The associated reading for this reflection can be found in your Every Sacred Sunday Mass journal or online here.
After my first date with my now-husband, I called a friend to sum up the date. “I have the weirdest feeling; that felt different than any other date I’ve been on.”
In the past, I’d had a hard time relaxing on dates. I would spend more time than I care to admit trying to make sure my appearance was just right, that I said the “perfect” thing, that I made a good impression.
With my husband, there was a calmness there from the beginning, a sense that I didn’t have to perform. I wore a t-shirt, jeans and Converse sneakers on our lunch date. Time passed quickly. It was strange.
As our relationship blossomed, the unexpected thing was that the more I felt accepted and loved as I was, the more I had a natural desire to be a better version of myself. I was like a plant turned towards the sun, soaking up the warm rays. Under the light of being loved unconditionally, I began to grow. I became a gentler, more relaxed, and more peaceful version of who I was.
In this season of Lent, it’s easy to begin with the best of intentions and then slip into performative perfectionism. It’s easy to fall into believing the lie that if we could just be better, we would be worthy of earning God’s love. We wear shame like a heavy coat, hiding ourselves from God and His loving gaze.
“There is no way God could unconditionally love me with all of my sins, all of the ways I’ve failed.”
In today’s second reading, we read, “But God proves his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”
What would Lent look like if we approached it from a place of knowing that we are loved as we are? Even in our brokenness that runs deep and causes so much pain and destruction, God still sees us as lovable and yearns for closeness with us. How would you blossom if you were able to move through life from a place of knowing this truth, that God sees you and loves you as you are?
Perfectionism is so seductive, but there is a better way. You may find you grow even more as you let go of crippling shame, and step into the light of His love.
How powerful, how consuming, His great love for us.
Katherine Cimorelli Straneva is a writer and musician in the internationally-acclaimed band of sisters, Cimorelli. She loves hospitality, Eucharistic Adoration, and reading novels while her sons wrestle. She lives in Nashville, TN with her husband and three sons.
