Imagine Dragons

I have often been spurred to prayer by unexpected sources, from Hamlet to Hamilton to the way that Spring unfolds - God speaks to me in weird and wonderful ways. But even for me, praying with the song "Demons" by Imagine Dragons on my way home from Mass the other night, was pretty weird... and beautiful. In all the years I've known this song, this was the first time I had heard it as the cry of a world that desperately needs the Gospel. The whole song bears the tone of the burden of darkness and sin with no knowledge of hope, and I was totally caught off guard by how much my heart ached to bring healing to those this spoke for. The song starts,

When the days are cold and the cards all fold and the saints we see are all made of gold...

How much deeper is the despair of darkness when you are alone? When those who you would look to for help have apparently never struggled? I thought about how the saints I see are all made of flesh and blood - canonized saints as well as people I know who show me the beauty of daily holiness. Clad in gold, yes. Their goodness and virtue never ceases to amaze and inspire me. But it inspires and gives me hope so much the more so because I know that they are real people who struggled as much as I do. They have shown me their wounds, been honest about the darkness they've been through and can tell me the story of how they "crawled through a river of shit and came out clean on the other side.*" Part of the call to be a witness of hope to those who walk in darkness is the call to be saints who are made of flesh and blood: normal people who are intensely pursuing holiness, living a life of the joy of the Gospel, who also aren't afraid to show their wounds. And that actually makes the ways I've struggled a gift because it gives me a voice to speak authentically of hope and light.

Repeated throughout is the line "don't get too close, it's dark inside". I know all too well the temptation to hide when you are struggling. Whether it's shame at temptation and sin or a fear of admitting weakness and suffering, the instinct to hide and isolate is strong. But I also know, from myself and from so many I love, that it is the most healing thing to discover that someone authentically loves you enough to be with you in your suffering, to not be afraid of your mess and your darkness, and to be a witness of Christ's Love for you no matter what you're struggling with. Every heart, especially mine, needs the light of Christ brought to its darkest corners. Drawing close to someone who is suffering is scary; compassion means suffering with, but that's what Christ is constantly doing and He invites us to join Him.

It wasn't til I got home that I realized that all of this was a reflection on the Gospel of the day:

As You sent me into the world, so I sent them into the world.

*Shawshank Redemption *SPOILERS*