The Sahara is drenched in comparison

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…to my spiritual life right now… especially the past couple of weeks. For awhile, I was a daily Mass going, Liturgy of the Hours praying, patron saint venerating, frequent confesser… etc. And now, nothing. It seems to take most of my energy to even try to read just a little bit about the Faith (or the life of one of the many cannonized saints). I used to be a voracious reader and read everything I could get my hands on, especially in relationship to Catholicism. I used to be pretty forgiving of people who, by either ignorance or maliciousness, would interupt me before Mass (when I was praying). This past Sunday, I almost (and had to bite my tounge HARD to not) dressed down a more vetern member of the choir because it seemed like every 5 minutes she just HAD to tell me something that was not relevant to the upcoming Mass that was to be prayed. I almost went to confession after this Mass, since I prayed the next as well. When this has happened before, I have just smiled (but look annoyed), didn’t respond, and went back to what I was doing… no problem.

Though it part it hasn’t been my fault (due to the Dioceses’ yearly priest retreat and he’s not been here to celebrate daily Mass… I refuse to go to a “communion service”), I’ve not been to daily Mass in over a week, and haven’t been to confession longer than that. I’m usually a “every week to confession, whether or not I need it” type of person, and sometimes more often, especially when I’ve been struggling with something, more often. The retreat is only an excuse, because I live about 45 minutes from a church in the neighboring Diocese. I already drive 35-40 minutes to make it to my current parish.

My emotional life is starting to be affected as well… I’ve been prey to gluttony (and to the temptation to use past… compensatory measures in response)… it seems like every past way I used to try to self destruct (and literally, you name it, I’ve done it) has been my greatest temptation, especially the past couple of weeks. Though I have not yet given into them, I fear it is only a matter of time. I’m (figuratively) bruised and bloody, and have yet to lose the fight, but I am concerned that it is only a matter of time before I just say, “Ya know? **** all of this, I’m done”. That is the ABSOLUTE LAST THING I want to do, but I’ve done it in the past, so I have good reason to be concerned about this.

I guess what I’m asking is for something simple that I can do that will help me get over this (and over myself). I’ve been going full blast for so long that I am feeling quite burned out, and I guess I need time to step back and regroup. I’ll let you know beforehand that my geographical Parish only has weekday Mass 2 times a week. I’ve mentioned in a previous post some of the issues with this pastor, so going there is not an option. The shortest drive I can make and be assured of a orthodox and faithful priest is to the parish I currently frequent, so going any closer to me is also not an option.

I know this is part rant, part rambling, but I’ve been so frazzled and troubled by this quietly for awhile that I guess it just exploded… :blushing:… Thank you in advance for those who respond and especially for everyones prayers.

E
 
It sounds like the dark night of the soul, dearest.

If you find St John of the Cross too deep at this time, C. S. Lewis in the Screwtape Letters talks about this very thing.

His demon Screwtape says something like this: “Never is our cause more in danger than when a Christian looks out over a landscape from which God has totally disappeared, asks why he has been abandoned, and STILL intends to obey Him.”
 
Basil,

Thank you so much for the recommendation. I’ve been trying to read The Screwtape Letters for the past few months, but I’ve been in the middle of reading so many other books, I guess it’s been pushed to the bottom of the stack. I’ll be breaking it out again.

Also, I just broke out my St. Josemaria Escriva three-volume The Way, Furrow, and the Forge (due to meditations being broke into bite sized pieces… it’s much easier for me to focus on)… Number 257 from The Forge: ***Faced by apparent sterility in your apostolate you begin to detect the first waves of discouragement, which your faith rejects quite firmly. But you realize that you need a more humble, lively, and operative faith.

As someone who longs to bring health to souls, you should cry out like the father of that sick boy possessed by the devil: Lord, help my unbelief!

Have no doubt: the miracle will be performed again.***

The thing that I’ve abandoned and ignored the most in the recent past has been my prayer life. I’m a convert from Protestantism, and from a denomination that felt that if one prayed when they didn’t “feel like it”, it was vain and repetitious. I’ve been really struggling with that alot lately. While cognatively I know that’s precicely when one should pray, 20 years of being in incomplete communion with the Church is really hard to shake.

I believe, Lord! Help my unbelief!

E
 
Yes, greater humility and purgation… one needs to think of Christ with gratitude and contemplate Him much more often, and repel forceably all temptations to take pleasure in the world and the sensual.

The term ‘Dark Night of the Soul’ is often used a bit too casually about what is often simply the first step of the purgative journey, instead of the end of the mystical journey.
 
Datingtrappists,

I can only say that I sympathize.

I just came across this article by Mother Angelica that gave me some comfort, and thought I’d share: ewtn.com/library/Mother/MA04.htm

Also, something else I came across, this from St. Francis de Sales:

The Everlasting God has in His wisdom foreseen from eternity the cross that He now presents to you as a gift from His inmost Heart. This cross He now sends you He has considered with His all-knowing eyes, understood with His divine mind, tested with His wise justice, warmed with loving arms and weighed with His own hands to see that it be not one inch too large and not one ounce too heavy for you. He has blessed it with His holy Name, anointed it with His grace, perfumed it with His consolation, taken one last glance at you and your courage, and then sent it to you from heaven, a special greeting from God to you, an alms of the all-merciful love of God.

