The Small Heart That Overflows in Agonizing Love

Have you ever a letter or a card to someone you love deeply, only to have it returned unopened? Or perhaps you’ve reached out to a child who has grown distant, whispered “I love you” into a phone call, and heard only silence in response?

There is a particular ache reserved for love that finds no home. It is not the sharp pain of a physical wound, but something deeper, a slow bleeding of the soul. We can heal from cuts and bruises, but the wound of love refused seems to open again with every heartbeat.

Now, hold that ache in your mind for a moment. Multiply it. Extend it. Imagine that ache offered not to one person, but to every human being who has ever lived and ever will live. Imagine that ache carried by One who knew every soul intimately before they were even formed in the womb.

This, I believe, is where we begin to touch the true suffering of the Cross.

 

The Pain Beneath the Pain

We often meditate on the physical torments of the Passion, and rightly so. The scourging that tore flesh from bone. The crown of thorns pressed into a sensitive scalp. The nails, whose Greek word (hēlos) appears in Thomas’s doubting speech in "Unless I see the mark of the nails in his hands, and put my finger in the mark of the nails and my hand in his side, I will not believe" (John 20:25). The slow suffocation of crucifixion, where a man must push himself up on pierced feet simply to draw breath.

These sufferings are real, and they are terrible.

The Church has always invited us to contemplate them, to walk the Stations, to enter into the wounds. But if we stop at the physical, we may miss what was happening in the heart of Christ.

Consider this: the Roman world was full of crucifixions. Historians tell us that thousands of men were nailed to crosses in the century of Christ’s death. Physical suffering, even suffering unto death, was not unique to Jesus.

What was unique, what has never been replicated in any other death in all of human history, was who was suffering, and whom He was suffering for.

The Word through whom all things were made (John 1:3) was being killed by the very hands He had knit together in their mothers’ wombs. The One who had breathed life into Adam’s nostrils was gasping for breath while the descendants of Adam mocked Him.

And He loved them. Every one of them.

 

Imagine the Cross Was Yours

Today, when I was at Church praying (I try to go every day), I was kneeling, gazing up at our Lord, and something struck me as I contemplated His sacrifice, as I begged our Lord to unite me completely in His love.

It started with an image.

A thought of what it must've been like, how it must've felt for Him who is Love itself, to be nailed to the cross by those He loved so deeply that He endured it all for their sake.

Here is a meditation worth sitting with, though it may frighten you, it might rattle you, because it did me: What if it were you on that cross?

Not you as a martyr for a stranger’s cause. Not you dying for some distant nation.

What if it were your own children driving the nails? What if it were your spouse standing at the foot of the cross, arm-in-arm with another, laughing at your agony?

What if the friends you had poured your life into were spitting on your face?

Would you love them less? If you are a parent, you know the answer. A mother does not stop loving her child because the child has become cruel. A father does not withdraw his heart because his son has broken it.

Love, real love, does not have an exit clause.

But oh, the pain.

The pain would not be in the nails.

As I contemplated this scene, it wasn't the physical wounds that nearly drove me tears. The pain was what was in the eyes of those I love, looking back at me in hatred. The pain was in the memory of every moment I had held them, taught them, forgiven them, given myself for them, now weighed against this final rejection.

What would you notice, most painfully, in that moment?

The nails would be almost a mercy compared to that ache.

This is what Isaiah saw, seven centuries before Calvary: "He was despised and rejected by others; a man of suffering and acquainted with infirmity; and as one from whom others hide their faces he was despised, and we held him of no account" (Isaiah 53:3). The Hebrew word translated “suffering” here is makh’ovoth, which carries the connotation of anguish, sorrows of the interior kind.

Isaiah did not merely see a bloodied Messiah. He saw a heart broken by love unreturned.

 

The Love That Would Not Diminish

And here is the wonder, the scandal, the very center of the Gospel: none of this diminished His love.

Saint Paul, writing to the Romans, marveled at this: "But God proves his love for us in that while we still were sinners Christ died for us" (Romans 5:8).

Note the tense. Not “after we repented.” Not “once we had come around.” While we still were sinners.

While the nails were being driven. While the crowd was jeering. While Peter was denying and Judas had already betrayed. In that moment, His love was not merely maintained. It was proved, demonstrated, poured out.

From the Cross, He did not say, “How dare you.” He said, "Father, forgive them; for they do not know what they are doing" (Luke 23:34). Even here, He was advocating for us. He was interceding. He was loving.

This is not natural love. This is not the love that our fallen hearts know how to give.

This is divine love, agape, the love that gives without measure and without condition. And it flowed from Him even as it went unrequited by so many who watched Him die.

Thus, my prayer did not end in pure agony. It turned to rapture. A love that lifted me up beyond the shadowy valleys of this mortal life. From love most deeply demonstrated, an overflow of love poured into my heart became a wellspring of uncontainable joy, a love that reached as high as the depths to which it had gone for me, now ascending to the risen Christ whose heart still aches for those who refuse Him, who reject Him, who blaspheme His name.

Yes, I will return to the Lord in love. I will offer Him only what He's first given me, for my heart cannot contain it all! I will love, and in love, through me, He will make Love loved!   

What blessed anguish! What joyful sorrow! For in there, we find a love without limit, a love that envelops us, arrests us, and gathers us into a Heart that never ceases to love, that continues to pour into a heart already overflowing, that His love might reach through such little hearts as mine everyone who might see His Love radiate from such tiny vessels.

The Question That Confronts Us

So how do we respond? How does a soul respond when it stands before this mystery, when it truly grasps that the God of the universe was rejected by those He loved, and loved them still?

