Do you remember those dances when we were kids and the boys all lined up on one side of the hall, the girls on the other and everyone nervously looked for a way to get across to invite a partner to dance?
The format of that dynamic may have changed, yet the reality remains; it is hard, awkward and often intimidating and embarrassing to step out of oneself toward another. Slowly we learn the social skills, some more quickly than others. Yet often the skills simply mask the trepidation that lurks behind the apparent social ease.
All this is a fundamental reality of our human condition. Researchers have pondered the complexity of human relationships for ages.?? And while much has been learned, much remains obscure. What is known with certainty is that persons enter a meaningful relationship with great difficulty if they have never been held in a trusting, loving relationship in childhood and youth. Add to this truth that full maturity for every person requires such connectedness and intimacy, and the role of faith and God takes on a particular urgency.
In the Old Testament book of Genesis (1:27-28, 31) we read that God created male and female in His own image and ?God looked at everything He had made and found it very good.? ?Love is the very source of our being; we are created by Love, in the very image of Love in order that we might know Love and live in Love.
This teaching is a long-held tradition in the Judeo-Christian religions and beyond. Appropriating it as the bedrock for healthy human development yields an understanding of each person as special, possessing a unique and inviolable dignity. Growing in this dignity cultivates the perfect reality for wonderful, joyful and rich human relationships and mutual respect.
It seems to me this Sunday?s Feast of The Holy Trinity offers a perfect moment to reflect on our God and how it is each and all of us, created in the image of this God, are in relationship with one another. It takes but a moment to recognize that God?s plan ? that ideal that is part of our very nature ? is all too often frustrated and unrealized. In far more sophisticated and polished ways, we circle back to the dance hall filled with nervous teenagers, giggling and strutting, red-faced and stuttering.
To put it bluntly, we are afraid. Fear keeps us from stepping out onto the dance floor of life. We are afraid of looking foolish, of rejection, of what to say and do ? as well as what not to say and do! Fear is crippling.
As one of my most favorite lines in the great hymn of Zachariah, The Benedictus (Luke 1, 68-79) explains: Christ comes to set us free, even free from fear. It is faith that can free us. Our faith can ground us in accepting and celebrating our God-given innate value and dignity and that of all others. Most of all, our faith can allow us to know Love and be loved thereby freeing us to love.
Recognize honestly the fears that control and shape your life. In humble prayer to God, in whose image you are made, ask to be set free.?
Fr. Ronan?
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Article source: http://charlestown.patch.com/articles/fr-ronan-meaningful-relationships-are-difficult
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