Everyday Living in Christ is a series of guest posts where we reflect on people’s spiritual desires and struggles as they seek to live Christ more intentionally in their daily life. This post was contributed by Kyra K.
Last summer, I was hitching a ride to my local town’s amusement park with two young guys—one of whom I’d only known for a few days and his brother whom I’d never met before. You can imagine the awkward silences that frequently crept in amidst our standard small talk. About halfway through the drive, the brother of my few-days-old new friend asked me out of the clear, ever-so-silent blue sky, “When was the last time you felt betrayed?” I sat there stunned for a few moments while the other guy whacked his brother’s shoulder and said, “You don’t ask that to someone you just met!”
Needless to say, I didn’t exactly pour my heart out in this car ride to funnel cakes and Ferris wheels. However, that question did stop me in my tracks and make me ponder my truthful response. I came up with a few examples ranging in severity and complexity, but the same thread could be seen running through each one—they each involved someone I loved. That’s kind of the key ingredient to betrayal, isn’t it? If a stranger or casual acquaintance wronged us in some way, we might be offended or hurt, but we wouldn’t necessarily classify it as a betrayal. A betrayal comes from a family member, a best friend, a spouse—those whose offenses violate our trust and damage our hearts in the most unique and scathing ways.
Maybe a specific example is coming to your heart as you read this. Jesus knows the feeling. Not only was he famously betrayed by Judas Iscariot—he was also betrayed and completely abandoned on the cross by all but one of the twelve apostles. We know that for Christ all this was a betrayal and not just the offense of a stranger or acquaintance because shortly before the betrayal, Jesus prays to the Father for the apostles, saying, “Father, they are your gift to me” (John 17:24). He loved them as his family. He loved them, and they betrayed him. But that’s not the end of the story, and it’s not the end of our story either. Like Jesus, we have the gift of being able to forgive the one who has betrayed us, the one whom we love: our spouse, our children, our parents….
I know…easier said than done. That’s why I’m going to offer you five Eucharistic attitudes for when there is brokenness in the family, to help you shift your perspective and unite your broken heart to Christ’s.
- Closeness: When you bring your betrayed and broken heart to Christ, remain close to his Sacred Heart in the Eucharist. As Jesus announces to the apostles that one of them will betray him, John is “reclining at Jesus’ side” (John 13:23), and Scripture tells us that John “leaned back against Jesus’ chest and said to him, ‘Master, who is it?’” (John 13:25). Jesus asks you the same question that John asked him at the Last Supper—“Who has betrayed you?” He wants you to bring this wound to him so that he can heal it. To bring it to him, you have to answer that question, and as Saint. John was resting on the physical heart of Christ during this conversation, Jesus wants you, too, to rest on his heart in the Eucharist as you talk to each other about it.
- Brokenness: When there is brokenness in our families and hearts, we can unite this brokenness to that of Jesus in the Eucharist. To understand our own brokenness and draw ever closer to us, Jesus allows his own body to be broken. We know that at the Last Supper “He took the bread, said the blessing, broke it, and gave it to them, saying, ‘This is my body, which will be given for you; do this in memory of me’” (Luke 22:19). Jesus gives himself to you broken so that your brokenness may be healed in him.
- Unity: When we receive the Eucharist at Mass, we recognize that we not only receive Jesus within ourselves, we are also receiving him as members of the whole Body of Christ, the Church. We are all members of the human family, and we have a responsibility to love and be united in this communion, even with those who have betrayed us. What we in our sin have broken, Jesus in the Eucharist brings back into communion.
- Thanksgiving: Did you know that the word “Eucharist” means “thanksgiving” in the original Greek? A sure-fire way to change your perspective on something painful is to acquire an attitude of thanksgiving for it. Perhaps instead of dwelling on the betrayal against us, we can remember and give thanks to God for all the gifts, and love, and memories we’ve shared with this person, and the ways in which the pain they’ve caused us can actually lead us into deeper intimacy and union with Christ. (When St. Catherine of Siena’s loved ones scathed and ridiculed her, she remained adamant in thanking them for helping her to grow in holiness as a result of their harshness!)
- Littleness: Jesus made himself so small in the Eucharist. In our sinful human nature, we too become small before him. When those we love betray us, it may be helpful to think of their failure to love as an example of their littleness and a reminder of our own. This littleness of each person must be embraced by Jesus in the Eucharist, of whom St. Therese of Lisieux says, “A God who became so small could only be mercy and love.”
Betrayal is always painful—always a failure to love as we should. However, I invite you to talk to Jesus about this betrayal as you would to a close friend. Speak to him who is no stranger to the unique sting of betrayal. I invite you to specifically talk about this to Jesus in Eucharistic Adoration—maybe make an hour of Adoration, or even just stay for a few minutes after Mass on Sunday.
Before the Eucharist, we can draw close to Jesus as Saint John did at the Last Supper, join him in brokenness, beg him to unify and make our broken hearts and broken relationships whole again, change our perspective to one of thanksgiving, and remind ourselves that this Jesus in the Eucharist, so little and vulnerable, looks at our own littleness and the littleness of those who’ve betrayed us with only mercy and love. He gives us the grace to do the same.
Image: Pascal Dagnan-Bouveret, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
