It's a little annoying, but only because it happens consistently throughout the day in the middle of everything else, even as I vainly attempt to sweep up the grounds with the paintbrush we keep handy, customers holler behind me that they'd like a grande latte nonfat no foam and I smile and nod and drop the brush and move to the espresso grinder and portion out more coffee grounds, then wipe away the extras.
Coffee grounds are everywhere. They cling to my glasses, stick to my hands, get under my fingernails. It seems like no matter how hard I try to clean them up, they keep coming back. Like no matter how hard I try to be positive, to better myself, to be holy, I keep complaining, making excuses, and putting myself first. The mess I've made just seems to get messier. Even as I begin to teeter on the brink of despair, however, someone offers me love and encouragement to keep the faith.
So the other day I was brushing away coffee grounds while people and their chatter buzzed around me. I sighed and prayed, "Dear Lord, this is for you." And suddenly, it wasn't coffee grounds--it was the blood of Jesus. I was at the foot of the cross with Mary, John, and Mary Magdalene. The blood was the result of my sins, but it was poured out freely, given up for me. I was the soldier who pierced the side of Christ, baptized in the blood and water that poured out--mercy.
Those grounds, in that moment, were God's will for me. They weren't my will, but when I accepted them as God's and offered them to Him, I saw that they were my small, seemingly insignificant way of participating in the redemptive suffering of Christ. What I do isn't much, but to offer my work with love, to serve drinks with the desire to quench the thirst of Christ, to smile at the cranky and keep my snarky comments to myself, to not give in to the frustration that surrounds me--this is true freedom.
Mother Teresa said, "To work without love is slavery." We are all called to true freedom. It doesn't come by our efforts, but by a movement of our will, an alignment of our hearts with God's sprinkled with His Mercy and Grace.
As Mumford & Sons sings, "There is a design, an alignment, a cry of my heart to see the beauty of love as it was made to be. Love it will not betray you, dismay or enslave you, it will set you free. Be more like the man you were made to be." When we allow this love, this mercy and grace, to embrace us and fill us, we will become who God created us to be.
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I also have been reading the Catechism everyday for the Year of Faith, and this passage from today was too relevant. God knows what's up when we don't have a clue. God has control when we have none. He is Good, and He makes all things Good and all things new--we must believe and trust in that.
272 Faith in God the Father Almighty can be put to the test by the experience of evil and suffering. God can sometimes seem to be absent and incapable of stopping evil. But in the most mysterious way God the Father has revealed his almighty power in the voluntary humiliation and Resurrection of his Son, by which he conquered evil. Christ crucified is thus "the power of God and the wisdom of God. For the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men." It is in Christ's Resurrection and exaltation that the Father has shown forth "the immeasurable greatness of his power in us who believe".
273 Only faith can embrace the mysterious ways of God's almighty power. This faith glories in its weaknesses in order to draw to itself Christ's power. The Virgin Mary is the supreme model of this faith, for she believed that "nothing will be impossible with God", and was able to magnify the Lord: "For he who is mighty has done great things for me, and holy is his name."
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