A Dry Season

[CinciConnie]

I was praying the rosary daily, reading the daily scripture, praying, reading, etc…watching a lot of EWTN. But lately, I am lucky to attend weekly mass. I love my faith and am involved in many activities around the parish, I just feel like my prayer life has gone dry. Anyone been in this place before, and any suggestions on how to get out!

*Blessed are the cracked, for it is they who let in the light! *

 

[LilyM]

Perhaps you’re getting a little burned out? Sounds like you were doing a lot.

Try mixing things up a bit - maybe take up the Divine Mercy or some other chaplet that you may like instead of the Rosary (there are plenty out there - dedicated to all the major saints as well as different titles and aspects of Our Lord and Our Lady).

And remember that your work can be a prayer too! Simply make a morning offering first thing when you get up every day and voila.

 

[Myangel]

I was praying the rosary daily, reading the daily scripture, praying, reading, etc…watching a lot of EWTN. But lately, I am lucky to attend weekly mass. I love my faith and am involved in many activities around the parish, I just feel like my prayer life has gone dry. Anyone been in this place before, and any suggestions on how to get out!

*Blessed are the cracked, for it is they who let in the light! *

Wow you do plenty. Yes I am going through a dry spell as we speak and I would only say the Rosary and Divine CHaplet daily. Not involved in any activities with my parish and I still have experienced a dry spell Not sure how to get out of this rut, I tell you I hate feeling like this.

 

[jmm08]

Sometimes I think we are like lakes.

If there are rivers feeding the lake and no river leaving the lake, then there is a risk of becoming salty, the fish in the lake may die.

So while you are going to Mass, reading and praying, think about what you can do for others as well. Maybe you can become somebody’s sponsor at RCIA. Maybe be an usher or sing in the choir. Maybe help to educate children in the faith.

I suppose that if you find yourself helping others, then you will have even more reason to feed yourself (by going to Mass, praying and reading). Because you are doing these things for more than just yourself. You are also trying to help Jesus in others.

Even if you consider that you can do nothing (because of a handicap or because of age) you are wrong. We can always pray for others. Or we can endure hardships for others. Even if you have few human contacts, there are the Holy Souls in purgatory. As long as we are alive, we can bring great assistance to the Holy Souls in purgatory.

 

[InLight247]

Sometimes I think we are like lakes.

If there are rivers feeding the lake and no river leaving the lake, then there is a risk of becoming salty, the fish in the lake may die.
…
I suppose that if you find yourself helping others,… .

I think that is a very good point! You can always pray for others’ needs.

Also, I don’t know if you are under some stress or experiencing some anxiety. The other day in a group discussion, someone mentioned about her dry season, another member said something we all agreed: When you are under tremendous stress and anxiety, you can feel very dry, and don’t know how to pray.
If that is your situation, you need to deal with the source of the stress first. Just some thoughts.

God bless!

 

[JohnS72]

I was praying the rosary daily, reading the daily scripture, praying, reading, etc…watching a lot of EWTN. But lately, I am lucky to attend weekly mass. I love my faith and am involved in many activities around the parish, I just feel like my prayer life has gone dry. Anyone been in this place before, and any suggestions on how to get out …

YES!

Of all of the things you mentioned, the great majority of them seem to be routines of a schitzophrenic. No, I am not calling you that, but there is a pathological sickness in the way some absorb themselves in the routines of recital for the sake of recital, and it is in this constant barrage of doing so when one of two things happen. The first - the most dangerous one, is Satan’s success in convincing you that your spirituality is wrong. He - the evil one - takes great joy in peppering you with a world of alternatives to Jesus Christ. He elevates Mankind, capable of reaching orbit and docking with the Space Station with technological prowess, to the status of a God that too many feel they no longer need, as science how holds all the answers. What Satan will never tell you as your radar scope becomes clouded with the things clear and marvelous is that even when Buzz Aldrin took the Holy Communion to the Moon to consume the Eucharist there in 1969, by modern scientific calculations, he was only .0000000000000000003.2712% out to the known outer edge of Creation. Despite all of Man’s achievements in Creation, we really aren’t all that. It is safe to say that heaven is in a physical place beyond the limits of space and time, the enslaving elements of His Creation. So against the majestic Creation, please do ask yourself if your radar scope is getting clouded by the things that humans find important that God finds ridiculous. One look at the newspaper or television news proves that man is still incapable of truly thinking as God thinks. How tempting it must have been for Jesus Christ - per John a co-Creator with the Father in Creation, to not come here to announce that Earth is not flat, and indeed is NOT the center of Creation. Satan misses no opportunity to capitalize on his ability to dazzle and amaze someone right out of Church by Earthly human distractions. The second thing that happens when your routines in Catholicism become too much for you is that as a result of failing to prioritize your faith, when something goes, it all goes. There is really only one cure for that. Buy and read a good Bible. My favorite is the Catholic Study Bible. Put away all of the gimmics and distractions - even the Catholic ones. Most say to start in Genesis and finish in Revelations. No - don’t do that. Start with Sirach, and then read both Luke and Acts. That’s all you need to get your faith back on track.

