On the eve of the Feasts of the Sacred Heart of Jesus and
the Immaculate Heart of Mary, I’m reminded of a day at the grocery store many
years ago.
Since we homeschooled, I often did my grocery shopping
during the day when the store was empty.
I brought all 6 children with me because my idea was “divide and
conquer” with the grocery list. The
older kids went off to selected sections of the store, while I took the younger
ones to other sections to complete our shopping in the least amount of
time. At checkout, they all had their
assigned duties to bag the groceries, so that by the time I paid, we were off
and ready to go.
This particular day, I had a new cashier. I watched her as she was very distracted
scanning my groceries. She kept looking
over at the children (ages 1-10 yrs) and shaking her head. “Are all those kids yours?” (As an aside….who would take other people’s
children to the grocery store with them???)
“Yes”, I said, grateful that my children were unusually well-behaved that
day. She continued, “I could never have
that many kids. One is more than
enough. You think you can give each of
them enough attention? One is plenty.” I made my usual nervous response, “Oh,
they’re great…they’re great friends…the joy of my life…I love kids…blah, blah,
blah”. And off we went.
When we got out to the car, Joseph, my 5 yr old, asked,
“Mom, which of us would you give back?”
“What?” I asked. “If you only had
one, who would you give back?” He had
overheard the conversation. His tender
heart sounded a little nervous that he might be one I’d give back. I felt a huge swell of love envelope me. I asked the children if they ever felt like
there were too many, or if they didn’t get enough of my attention. We had a long conversation about children,
families, and generous hearts. I knew
that day what occupied my heart. I
explained to them how a mother’s heart grows with each child – how each of them
have my complete heart. I likened it to
Jesus’ heart. That He loves all of us
equally and completely. All of them confirmed
they felt totally loved - no one was missing my attention, and I resolved that
in the future (and there were many other
instances of comments by strangers) I would
look the person dead in the eye and without hesitation be clear about how
Blessed I was and that saying “yes” to God’s plan was the smartest decision I
ever made!
On these beautiful Feast days of the Sacred Heart of Jesus
and the Immaculate Heart of Mary, let’s take some time to pray about what
occupies our hearts. Do we live our
lives in such a way that strangers would know what we love? Do we let distractions enter our lives and
displace what we truly love? Do we pray
for our husbands and children every day?
John 15:12 “This
is My commandment, that you love one another, just as
I have loved you.”
May we love with the mercy, patience, kindness, generosity,
and completeness of Jesus’ Most Sacred Heart.
May we seek to imitate Our Lady’s pure love for the Divine
Will of God.
