About a year ago I went through a period that lasted for months. I would go through the motions, but feel nothing. It was dry. We have a custom in our community of Eucharistic adoration every Thursday and Sunday. All work stops for a few hours and we spend time with the exposed Eucharist. Each one has an assigned time to spend alone with the Lord. That’s the idea, you and God for about two hours. It begins with Vespers and ends with Vespers the next day. Sometimes, your shift falls in the middle of the night. The shifts move so that the same person is not the one up between 1:00 am and 3:00 am every Thursday and Sunday.
I would kneel there and feel nothing and had no desire to engage in conversation with Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament or in any other format either. I would go the Blessed Sacrament, when he was exposed and not, to mass, to LOTH, and go through the motions, but nothing. One day, I just looked at the host in the monstrance and asked, “Is it you?”
That became my prayer for almost six months. I would enter and sit. I’d ask, “Is it you?”
One day, while sitting there, something moved me to read the Office of the Passion written by St. Francis. It’s the Franciscan version of the Divine Office, not important right now. The important thing is that one of the antiphons is “Lord, remember me when you have entered into your Kingdom.”
One Sunday (I have no idea why I’m sharing this), I was at mass. At the moment of the consecration, I locked my eyes on the host and I said, “Lord, remember me, because I can’t remember you.”
I’m not neither a mystic nor a superstitious person. I’m your average country boy from the hills of VA. I can barely read and write. My point is that I don’t claim to have special supernatural experiences nor do I believe in hocus pocus. I simply believe in a God who is Father. With that in mind, you will understand that I was not looking for anything special. I was doing my best to hang in there.
I still remember as if it were this morning, at the moment when the host was elevated and I said, “Lord remember me, because I can’t remember you,” the image of Peter walking on the water and falling into the water came to mind. I felt myself crying out, “Lord, help me. Can’t you see . . . I’m drowning.” At that moment, I started to cry, very quietly. All of a sudden, I knew that it was him in the host and that he had never forgotten me.
Later, I would share this story with my spiritual director, a young brother who is not a priest, but is an expert on the spiritual life. He said to me, “You never lost your faith. God blocked your senses to show you that you could still call out to him, even when you were walking in the dark. He was not testing you. He was proving something to you about your faith that if anyone else had told you, you would have not believed it. Sometimes, we need to experience the dryness in order to know how strong our faith really is.”
I have never forgotten that lesson, nor have I felt dry again. It may happen again. I don’t know. All I know and what I share with others is that God never forgets us, even when it’s hard for us to remember what his presence felt like this morning. When you feel that way, just remember, “Lord remember me, because I can’t remember you,” or “Lord help me . . . I’m drowning.”
Christ will reach into the water and pull you up as he pulled Peter out of the water. I hope this helps.
Happy Thanksgiving!
Br. JR, OSF
I’ve been watching daily Mass on television, however.