As I knelt down in Holy Rosary Adoration Chapel I began to take note of something. Staring at the carving of Adam & Eve on the monstrance, freed of the serpent’s temptation, sitting in the Garden, I wondered, Why are they facing each other? After being freed, why are they just gazing at each other rather than being in embrace? And then all of a sudden, very humorously, I remembered leaders in our community saying, “Leave room for the Holy Spirit,” as I took note of the Holy Spirit (depicted as a dove) flying directly above them, right in the middle. And I realized, the reason why they are depicted the way they are is because they have tamed the fires of passion, and are representing patience in true love…
HAPPINESS.
But PASSION goes BEYOND HAPPINESS. Looking into the understanding of passion in the secular point of view, another fire of passion is…
PLEASURE.
…”a feeling of happy satisfaction and enjoyment”; fulfillment. For many, pleasure refers to something physical, and to others, it is found in self accomplishments (i.e. finishing first in a race, or being at the top of the class or company), or accomplishment in general (like completing a project). But what if we look deeper? It boils down to the words: happy satisfaction; fulfillment. Like Adam & Eve in the design of the monstrance, there is happy satisfaction and fulfillment in simply BEING, and in both cases, it goes BEYOND the physical. But passion IS inasmuch physical, as it is emotional and spiritual, and we see this most in Jesus Christ.
The Passion of Christ
…shows us the life, birth and ‘death’ of passion; the essence. Christ’s passion was to live out God’s will. And God’s will is to bring us to salvation. So when we put this together, THE PASSION OF CHRIST begins to look much more intimate – His PASSION was BRINGING US SALVATION. It wasn’t physical pleasure, or an emotional fulfillment, but a physical & emotional suffering to attain spiritual joy – salvation.
SUFFERING.
A fire of passion that tends to be avoided, ignored, or overlooked. But when we accept this part, we accept the true life of living in passion; the fires of passion. But it is not always the extremes of each fire. To truly and healthily live in passion, we must acknowledge these ‘fires’, but not be engulfed.
PATIENCE is PASSION, TAMED…
And if we are really called to love more, we must not forget that patience is a part of love. So as we grow in passion, we also grow in love by continuously learning patience in our passion… to ‘tame’ our passion in the way of Christ. But we are also challenged to not over-think this. The tendency is that the more we think about one “fire”, the more we forget the other/s. We either become naive to suffering, ‘forget’ happiness, or become hesitant and afraid to seek fulfillment in our lives. The key is finding balance(which, to my belief, is also a key in being a missionary)…
“Aura et labora.”
“Lead a balanced life.” To be a missionary is to evangelize God’s love. And the greatest way to evangelize is through our joy. So in our passion, we must be joyful in our service to others and to the communities around us. It is joyfully living in the true fires of passion. In all suffering, we must seek pieces of happiness, and somewhere along the way, we find fulfillment.. happiness. In finding BALANCE, we learn PATIENCE. Patience, in turn, brings us to love more. And in that love, we learn that PATIENCE IS PASSION TAMED.