Whole Lotta Love by Led Zeppelin

I used to be the kind of Catholic who couldn’t bravely admit my love – my unbearable fire of a love – for God.

Growing up in a family of mostly men, aside from my mom, the phrase, “There’s no crying in baseball,” was an absolute philosophy for living and believing. Not to mention, when you are the youngest in the family, and the only girl, there’s not a whole lotta opportunity to prove your love for faith is a legitimate testimony.

Don’t get me wrong, I had one of the best upbringings you could possibly have in the 90s. But as a person whose soul is on fire for the ways of love, and all things full of hope, it was hard to stand up to the masses and let my “freak flag” run wild for God when the world around me seemed to be saying this was an unpopular approach at an early age.

I’ve referenced this before, but one of my favorite movies of all time is Family Stone, mostly because Sarah Jessica Parker plays a completely unaware, yet-to-be dismantled human being (much of who we are before we face ourselves with God at the center of the process) who meets the cool and completely unhinged Luke Wilson, or Ben Stone, as he goes by in the movie.

Ben Stone shows her how you can be yourself without apology in life, but also, that the source of this lifestyle is your “freak flag”, that which we must not be afraid to fly wholeheartedly.

Counter to boldly being allowed to freely express my exuberant love and joy for faith and all things praise & worship, my family expressed our faith in other vulnerable ways. Being Mexican-Catholic for the most part, I grew up knowing about the more intimate parts of our faith, things many cradle Catholics just don’t grow up with unless culturally or tragically influenced. So in a sense, it was more that the specific way of praising God through modern-day praise and worship songs, was looked at as not carrying enough weight to express true devout faith or devotion. It was seen as surface level or presumptuous, or quite possibly not expressing our hearts’ most genuine craving for the Lord; that maybe praise needed to look holier or be more solemn or simply not have American Idol singers delivering this kind of devotion in mass.

Even though praise and worship was not my family’s jam, we adored Christ in other ways which seemed more innate or reverent, like the Rosary at any given time, or sincere prayer in private, daily mass when you can, the Sacraments every weekend, and acknowledging the lives of our family members who had past on and were now a part of the communion of saints who still assist us in our day-to-day lives when we need them most. Furthermore, Mary guarded the major hallway outside my room, and at my Grandma’s house right when you walked in the door you couldn’t help but notice the life-size Our Lady of Guadalupe waiting for your petitions to be heard. We were encouraged to know she’d hear our prayers and give her Son the list of our requests. We grew up knowing that it wasn’t crazy to completely believe those prayers were going to be answered in some shape or form.

Though these are stellar nuggets of faith given to me at a young age that which I am incredibly grateful for, none of them really point to simply praising and adoring Christ – like just saying to Him, “I see you and I love you and I am grateful for you.” YOU are the center of my life. Though we can do this in prayer, we can also do this in song with others present.

I remember coming back from a Confirmation retreat in high school, a time in which I was on the brink of going left or right in life. We had just come down the mountain, we were all at mass sitting in the front few pews and I was completely lit up with hope, love, affirmation, worthiness … all the things you need at that age. I was completely “on one” for God, wanting to sing all the songs and do all the hand-motions, only to realize I looked absolutely “stupid-freaking-ridiculous” to my family, a phrase we use when making fun of others or expressing that someone has taken it way too far.

I laugh at this story now because I genuinely agree to a certain extent about how ridiculous we can all look when we unveil just how much our hearts are on fire for God! It really is embarrassing on some level the first few times you open up and unleash this sort of God-meter with others around, because it’s kind of like sharing your most intimate thoughts about a person to others. It reminds me of talking about someone you love to people who do not want to hear it, and having to witness the look on their face when you unveil just how mushy and romantic you can be. Loving God publicly is a lot like that. It’s a whole lotta amazing feels that just looks stupid-freakin-ridiculous to everyone else on the outer rim of faith. But for you and those who are not afraid to let their “freak flag” fly, it does not look or feel stupid. It feels AMAZING, as in, “Why haven’t I been doing this all my life?”

