“Surrender to Love”

“My Lord and my God.” – John 20:28

1. Thomas Surrendered – The suffering of lost love and self-imposed solitude enabled Thomas to spring free of the bonds of human reason and to tenaciously embrace the discovered divinity of Jesus Christ. His cry of faith, “My Lord and my God” may well have gone beyond the spiritual perception of the others. Thomas not only accepted the fact of Jesus’ human resurrection and His oneness with God but carried him to adoration as being his Lord and God. Maybe at that point, all in the room grasped the divine wonder and fell to their knees in adoration and loving worship of Jesus truly now fully understood as the Son of God made man.
2. Francis Surrendered – Francis had carried the suffering of Jesus on the cross with him ever since that day in San Damiano when Jesus spoke to him from the icon. Oh, since then how he had contemplated the suffering of Jesus and longed to have been with Him beneath the cross! In preparation for the feast of Saint Michael the Archangel, Francis journeyed to his holy mountain retreat of La Verna. On that long trek from Assisi to La Verna, Francis would think of Jesus’ climb up the Mount of Calvary, and he prayed with hope-filled fear to allow him to experience the love-filled suffering of Jesus. On that mountain, Francis drew off standing alone away from the others and was buried in the crevice of rock. There, his heart was likewise buried deep in the soul of Jesus. Francis, like Thomas, was before the resurrected Jesus the Christ. With Jesus, on wounded feet, with outstretched and wounded hands and His pierced chest exposed, Francis sprung free from human experience and cried out, “My Lord and my God.”
3. My Surrender – “I am the Lord thy God” is the command but who can say I know the God of all majesty, the creator of the universe? It is impossible. But if we embrace Jesus, we know the Father that sent Him. Do I surrender to Jesus as the possessor of my soul and my being, the prime motive of all of my actions and desires? To kneel in adoration before God, to surrender completely to Jesus is to be my final act of love. To say deep in my soul, “My Lord and my God” is all that is needed to truly know God and to experience the person of Jesus.