Search the Depths of my Heart Lord!

I was listening to Food for the Journey last weekend, Sister Ann Sheilds was reading the alternative opening prayer for the mass on that Sunday, and it made my heart stir as I listened to it:

 Lord our God, Father of all ,you guard us under the shadow of your wings and search into the depths of our hearts.  Remove the blindness that cannot know you and remove the fear that would cause us to hide from your sight.

Maybe I needed to hear it, because it played through my mind and heart as the week progressed.   Then, a rather vigorous Facebook exchange involving a family member who posts a lot links in support of "homosexual marriage" occurred. His current post was too much for some who had not felt the need to comment before.  He share one of those trite slogan picture thingys (I don't care what they are about I tend to think that they are trite), but it included the original posters comment that Catholics needed to show those Bishops what love is and support gay marriage.

Now my husbands family has a gift for entering into heated debates and being able to end them without lingering anger, even if there are lingering disagreements, and this exchange was no different.  But reflecting on this prayer brings me back to this intense disagreement, mostly I needed to remember it.   For in my fear of saying something too harsh, I said hardly anything at all; and I was blinded to the most troubling aspect of the exchange, which my brave and faithful  sister-in-law helped me to see (although indirectly).  She pointed out that this nephew was now going to a church that openly dissents from the teachings of our Magisterium, and that issue was the catalyst that drove him there.  He searched it out and choose it because of their open dissent, and my dear sister-in-law who has been gifted by the Spirit in Fear of the Lord, passionately argued that my nephew was putting his soul in jeopardy, aided only by my son Matt, another cousin and finally her husband, who summed up the arguments nicely.  I am ashamed to say my one and only contribution was lukewarm, because I feared so many things!

Thanks to my conversation I realized that I had only payed attention to one aspect of the discussion, and not the crumbling faith of my nephew.  And in the depths of my heart I realize that I would rather pretend that there is not storm than directly confront it.  For shame!  But, I think that if my prophetic inkling is right I will have another opportunity.  And love is so much more than what the proponents of gay marriage think it is.  I pray for the courage to always see the most needful thing Lord, and to not allow fear to blind me.