By Holly Gustafson
I’m going to be honest: trying to participate in online Sunday Masses has not been easy. Certainly, over the years, attending Mass with five children of varying ages never has been. But there’s something about the comfort of our living room that makes it particularly challenging: we seem to be spending the entire hour trying to keep the children from losing focus, and trying to keep the teenagers from going horizontal.
But we’re doing it, every Sunday, each week as imperfect as the week before. And that’s okay. Because love fills the gap.
This was the message of mercy of St. Faustina Kowalska, a twentieth century Polish nun whose visions of Jesus – and intimate conversations with Him – earned her the title “Secretary of Divine Mercy.” These visions and conversations, along with Faustina’s personal thoughts and prayers, were recorded over four years, from 1934 until her death in 1938, and published as her diary entitled Divine Mercy in My Soul. Within those pages of mercy, the one message that keeps coming back to me, especially now, is this: Love fills the gap.
St. Faustina never places herself on a pedestal, although, as Jesus’ personal secretary of Mercy, you’d think she’d have every right to. Instead, her diary is full of humble self-talk: she calls herself “a poor creature,” “a tiny violet” crushed underfoot, an absolute “abyss of misery and baseness.” She recognizes, consistently and continually, the enormous gulf that exists between the Creator and the creature, between her God, and her poor, abysmal, miserable self.
And yet: Love fills the gap.
“You are God, and I – I am Your creature,” says Faustina in one of her recorded conversations with Jesus. “You, the Immortal King and I, a beggar and misery itself! But now all is clear to me: Your grace and Your love, O Lord, will fill the gulf between You, Jesus, and me.”
That gulf between Creator and creature has never felt wider these days. I read the Gospel daily, and try to reflect on it the best I can. I pray the rosary when I remember, and I’m on day eight of a novena I started several weeks ago. I sit in my living room with my family every Sunday watching Mass on a laptop, trying to keep my teenagers from playing with the lit candles or slyly sinking into a corner of the couch and falling asleep. We are daily doing our best, and simultaneously failing every single day. And we (at least my husband and I) are painfully feeling that gulf between the Creator and His creatures, between the Eucharist, and our poor, miserable souls.
And yet, as Faustina reminds us over and over, Love fills the gap. “Love compensates for the chasms,” she promises, “Love will fill the gulf.”
And so, we do our best (failing daily), and pray for God’s mercy to do the rest. And pray, too, that He will fill the Eucharist-shaped gap in our hearts.
EUCHARISTIC CHALLENGE OF THE MONTH
Join me in a 12-month challenge to grow closer to the Eucharist this year. This Sunday, make an effort to attend online Mass with reverence and attentiveness. (You might create an Easter display, light candles, print off the readings to help you follow along, or provide Gospel-related colouring sheets for the kids.) Do your best, and then ask God to let His Mercy do the rest.
Holly Gustafson lives with her husband, James, and their five children, in Regina, where they attend Christ the King Parish. Holly received her Masters in Linguistics at the University of Manitoba, and now pursues her love of language through art, writing, public speaking, and unsolicited grammatical advice. The best advice she ever received was from her spiritual friend, St. Faustina, who told her that when in doubt, “Always ask Love. It advises best.”
