An Easter Confession

[EDIT: APRIL FOOLS’ DAY EDITION!]

[The Companion To Yesterday’s April Fools’ Day’s Post]

I profit from this day to make an announcement that I have wanted to make for some time; not finding, alas, the courage to do so until now. I ask all my readers to take the news in a charitable way. 

Some months ago, I fell in love.  I fell in love as desperately and as intensely as I did not remember doing since my early Twenties, in the sun-drenched Italy of my youth, at the very dawn of the Eighties. It was (and is!) a life-changing, excruciating, devastating and exhilarating experience. 

My love was (and is!) reciprocated. She is a wonderful being. Sweet, feminine, caring, nurturing. She has kept a youthful innocence even after the scars (emotional and, in part, physical) a violent husband left on her. Her two children (7 and 5) are the joy of her life and, slowly, of mine. 

I tried to resist. I told myself this could not be. I thought that the Devil was tempting me. She is married in the Church, as a Catholic. Her husband still lives and, whilst he is a functional alcoholic, he will likely live for a long, long time. My world fell on me with the weight of the Dome in St Peter. 

I prayed and prayed some more. I told her I could not see her anymore, several times. Still, I found myself unable to resist the challenge. 

Slowly, very slowly, I started to see things from another perspective; the perspective of my heart. 

Can a love so pure, so inspiring, so uplifting, be sinful?  Can such an ecstatic union of two bodies (her one, very beautiful; a hymn to Creation itself) be mortally sinful? And what about the children? They look at me with their innocent eyes, and I can see I am the father they always wanted to have, and their little immortal souls deserve. When they look at me in their loving, trusting way, I cannot but see Christ’s blessing descending on me in a wave of bliss. Shall they be punished for their alcoholic father?

When they’re near me, it’s so delicious. They’re the answer to my wishes. 

I tormented myself for long (for too long!) with this matter. And then it dawned on me.

Love is God.  

If it’s pure, how can it be sinful? If it’s joyful, how can it not be from God? 

Now, I am at peace. I do not feel dirty anymore. I feel that Jesus smiles on me, and approves of my abandoning myself to Love. 

I have not had the nerve to present myself at the Communion table yet. I am praying and praying, hoping to understand what I should do about it. The diocese near the one where I live is led by a bishop who has expressed himself in favour of Amoris Laetitia. I am now torn, and in the middle of the stream. Old Mundabor would never dare. New Mundabor (the one kindled by love)  begins to understand he should not be so judgemental. 

Love works in mysterious ways.  

At time, love may change a cantankerous, middle-aged, passionate but often more than mildly acidic blogger like me. 

I might stop writing this blog. I might stop going to church. I might have fooled everyone, including myself, these last eight years. But I now know love.  

I ask you to pray for me, and to celebrate love with me; then Love is God, and I can see it very clearly now. 

M

 

 

Resurrexit Sicut Dixit, Alleluia!