There are those in our own day who blaspheme. There are those who mock the Church, who ridicule the faith, who reject the God who made them. There are those who, if we are honest, seem to hate the very idea of Christ. The temptation is to respond in kind, to become bitter, to become defensive, to circle the wagons and see the world as enemy.

But this is not the way of the Cross.

The way of the Cross is stranger and more beautiful than that.

The way of the Cross is to unite our hearts to His.

To stand beside Him at Calvary, or better, to climb onto the cross with Him. To feel, in some small way, the ache of His rejected love. And then, having felt it, to allow His infinite love to pour into our small hearts, to overflow them, and to offer that overflow back to Him as a prayer for the very souls who wound Him.

 

The Small Heart

Here is a truth that took me a long time to learn: my heart is small.

I do not mean this as false humility. I mean it as sober fact.

My heart, on its own, cannot contain infinite love.

It cannot even contain the love needed for the difficult people in my own life, let alone the love needed for the world’s blasphemers, the world’s rejectors, the world’s mockers of Christ.

If I imagine that my heart is large, I will try to love the world with my own resources, and I will fail. I will burn out. I will become bitter. I will start to hate the very people I meant to love.

If I think I have a "big" heart I might be deceived into thinking it can somehow contain the infinite love of God. It would be foolish, since no finite vessel no matter how large can contain the infinite, but if I think I have a "big" heart I might be deluded into thinking I can somehow "hold" all of His love on the inside. I might not be overflowed, overwhelmed, but the vast and infinite love He pours upon me.

This is the great danger of a Christianity that forgets its own smallness.

But if I recognize that my heart is small, tiny, a thimble, then something wonderful becomes possible. The first drop of God’s infinite love, poured into that thimble, causes it to overflow.

And that overflow can be offered back to Him.

Saint Thérèse of Lisieux understood this. She knew that she could not love as God loved. She was a “little soul.” But she also knew that a little soul, held in the ocean of divine love, could be filled and refilled, and every overflow could become a prayer for sinners. Her whole “little way” was built on this insight: that our smallness, embraced honestly, becomes the very channel through which God’s greatness reaches the world.

 

Consoling the Heart of Christ

There is an ancient tradition in the Church of “consoling the Sacred Heart of Jesus.” At first this might sound strange. How can we, mere creatures, console the Son of God? Is He not the source of all consolation?

But consider: Christ, in His humanity, truly suffered the pain of unrequited love. And this suffering, in some mysterious way that transcends time, is present now. When we unite our small overflow of love to His infinite love, offering it for the salvation of sinners, we are placing a drop of water on the fevered brow of the Crucified. We become the Veronica who wipes His face. We become the beloved disciple who stands at the foot of the Cross and does not run away.

I've shared this verse with you many times before, but it's relevant again: "I am now rejoicing in my sufferings for your sake, and in my flesh I am completing what is lacking in Christ’s afflictions for the sake of his body, that is, the church" (Colossians 1:24). Nothing is lacking in Christ’s redemptive work, of course. But something is lacking in the application of that work to individual souls, and here we can participate. We can offer our small love, our small sufferings, united to His, for the salvation of others.

Couldn't Jesus just up and save the entire world on his own without us? Of course He could. But love by its very nature is inclusive of one's beloved. I could eat a meal alone, but I long to share a meal with my wife. I could tend the flower beds outside alone, but how much better would it be if my wife and I did it together? Love invites the Beloved into its most intimate, and most precious, acts.

The same is true with us. Jesus longs for us, for those whom He loves, to participate in His mission to save souls. Not because He is inefficient, but because love always includes the beloved.

 

Living This Truth

How do we live this in the ordinary days of our lives? Here are some suggestions, small paths forward:

First, when you encounter someone who rejects the faith, resist the urge to argue or defend. Instead, take a moment in silence to unite your heart to the Sacred Heart of Christ. Feel, if only for a second, the ache He feels for that soul. Then simply love them, in whatever small way is possible in the moment. A kind word. A patient ear. A prayer whispered as they walk away.

Second, begin a daily practice of offering the “overflow.” When you feel love, gratitude, joy, or even the sting of being unloved yourself, offer it back to the Lord as a prayer for a specific soul. Perhaps someone who has hurt you. Perhaps someone whose name appears in the news. Perhaps a family member who has drifted from the faith.

Third, when you pray before the Crucifix, or when you think about the Passion, do not look only at the wounds of the body. Look at the eyes. Look at the heart. Contemplate the deeper wound, the wound of love, and let it break your heart a little. A broken heart, united to His passion, is a heart that's healed in His resurrection. It is this heart that He fills, and it is this heart that overflows in love for our Lord, yes, but also for all whom our Lord loves. These are not two different loves, but one and the same love. We love because He first loved us. His love in overflow of our tiny hearts becomes a deluge. In this way, through the love He's given us, His love floods the world.

Fourth, embrace your smallness. Stop trying to be a heroic Christian. Be a little Christian. Be a thimble-hearted disciple. Let God fill you drop by drop, and do not say "enough" when you've had your fill. Let Him overflow your little heart into the lives of everyone you meet.

Finally, let that overflow show. Sometimes, just a smile is enough. Not enough people smile today. They're all too focused on their to-do lists, their individual problems. We have those lists and problems, too. But our hearts are full and overflowing. Such tasks and burdens are now light, they no longer weigh us down, because in His love, we are no longer given the strength to walk, but to run. Better, we are are given wings and we fly, we soar, in the winds of unceasing love. How can't we smile?

The pain of love unrequited is the deepest pain in the universe. Christ carried it to the Cross and did not stop loving. May we, with our small hearts, catch even a single drop of that love, each drop containing infinite portions that overflow from our hearts into the world, that we might offer it back for the souls who need it most.