Author: ChrisAnn Alvarez

After graduation, I had taken a job for a non-profit organization here in Ottawa. When I received the call for the interview, I did some research on the organization and was overjoyed to find out that their mission statement was almost identical to that of my own:

“Our belief in the power of love and prayer guide all our actions.”

I was ecstatic to be serving God through the less fortunate and with great fervor, I took to this job, ready to serve Him in the secular world. I went into my first day thinking that I would be placed to work in the shelter program for women, but to my surprise, I was walked down to an apartment complex several blocks away. I was then introduced to the program of St. Andrew’s, which was a supportive living program for adults with concurrent disorders (mental illness and addictions). After over four months in this program, I have grown to genuinely love and care for the tenants and take great interest in their lives. I found myself kneeling and lifting them up in my prayers, counting their problems and intentions on my fingers. Just some background on the tenants: many of them have suffered from chronic homelessness, and some of them from past abuse. I saw beauty in their daily struggles; some coming to me to speak of the seemingly endless abyss of their depression, their extreme anxiety that prevents them from forming normal relationships, their losses; of family, of children, of home.

It is so endearing to have them come in with their smiles and their stories..these men and women who have lived truly difficult lives. Who have splinters and bruises from the crosses they’ve carried and continue to carry. Yet I watch them as they wave at me from the office window and greet me with joyful smiles.

In this small building, tucked away just outside of the hustle and bustle of the downtown streets, there is a small handful of gems of people who God tucked away. Their situations have truly inspired me. I see their crosses, and there are many times when I feel helpless and unable to alleviate any of their pain, but in these moments, I find myself instinctively closing my eyes while I listen to them speak and I tell God that I know He is hearing what I’m hearing, and I pray for them.

Let us remember the crosses others bear, and may we find ourselves as beacons of hope and love to them. And may we, in turn, bear our crosses with joyfulness, as we look to the promises of eternity.

After mass last Sunday, my mum and I decided to walk to a nearby Tim Hortons. We sat there in a booth, warming our hands against our cups, and we started to talk. About small things first; my work, her work, the homily.. And somehow, we started to wade into deeper waters.. She spoke about forgiveness. She didn’t speak so much of the hurts she experienced or the wrongdoings done against her as she did the act of forgiving: the letting go, the trusting God.

“Do you understand?” she asked me.
I managed a muffled, “Yes.”
With tears streaming down both my face and hers. The Tim Hortons was jam packed, and every table around us was filled with people, but it seemed as though the whole world quieted to the sound of my breathing as I silently mopped up my tears. I looked up to see my mother softly smiling.

I have always thought of myself as a generally forgiving person. I’ve been able to forgive to the point that I forget. But it seems that I hold on to wrongs done to others, especially the ones I love most, and I grudgingly hold on to these as though my anger would somehow avenge the ones I love. But through my mother’s words, I was gently reminded that I am freeing myself when I forgive. Rather than clenching tightly to the rocks while I swim, motivated to continuously push forward, determined to hold on, I let the rocks in my palms sink, and I was more able to swim freely; my movements changing from a hard and heavy splashing to a light and gentle glide. I can see God smiling down, as though I finally got what he had been trying to tell me for quite some time. “You were only making it harder on yourself.”

 

You cannot be right with God and wrong with man.