Made Clean by Christ’s Love

Every so often, a line of spiritual writing doesn’t just inspire—it pierces. It finds the hidden place inside us where longing and fear and hope all live together, and it speaks directly into that space with a tenderness we didn’t know we needed. That’s what happened for me when I sat with the words of Sister Mary of the Holy Trinity’s meditation “Made Clean by Christ’s Love” in the Magnificat. Especially the image of Jesus saying, “Rejoice because you are my beloved… there is nothing between you and me.”

There is something disarming about that kind of love. A love that doesn’t negotiate. A love that doesn’t keep score. A love that keeps reaching, keeps cleansing, keeps drawing us close. The reminder that every absolution is not just forgiveness but an embrace, Christ pressing us to His heart, lands differently when you’ve lived enough life to know your own frailty. It becomes personal and a promise you cling to.

What moves me most is the insistence that nothing stands between us and Christ except our own hesitation to believe we are loved like this. He thirsts for us—not in a distant, abstract way, but with a desire that continues right now, in this moment. And He invites us to share that thirst, to let His love reshape our own hearts so that we can carry His tenderness into the lives of others.

But the invitation doesn’t end there. These words call us to rejoice—not because life is simple or we are perfect, but because we are His. Because each of us has a place in His heart no one else can fill. Because His love transforms even the smallest offering into something eternal. Because our destiny in Him is far greater than anything we could imagine for ourselves.

This is why the reflection holds such special meaning for me: it reminds me that holiness begins not with effort, but with openness. Not with striving, but with surrender. Not with fear, but with joy.

And so today, I hear the invitation again:
Open your heart. Let yourself be loved. Rejoice.

Because Christ’s love doesn’t just cleanse—it restores, it claims, and it sends us out radiant with a joy the world cannot give.