'd bounce from hospital to rehab facility to home he moved in with Jason's estranged brother in Rochester, Minnesota where the pattern continued eventually leading to discussions of palliative and then hospice care which initiated at the end of March. A family FaceTime became our final good bye. 

We prayed many novenas and divine mercy chaplets for a peaceful and holy death for Terry and for a conversion of hearts. I happened to ask my friend Shannon, known for interceding for the dying to pray for this the day before he passed and later learned she'd asked for the intercession of Padre Pio's guardian angel to go to him. I feel like though we weren't able to be in the room, some Saints were.  

The Island

St Pius

Terry died on Thursday, May 14. The day after our wedding anniversary. It was opening night of the second week run of the musical Jason was in, Crazy for You. To Terry, life was a stage and he spent plenty of time on it. He picked up a habit of slipping the word, "Huckleberry" into one of his lines as an inside joke that spanned his acting career.

Jason was playing Moose, a bumbling bass playing oaf of a creature in overalls and was inspired to sneak a Huckleberry into one of his lines. He thought he heard his dad laughing in the audience. The second night during the finale, he was certain he saw his father applauding in an upper seat, the stage lights glinting off his glasses, white unkempt beard and hair, flannel and suspenders and that unmistakable laugh. Terry came to say good-bye. 

We will remember Terry for his playfulness, his generosity, his theatrical magical imaginative story telling, his stubborn refusal to do the next logical thing. We will remember the summer he lived with us, playing chess with the kids, the tv always tuned loudly to a black and white Turner Classic Movie. We remember trips and visits and holidays and cleaning out hoarded rooms and homes and storage sheds. It was edifying to hear so many stories from people at the visitation who considered Jason's childhood home their safe place, something we've tried to foster in our home as well, a welcoming gathering place of presence. We were regaled with stories of travel, adventure, not-to-code construction projects, and outrageous generosity.  

I called to request memorial Masses at a few churches in Cedar Rapids that we had attended when we lived there and we would take Terry along when we visited.  The diocese is undergoing mergers and the Mass schedules were all on hold so I was told to call again in a few months. After the funeral service, we attended Mass at St Patrick. We lit a candle for Terry at a little shrine dedicated to Padre Pio. The church credits his intercession with saving the building from the flood of 2008. I also happened to be due to renew my 33 day consecration to Mary and did this here as well. We thanked Padre Pio for sending his angel to be with Terry as he died. Four days later, MARY from St PIUS Church (a derivative of Pio) called to say they'd had a sudden opening for a memorial Mass for Sunday June 14th at 8:30 am, the one month anniversary of Terry's death. 

We had not been able to attend Jason's cousin Robert's funeral last year, so on our way out of town, we found his grave in Iowa City to pay our respects and left flowers from Terry's service there. 

I had planned to spend a week with Alex, (who has never traveled solo) in Rome and Florence before his summer program began specifically to get him comfortable handling his severe peanut and tree nut allergy in Italy. He has a good grasp of Spanish but piccolo Italian. We cancelled our trip for the funeral and changed Alex's flight to leave from Cedar Rapids. Worried mom attempted to cram all the hoped for lived experience into helpful advice on the way including "don't eat pesto, it has pine nuts." Foreshadowing

We accompanied Alex all the way to TSA, asking him to let us know when he found his gate. Trickster sent us a selfie at a gate departing for STL.

He navigated his transfers in Minneapolis and Paris and the cab to the campus without hiccup and I started to breathe a little easier until I got the text the next day saying he'd eaten a nut, had given himself epi and the ambulance was on the way. I went into flying novena mode and asked Mary to be a mother to him while calling him to assess the situation. He had eaten two bites of pesto. He remembered us saying something about pesto, maybe that he should try it? His swollen tongue and throat said differently. I stayed on the dwindling speaker phone with him fruitlessly yelling things in Italian until Anna, the Hungarian woman turned local came to our communications rescue. She accompanied Alex in the ambulance and stayed with him until he was released from Santa Maria Nuova (New St Mary) hospital. I later realized my prayer for Mary to be a mother to him had been answered when both Mary and her mother (Anne) "showed up." Alex was given iv steroids, an RX for oral steroids, allergy meds, and a refill of epinephrine and promptly released. He's to give a presentation at the end of the program on an aspect of Italian life. He was assigned primary schooling but requested a change to healthcare and was granted the addendum. 

This hospital was founded in 1288 and is called "New"

View from campus

Piazza Michelangelo

I decided I earned a gelato too.

We celebrated Ben's 24th with cookie cake and Project Hail Mary on the big screen. He got a suit which he wore for the first time to honor Grandpa. 

The Knight is Still Young

Mom and I met my sister in our old hometown of Paducah, Kentucky for Mother's Day weekend. We attended Mass at the parish we used to belong to, St Thomas More. They built a new church after we moved away and I'm pretty sure the crucifix is the one I remember from the old church but no one I asked knew. We happened to run into a young woman who was curious about joining the faith and had never attended a Mass before so she joined us. She ended up with a Wear and Give bracelet, of course. I snapped a photo of the original St Mary's Academy that would become my high school. I never knew where it was when I lived there in the Pre-Google Age. 

Old St Mary's Academy from 1858

Ohio River

New St Thomas More

I had the sweetest Facebook memory pop up from my friend, Sarah who passed away this year. 

Gigi and her friends went strawberry picking at Eckert's. 

Oh yes, two baptismal anniversaries in May too...

We picked the four seasons for the wedding anniversary themes until 30th pearl, settling on Fall for 26. Finding Fall in May in Missouri has its limits unless the vision is expanded. We set off for a Pickle Springs hike hoping that recent rains would create enough of a trickle to count as a waterfall followed by lunch at the Dew Drop Inn. The kids decorated the house for Thanksgiving. We had pumpkin bread and apple butter and took a photo by the Japanese Maple which was our anniversary gift to each other this year. We also plan to head to Michigan later in the year for more authentic autumn and water falls to punctuate the celebration. 

Had to do a lot of recovery sitting to get through, but we made it!

Fall!

I was in the adoration chapel this week, gazing at Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament, mulling all that had befallen us lately. I again asked the question I've been wrestling with for exactly two years, "But HOW am I to console your Sacred Heart?" The feast of the Sacred Heart is next Friday and this particular aspect of Jesus, this devotion, this exquisite fire of Jesus' intense love for all souls has pursued me for decades. There is much that consumes my mind and heart with the worries of this world, but I'm well aware that all things and desires pass away, yet His Word and those who seek to do His will, will not pass away. The things that are forever are what matter to me and He wants His love for us to be known and received and shared. Still, two years of asking this question I've received no satisfactory answer and so it seemed that as my hour ended and the next adorer came to take my place, it was to remain unanswered. Until I stood up to leave and noticed a piece of paper on the chair in front of my kneeler. 

Whoever gazes upon Me already consoles Me. 

Oh Sacred Heart of Jesus, We Place our Trust in You.