FROM INFIDELITY TO IN-FIDELITY

THE PRESENT POWER OF EMMANUEL

SOMEONE NEEDS TO HEAR THIS. An invitation to tremendous freedom in the corridor to Christmas. Or any time.

Recently a friend shared her shock at the number of women actively engaged in their church who, in a regular womens group, admitted marital infidelity. Of course, for some, it was their husband. Or both. What was magnificent is the degree to which all were not simply sharing this in a normal church setting, but were on the path to restoration! (Thank you, Jesus!)

FIRST, I AM HUMBLED. It is only by God's grace I can say I'm flabbergasted at the prospect of marital infidelity. While I, along with every other person with a pulse, have had various levels of intensity in battling lust... and duly noting entertaining the same constitutes spiritual adultery, never in over 26 years of marriage have I had the remotest inclination. (Thank you, Jesus.)

HERE'S THE IMPORTANT THING, and where I want to turn. Clearly, so many other people have faced and fallen prey to this monster. Something they would not have remotely considered on their wedding day. I wonder what small, little relational splinters and disconnects over time became gaping holes. Absence of real, meaningful connection.

I SAY THIS BECAUSE, by both desire and design, my wife's and my souls are interwoven. It's so much more than her access to all my... everything... emails, texts, search history.... From the beginning, as my best friend, she has access to my soul. There's nothing I've ever confessed that she does not know about. Nothing we have not talked about or do not regularly talk about.

Thus, to take any step along the treacherous path from inclination to committing an act would be, for me, hell. A weight I could never carry or conceal.

I CONFESS MY LIFE CHALLENGES to my wife, most of the time, even lust, because this demon is a great pretender, lingering there like a phantom, a fiction, a liar, only powerful in the darkness. And she is luminous. Not only real, she is real for me. In marriage, she is assigned to me. Or more accurately, assigned with me for the unsurpassed Divine Dance, participating in the life of the Holy Trinity. Leading us both into ever greater eternal intimacy.

I SHARE EVERYTHING WITH HER because the Blood and Water flowing from the Sacred Side of our Savior, Jesus Christ, Who conquered sin and death, is the very currency of our relationship. Which is to say, in every battle I face on this earth, she is my most formidable prayer warrior. My connection to God. A powerful, personal means of access to His storehouse of grace. Who wouldn't want that?

ALL THAT TO SAY, and probably the impetus for even sharing this: I can't imagine the kind of horror one feels when, for whatever reason, family of origin issues, profound brokenness, absence of being forged in virtue, making little bad decisions that pave the way… whatever, those who've made this mistake in small or great ways...but are profoundly repentant, feel irreparably broken. Desiring to get back in the game. Desiring to shake the toxic cloud of shame whose damning influence is completely unnecessary given the sacraments of our Church.

FOR THESE, KNOW THAT CHRIST HAS COME FOR THIS! HE HAS COME FOR YOU! He has come to defeat the gates of hell. Not just an ethereal thing in some distant future for anonymous "everybody," but HERE AND NOW. FOR YOU! In your mind, heart, will, memory, imagination, body, soul.

With all the power of heaven and earth, Jesus Christ came to set you free. He came to wash you clean by His Sacrifice.

BEHOLD, THE OLD HAS PASSED AWAY! In Him, right now, right this very moment, by calling upon His Name, by repenting and receiving a deluge of His grace… all is new! And while the journey of transformation continues, in this week leading up to Christ's Mass, declare His victory in your life! Claim it! Seize it!

And for the rest of us, may we have the humble mercy and grace to look with Christ's eyes at all who have fallen in ways small and great. To love them. Engage them. Recognize in them the tremendous imprint of Who Christ is, what He came to do, and what He is doing even now.

That's all I've got.

United with you in this journey for the Kingdom! EMMANUEL!