 

[blessedstar]

I don’t know if this is the case with you, but sometimes God can purge us of things we are attached to in order to redirect our attention to where He wants it to be directed.

Sometimes we can get spiritually greedy. I think of it like this, children love sweets there is alot of comfort in eating sweets, they are satisfying, but a child left to it’s own devices in a sweet shop will grab at every sweet infact they would eat and eat and eat until someone stopped them for their own good or they finally made themselves sick. It is only when we mature that we can be prudent and temperate in eating sweets, we regulate ourselves, we do not be greedy.

Sometimes God can deprive us of the comfort and consolation in spiritual matters so that we are redirected to the giver of the gifts rather than seeking and enjoying the gifts. The spiritual sweetness can take on greater importance than the seeking and loving of God.

On the other hand in the spiritual life we must mature. As St Paul writes we are put down from the breast and called to stand on our own two feet in faith. When this happens people can think they have done something wrong and that God has gone from them, they can also think that they are regressing in the spiritual life rather than progressing, they keep looking back to those days of sweetness mourning after them. They do not realise that those days were for a time and a time only and that infact God is maturing their faith and infact they have progressed greatly in the spiritual life. Now God calls them to stand in their faith as maturing Christians. He calls the soul to love Him for His sake alone and not for spiritual reward or consolation. When this happens souls can simply give up and drift away from their faith. They are convinced that they will never be consoled again, this is not true, God can console at will and when He deems the soul needs to be consoled.

You might like to continue to go to Mass every week and during the week, everyday just offer simple one line prayers to Jesus throughout the day such as ‘Jesus thank you’ ‘Jesus I love you’. Do not make a great effort to force yourself to keep up many devotions and spiritual practises, this is troublesome for your spirit and the Holy Spirit is leading you now in a different way. This is a great conversion within faith that God has freely gifted to you, all you need do for the moment is thank Him for this conversion and trust in Him.

Ask Jesus what it is He is asking of you and what it is He wants to teach you, believe that prayer has been answered and soon you will see what it is that Jesus desires of you and has called you to in this new conversion in faith.

Persevere and don’t cause injury to your spirit by trying to force what presently is not the way in which the Lord is leading you. Jesus is always intimately close to you and you must take courage to follow Him even if at times you feel it is a struggle, it is only a struggle when we do not submit, so presently submit to what God is working in your soul and thank Him regularly for it.

In this time you might also like to consider occupying your heart with work for Jesus such as volunteering to help people in your community such as continuing your work within the Parish and assisting your Priest. As you know, work is prayer, Jesus spent thirty years working and every second of it was prayer.

Every Christian must walk the arduous road to Calvary spiritually as well as physically, this is the narrow road but always leads to Heaven.

Persevere and keep your eyes on the prize, Christ Jesus who must love your heart a great deal.

You are progressing in faith, you are progressing greatly.

In my prayers

 

[blessedstar]

One thought to console yourself with and which I use is that these days of dryness are like the three days in the darkness of the tomb, but after those days there was rebirth, there was the ressurection. God is always recreating us into the image and likeness of Christ Jesus. Birth is always painful, but afterwards there is great joy.

This experience will come and go for you throughout your life, neither spiritual state will be permenant.

Persevere and thank God, it is a great kindness He does for you because He loves you.

 

[Em_in_FL]

Our lives and our faith are very DYNAMIC. We are NOT static creatures…
We do not simply decide one day to “believe” and end up in the joys of heaven for the rest of our earthly lives… it doesn’t work that way.

How can you enjoy the daylight if you haven’t experienced the darkness?
How can you enjoy a drink if you’ve never thirsted?
How can you rejoice if you’ve never cried?

Enjoy Ecclesiastes Chapter 3.

God bless…
“There is an appointed time for everything, and a time for every affair under the heavens.”