For the love of God: on Ave Maryam

When she arrived back at her dorm, her fellow sisters surprised her with the second birthday cake of the day. In both times getting surprised she sobbed by the end of it, but this time, the guilt made it more painful.

And at her lowest point, Suster Monic embraced her and made an admission, "If of my heaven I don't have any certainty, what do I have to do of your hell?" It's beside the point to question the two nuns' understanding of heaven and hell; both of them knew perfectly well each of those things as well as their associations.

So when Suster Monic made the proclamation, it wasn't a moral statement as much as it was an understanding of a shared human condition. These two sisters, one hardened by age and one by pain, were there for each other.

God's love and human love happening in parallel is a privilege. Some people have to make the hard choice between the two. For these people, love is not a balancing act, at least not in the sense of balancing between the two types. Rather, it's walking the tight rope between regret and content, or between shame and acceptance.

Here, tolerance in its highest form lies not only in respecting what one chooses, but also, and maybe more importantly, as Suster Monic had shown, in understanding what one forgoes.

In the end, Suster Maryam made her choice. Inside the confession booth, she spoke of her journey in finding God and His love and how in the process she found someone in the same journey as hers and that person's love. Her voice broke when she admit her weakness and in His name, she asked for strength. Over the screen, a priest oversaw this confession. The priest was Romo Yosef.

The priest over the screen accepted her confession and prayed for her, maybe as much for himself as it was for her.

The priest over the screen weeped with her. Maybe so did God.