I’ve psychoanalyzed a couple comparisons for myself that might put it all into perspective for you as well …

• If you can do yoga in public, you can get down with praise and worship.
• If you’ve ever done meditative stretching on the beach that looks like made up Tai Chi, then you can get down with praise and worship. (In fact, if you’ve ever done actual Tai Chi, then you can openly do praise and worship.)
• If you’ve ever karaoked (after a couple to a lot of drinks), you can get down with praise and worship. God’s love is the buzz that kicks in when you sing your heart out and participate in praise and worship.

So really … it all boils down to humility. If you are humble enough to put your heart on blast for all the world to see, then don’t worry, God will protect you from the onlookers and the naysayers and the haters. All you need to remember is that genuine praise and worship for the Lord comes from within YOUR heart, no matter what the song or chant is. Whether it’s in Latin, or it’s that contemporary Christian music you just want to sing along too, or the old school songs I grew up with in elementary Catholic school. When we praise in this way, God has your back beyond what the world can throw at you. The craving has to come out. Genuine love cannot be bottled up, it’s impossible. And when it does come out, it will take on its own form according to what your interior castle looks like, as Saint Teresa de Avila would call it.

 If you dance while praising and worshiping, awesome.  If you sing and open your hands up for the Holy Spirit to sink in, then great!  If the gift of tongues pours out of you because you just can't put a lid on the glory that God is doing in your heart, then let a rip!  

As I’ve gotten older, I’ve gotten softer – thank the Lord. And I’ve discovered this sweetness of my love for the Lord, that was there all along. Much credit can be given to my past of facing the demons of my life. In a nutshell, if you face your own brokenness, softness just comes with the territory.

To clarify, this is a softness, not a “softy” per se. The softening of our heart makes us humble and able to hear God’s wisdom clearly. It’s as if life and all the conversations or interactions you encounter slow down like they do in the Matrix, when Neo can preemptively dodge bullets as they are coming out of the chamber, giving him ample time to get in front of those moments and not necessarily react, but propose a more strategic move or path taken.

As I dive deeper into this more vulnerable side of my heart, I see there were stages of tapping into this joy that have come into fruition throughout the different chapters of life. It started with this blog actually. The fact that I started a platform where I would potentially “spill my guts” as my Dad would say, is in itself the most ridiculously, vulnerable move I could have made at the time. And to tell you the truth, it is harder now to write than it was back then. It is harder now because my heart has developed so many new layers (thanks be to God) that are just sometimes so difficult to share with the world out there. Then, there was the chapter in which I gave frequent talks and shared my story with various audiences within Catholic ministry, worked with the youth and built pathways for mentoring them in the secular and non-secular domains (some of which I still do today.)

However now, I’ve reached a new stage in this search for understanding my own heart and I’ve have had the chance to embrace it fully for just me. This sounds selfish, but after my own experiences of healing it was only natural that I felt compelled to share and help others. Whereas now that I am not in a state of healing old wounds, I have a moment to really soak it all up, then share the graces when called to.

For starters, I have finally found a love for the Book of Psalms! It seems for so long, I could not appreciate these profound yet simple versus just yet. They helped me through hard times, which might be why I did not associate them with joy or gratitude as much. I love the poetic yet strait forward gem drops that Psalms and all songs of praising the Lord convey. They seem to sing from the depths of my innermost chambers now, and miraculously align with my mornings before they even happen.

Every morning, I wake up and the first thing I do before getting to work on my computer is read the Book of Psalms, highlighting all the verses that speak to my heart in that moment. I allow for about 30 minutes of just straight up Psalms until my heart feels at rest. The kind of rest like when you’ve ran for miles and miles, and finally feel like you’ve exerted the energy you needed to. Except this kind of energy in Psalms is more of an expression of pure loving acknowledgement. It seems I will most likely finish the Book of Psalms within a couple weeks, since each morning is guided by the peace received versus a limit/goal to the chapters read. I never intended or thought I’d read Psalms straight through, but the benefits have framed my heart in a whole new way for the day that it is literally the only way I want to begin my day.

