Back in that desert

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moira

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I can’t seem to get out of that old spiritual desert. Can’t seem to pray. Can’t sleep anymore. Every Sunday morning is an argument with teen-agers to go to Mass. Today I don’t even feel like going, which for me is unusual. Of course, I’ll go anyway and feel better afterwards. Sometimes I wish I were 4 yrs. old and my mom was telling me what to do. Sorry, just ranting, I guess.
 
Fear not. Your not alone. We all spend time in the desert. I’ve heard it mentioned many different ways, the reason for “The Dark Night of the Soul”. A few that help me when these times come, and I know they will come, are:

**** If you were not growing closer to God, the devil wouldn’t temp you so hard to move away.***
**** The Lord will sometimes be silent in order to test your strenght and love.***
**** The mesure of our love is frequenty shown in duty, not in happy feelings that may or may not be present.***
***For me, when I’m in the darkest moments, and I don’t feel much like praying, I ask the intercession of Our Blessed Mother, and pray even more. ***
Jesus Christ is Our Lord and Savior and asks us to pray.
That statment usually helps me muscle through the tough times.
In His peace!
 
We are called to go through many trials in following Jesus. He has told us that “we must pick up our cross daily and follow Him.” You have plenty of company in living out our hope in patient endurance. Just continue to pray and never lose heart.

As brothers and sisters in Christ, we are all with you. When I attend mass today, you will be in my prayers.
 
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moira:
I can’t seem to get out of that old spiritual desert. Can’t seem to pray. Can’t sleep anymore. Every Sunday morning is an argument with teen-agers to go to Mass. Today I don’t even feel like going, which for me is unusual. Of course, I’ll go anyway and feel better afterwards. Sometimes I wish I were 4 yrs. old and my mom was telling me what to do. Sorry, just ranting, I guess.
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When you say you can’t sleep anymore - are you sure that you don’t have some underlying depression or sleep disorder. If that’s the case you can be helped right away if you see a qualified therapist. If your sleep troubles are directly related to your frustration with your family, then it probably is not an underlying clinical problem. Hang in there and continue to pray and live out your faith. I have a teenager who sometimes struggles to go to Mass with me and I have a wife who doesn’t practice the faith. Yes it can be a struggle and there is some suffering but there’s always hope. I’ll pray for you.
 
I think families used to pray the Rosary together in the evenings. I don’t mean to imply that this would be eagerly accepted by the teen-agers you refer to, but it may be something you could introduce over time. It would encourage a life of prayer. Or you could pray from the Little Office of the Blessed Virgin Mary (*) --perhaps they would find the content more stimulating or less repetitive, and requiring more ‘teamwork’. Or you could meet for two minutes as a family each morning to recite the Angelus and make an act of contrition. Just some ideas!
When thou art invited to a wedding, sit down in the lowest place, that he who invited thee may say to thee: Friend, go up higher. Then shalt thou have glory before them that sit at table with thee, alleluia. (*)
 
It is a very good thing to wake up each Sunday eager for Mass, knowing that you will hear an inspirational sermon, join in singing joyful songs to the Lord, receive communion in the sure knowledge that Jesus is residing within you, smile and greet friends on the way out, and repair with your equally renewed and refreshed family to the local restaurant for a turkey dinner with all the trimmings, and go home to a wonderful day of family fun, rest, relaxation and prayer.
What a wonderful balm to the soul.

Far far better is to wake up with absolutely no desire or motivation to attend Mass, hoping the homily will merely be boring and not heretical, expecting insipid songs bleated by untrained, untalented voices and accompanied by a guitarist who knows only one cord and has a broken string. Knowing you will be so distracted by the continual abuses on and around the altar by a variety of well-meaning but untrained lay ministers of various unspecified designation, and altar servers who seem to be recent recruits from buddhism–and yet you still push the kids in the car, drive to church, park a block away because there are baptisms and the parking lot is full, arrive late so you have to stand in the back where you can’t see and can’t hear, and receive communion (the precious Blood of course has run out), fighting your way through hordes of people who are beginning their after-Mass social chit-chat early.

Now THAT is real FAITH. God bless you for it, and for the priceless example you are giving your children. Religion, like marriage, is not one continual honeymoon, and the spiritual desert in the relationship with God prepares us for the dead (or sleeping) zones in our other relationships.
 
I agree that Sunday mass can be so full of noise and distractions that it IS hard to want to attend. The masses that are the earliest in the morning are usually the least distracting. When I reached the point that your have reached I started going to daily mass to find out what mass is all about. Usually there is no music and no distractions at daily mass. At daily mass it becomes obvious that the real meaning of the mass is the eucharist…not the sermon or the music.

I became hooked. For the past few years I have been attending daily mass eagerly. I still am not as eager to attend Sunday mass because of the distractions but I put up with all the distractions because I am able to receive our Lord.

I can’t tell you how to motivate your teenagers…I failed in that department. I am still asking St Monica to help me get my adult children back to church. It takes patience.
 
I know what you are going through. Luckily for me, it’s more like a drought than a desert. I have short, but more frequent times when I feel like I am just along for the ride. I still continue with things and doing the best I can, but when I try to pray all I can tell Jesus is, “I can’t pray.” It’s hard, I know. Especially when you have so many other things competing for your attention. But just when I don’t know where to turn something always happens, and I can usually see the reason or at least the value of the dry spell. It hasn’t gotten easier, but I understand these times better and that does help. Keep on truckin’

JMJ
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puzzleannie:
Far far better is to wake up with absolutely no desire or motivation to attend Mass, hoping the homily will merely be boring and not heretical, expecting insipid songs … Knowing you will be so distracted by the continual abuses
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I appreciate what you are emphasizing here, that faith in the face of adversity is both good and necessary, but I’d like to note that the Church really shouldn’t herself be a cross to bear. Consider: I have loved, O Lord, the beauty of thy house; and the place where thy glory dwelleth. (*) The Church should not immolate herself or sacrifice herself; she should be a place of refuge from a World in descent. I am sure you agree with my general sentiment: I am just stressing that we shouldn’t be so taken with the idea of sacrifice that we inadvertently accept the sacrifice of the Church as virtuous–just in case we might blunder into that point of view. In other words we really should have a high standard of worship. I would like to second the suggestion about early masses being more conducive to prayer.
They said in their heart, the whole kindred of them together: Let us abolish all the festival days of God from the land. Ps 73:8
 
Thank you all for your observations and advice. I got through the day with only one teen-ager mad at me instead of two. That in itself is an improvement. The one not mad at me asked why I go to Mass sometimes when I don’t want to. I told her to set an example for her and her little brother. She actually said, “You’re a good mom. I love you.” Well, that made my day. And after Communion I always feel better. So the rest of the day was icing on the cake. Thanks and God bless you all.
 
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moira:
Thank you all for your observations and advice. I got through the day with only one teen-ager mad at me instead of two. That in itself is an improvement. The one not mad at me asked why I go to Mass sometimes when I don’t want to. I told her to set an example for her and her little brother. She actually said, “You’re a good mom. I love you.” Well, that made my day. And after Communion I always feel better. So the rest of the day was icing on the cake. Thanks and God bless you all.
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Moira, I have 3 daughters that are out on their own now. I had many Sunday morning battles, sorry to say. We hung in there, and they are still going to church on their own now. One even teaches at a Catholic School. I had many Sundays I wasn’t sure it was worth it anymore, but believe me it is. They expect you to set limits, even though they fuss at them. This is true even of enforced attendace at Mass.
I also have a daughter named Moira, so I like when I see your posts!
 
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