C
Crown_of_Stars
Guest
I went to church Sunday morning again, and this time I was worse than ever. Those who know me would remember that I’ve posted at least two threads about my anxiety of being in tears at every Mass. This time, just yesterday, I thought I was going to be fine. I didn’t feel at all emotional, I got there, sat in the very back where I felt more tucked into a corner, on the wall side, not the aisle end. I sat there, waiting for the service to start for about five or ten minutes or so, in the dimly lit church, then I got a small stack of Kleenexes out of my purse just in case, even though I wasn’t “feeling it” yet. Then it didn’t start until the Mass started, and there I was again. I felt my eyes tearing up and as though I had to just not sing for the first hymn. I just held my book and looked down at the words, but couldn’t bring myself to sing without starting in. Then, during the priest’s sermon, he was talking about the depth of Jesus’s love, and that had me starting in again. Tearing up, having to dab at my eyes, then there was the reading of Jesus raising Lazarus from the dead and when they said how He had wept and the disciples were saying “Look at how He loved him,” that affected me. I had already made up my mind that I wasn’t going to go up for Communion this time, because for a while I’ve not known if I’m really in a state of grace. I’ve never not received before, and so I felt disappointment, but I did just stay when everyone else went. No one noticed, and, actually, during the Consecration, I took a Kleenex to my eye again, and couldn’t help a small squeak that came out of me, of my crying, and then when everyone else had started to go up, including the lady sitting next to me, I left to go into the ladies’ room that is just right there at the back of the sanctuary. I had to just go into the bathroom to be alone, where I was free to release my tears. I heard the Communion song they were singing, “We Shall Rise Again On The Last Day,” and I was sobbing quietly, just standing leaning against the wall, and my tears were falling onto the floor and I thought of the woman who was a sinner, wetting Jesus’s feet with her tears and drying them with her hair. My tears were actually wetting the floor! I had thought that if I were alone to just release it all, without having to try and stifle it in the presence of others, it would be enough to just get it out of me. Then, more composed, I left the bathroom, to see that Communion was over and all were seated again. I slipped back into my place, and the lady next to me didn’t seem to notice or be paying me any mind. During the last hymn, I was tearing up again, and I couldn’t sing, I just had to look at the book in my hands and do nothing. Then I left, as quickly as I could, after the Mass, keeping my face turned so no one would notice me. I slipped out as quickly as I could, even going out of my way to make it so I didn’t cross paths with the priest, who really is a good, nice Father, but I wanted no one to see the condition I was in. I will also add that, during the reading when they were talking about Jesus having wept for Lazarus, I looked at a wooden plaque of one of the Stations of the Cross on the wall just next to me. It was of Jesus, the crown of thorns upon His head, His mother holding His face. One of His eyes looked more closed than the other, and He looked to be in such intense suffering that seeing it was what most caused me to start in with my tears again. What is wrong with me? What am I going to do? How am I ever going to get over this? I can’t get through the Mass this way, every single week, for the rest of my life. I never used to be this way, not that long ago either. I’m getting worse. I don’t feel it will ever stop, and it actually worries and frightens me. I just want to be able to enjoy the Mass again without this happening. Honestly, I will say that when I just had to get up and slip into the bathroom, having skipped Communion, I felt as though I must be crazy. At times I wonder. This really doesn’t seem normal to me at all, like I’m really cracking up and losing my mind. When I was alone in that bathroom, free to let my tears splash to the floor, I wished I could just die. I don’t know what I’m going to do. This is crazy. I think the root of it all is my uncertainty that I won’t be “saved” and that at the end I will hear the words “I never knew you.” And with all of my heart I don’t want that to happen. I want nothing to do with hell, I want to be with Jesus for all eternity and I can’t lose Him.
This is how I feel about it also… You WANT to be with Jesus. He is the good shepherd. He won’t leave his little sheep!
It is just how I am built. 