In the very beginning of the movie Father Stu (2022), Stu is stumbling drunk outside a Catholic church. He’s angry. Lost. And in a moment of rage, he punches a statue of Jesus.
It’s a jarring image—but it’s also deeply human. Because sometimes, our walk with God doesn’t begin with reverence.
It begins with resistance.
Not with clarity, but with chaos.
Not with peace, but with pain.
Stu Long didn’t come to the Church seeking God. He came chasing a girl. He signed up for RCIA to impress her, repeating textbook catechism answers, going through the motions. It was all surface. All performance.
And I understand that.
Because I didn’t come to the Church seeking God either.
I came because my mother-in-law said:
“If you want to marry my daughter, you’ll get married in the Church.
You’ll raise your children in the Church.”
So I did.
I signed up. I showed up. I went through the motions.
But something began to change.
I started praying. I started listening. I started living the faith—not just studying it.
And slowly, those textbook answers stopped sounding like words from a book.
They started sounding like truth.
Truth that had been waiting in my heart all along.
This is how God works.
He meets us in our mess.
He meets us in our motives.
He meets us in our mistakes.
He uses our trials, our desires, even our detours to draw us closer.
The heartbreaks, the illnesses, the disappointments—they’re not punishments.
They’re invitations.
They’re the chisels that shape us.
They’re the mirrors that reveal us.
They’re the fires that refine us.
They reveal what God has already placed inside us:
A longing for love.
A longing for mercy.
A longing for meaning.
St. Paul tells us, “You have been taught by God to love one another.”
Not just with words—but with our lives.
And Jesus shows us what that love looks like:
“As I have loved you.”
Love that forgives.
Love that stays.
Love that gives everything.
In today’s Gospel, Jesus speaks of talents—gifts entrusted to us.
The talents entrusted to us may not always look like gifts.
Sometimes, they come disguised as trials.
But even buried pain can be redeemed when unearthed by love.
Fr. Stu’s journey reminds us:
Faith isn’t just learned—it’s lived.
And sometimes, it’s suffering that makes it real.
When we walk through trials with open hearts,
we begin to see that God has been walking with us all along.
So let us walk with God—not only in peace, but through every storm.
Let our trials become truth.
Let our faith become love—faithful, fruitful, and real.
Prayer for a Heart That Loves
Lord Jesus,
You meet us in our brokenness,
and You do not turn away.
You teach us to love—
not with words alone,
but with lives poured out in mercy.
“As I have loved you,” You say—
so let that love take root.
Shape our choices,
steady our walk,
and fill our hearts with joy.
Amen.
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