As I soak up more of my own heart for Jesus through Psalms, His love equips me to then give it away again perhaps in a much better suited way: His way. A cycle described best by Bishop Barron, “Your faith will grow only in the measure that you give it away.” The verses from Psalms each morning have motivated me to stay the path of making His love real and present for all who have been bit by the bug of love, transformation, awareness, realization, revelation, sincere seeking … all the things that eventually lead us to Christ. The thing is, most people who have been bitten, do not know that it is Christ. They might not even know what God’s love is. It is our job to reveal it in a way that only can be known to us in the moment, when the opportunity arises, with God’s wisdom at the forefront. Morning Psalms has created in me the courage to speak up in those moments and share or relate with someone who has curiously peeked at the Trailhead of Christ.

Immersing myself in an environment where opportunities to get to know Jesus will inevitably arise, has helped when it comes to diving into these other stages of the vulnerable interior castle of the heart. Being involved at our parish and saying yes to participate in ministry keeps us hip to whenever Adoration or Confession is available. It’s good to have both of these on hand, so that you can go to Jesus whenever and submit your heart to the softening process constantly. Over the past three years, I’ve made it my primary focus to recording my conversations with the Lord through prayer journaling and taking note of all the ways in which He steps into my life. Through Ignatian Contemplation, the Rosary, pure silence and listening to His voice, sitting with the Holy Spirit and in front of the Blessed Sacrament, God has just melted down all my walls making it that much easier to feel worthy of praising and adoring Him. My latest dive into the deeper waters of softening the heart has been through Encounter Ministries, where every class affirms the path God has called me on since the beginning.

And so, when I sat down to write this post, it makes sense that a “Whole Lotta Love” by Led Zeppelin came to mind, even with its treacherous musical break in the middle of the song. It has the necessary highs and lows and the intensity of Dante’s Inferno – of admitting to yourself where and when God has spoken to us directly like the burning bush, or when Jesus has entered into my soul and raised me off the ground when I needed Him most, or when the Holy Spirit filled my entire being with the courage and grace to deliver and be in the most contrasting of situations. This song’s melody wreaks of reminding you that embracing God’s love means admitting your love for Him first, really basking in it and embracing it without question; not being afraid to admit that we are worthy of His GOODNESS that feels uncontrollably vibrant and more real than anything possibly could in this life. “Whole Lotta Love” reminds me of the path it’s taken to realize that this life has a superficial veil covering the goodness God tries to speak and breathe into our life every single day, but that once we get a glimpse of what is behind this sheer veil, we then get to see Heaven on Earth and take part in it.

I love the quest, I love seeking His voice, I love listening to what He says – rebuke or guidance, it doesn’t matter – with complete acceptance enveloping my heart in all ways possible. Through this unending spark that craves God on this level, I have seen the miracles in not only my life but in those around me, and it is glorious! It brings me GREAT joy to see prayers answered for friends of mine who have longed for peace, healing, love, hope, community, second chances and all the things we pray for, but haven’t realized our friends are communing in prayer with us the whole time.

Thank you to the past, that broke me and made me want to see God face to face. Thank you for all the different forms of music and praise and chants that allow us to hear our sweet hearts adore Him and thank Him properly. Thank you for the beautiful vistas of life that come from enduring, persevering and believing that He is here in the first place.

Psalm 38: 16 “Lord, it is for you that I wait; O Lord, my God, you respond.”

You do respond, Lord. You responds, always. You respond in the most miraculous and glorious of ways, through everything you know has a hold on my heart. May the walls come down, and may I praise and give thanks all the days of my life.