Be encouraged - God is with you.

CatholicGirl333
 
“dating trappists”

You have received many good answers here.

I just feel the need to comment about your being uncomfortable with communion services.

We have them here in our parish when the priests are on retreat. Of course it is different from a Mass, but we do receive Our Lord in the Eucharist. Permission is given for communion services to be held.

A few years ago a woman from New Mexico stayed in my area and went to our parish for about three months because she was visiting her daughter who lived here. She came to Mass and to our Friday morning book studies and shared with us that where she lives they only see a priest about once a month.
They have communion services by necessity when a priest is not available, which is quite often.

Also, it is a “communion service” when Extraordinary Ministers of the Eucharist bring Our Lord to those invalids at home or in nursing homes. The priest could not possibly serve all these people with private visits.

I feel very blessed that I can go to Mass six days a week in my parish!

May the Lord grant you a special blessing on your spiritual journey!

Peace,

Dorothy
 
“datingtrappists”: Nice bunch of answers; lotsa good stuff. 👍

I don’t have anything deep to add, just a few thoughts:
  1. The Screwtape Letters is a wonderful suggestion. No flames, please, but when I am in a arid and dry place with my spirituality, I just don’t seem to be able to absorb the deep and profound readings as well as I do when my spiritual life is, what’s the word?, uhm, easier, somehow. When I enter those periods of spirtual dryness, it seems like words bounce off my brain like popcorn, never settling to plant and grow and enrich. At times like these, something like The Screwtape Letters is perfect. The content is theologically rich enough to meditate on for quite a while and the humor seems to just melt away the shell that’s grown around my brain and heart. Another thought: I have both read TSL in print and listened to it in audiobook form and it was better, IMHO, on tape. I think it’s in the public domain and if you go to www.librivox.org, you can download it to your computer for free and then listen to it on your pc or transfer it to your mp3
  2. I think it was Mother Theresa of Calcutta, shortly before her death (I believe) revealed that she had suffered from terrible spiritual dryness for much of her life, that she struggled with this very often in her life. (Can anybody confirm that it was Mother Theresa of Calcutta? I don’t want to say the wrong person 😊…). Anyway, this person was very, very holy and figured very visibly in the world and you would NEVER in a kajillion years think of them as spiritually dry because of the joy and grace and goodness and humility and kindness and profound love of God that they brought to the world. My point being, it can be comforting to read of those saints who have struggled with a similar cross and yet made such a witness to the world and had such an impact on those around them.
  3. God sends us just what we fear sometimes as a cross to bear, so that as we bear up under it, we know that in Him, we will conquer all our fears. Hang on, pray your Rosary, and we will lift you up in our prayers and you will conquer this trial!
God bless you…
 
soblessed said:
“datingtrappists”: Nice bunch of answers; lotsa good stuff. 👍

I don’t have anything deep to add, just a few thoughts:
  1. The Screwtape Letters is a wonderful suggestion. No flames, please, but when I am in a arid and dry place with my spirituality, I just don’t seem to be able to absorb the deep and profound readings as well as I do when my spiritual life is, what’s the word?, uhm, easier, somehow. When I enter those periods of spirtual dryness, it seems like words bounce off my brain like popcorn, never settling to plant and grow and enrich. At times like these, something like The Screwtape Letters is perfect. The content is theologically rich enough to meditate on for quite a while and the humor seems to just melt away the shell that’s grown around my brain and heart. Another thought: I have both read TSL in print and listened to it in audiobook form and it was better, IMHO, on tape. I think it’s in the public domain and if you go to www.librivox.org, you can download it to your computer for free and then listen to it on your pc or transfer it to your mp3
  2. I think it was Mother Theresa of Calcutta, shortly before her death (I believe) revealed that she had suffered from terrible spiritual dryness for much of her life, that she struggled with this very often in her life. (Can anybody confirm that it was Mother Theresa of Calcutta? I don’t want to say the wrong person 😊…). Anyway, this person was very, very holy and figured very visibly in the world and you would NEVER in a kajillion years think of them as spiritually dry because of the joy and grace and goodness and humility and kindness and profound love of God that they brought to the world. My point being, it can be comforting to read of those saints who have struggled with a similar cross and yet made such a witness to the world and had such an impact on those around them.
  3. God sends us just what we fear sometimes as a cross to bear, so that as we bear up under it, we know that in Him, we will conquer all our fears. Hang on, pray your Rosary, and we will lift you up in our prayers and you will conquer this trial!
God bless you…
Click to expand...
Yes, it was Mother Teresa of Calcutta who had a very long dark night of the soul. She clung in faith and grew in grace and touched the hearts of many people because of this. That is how followers of our Lord Jesus Christ show they truly love Him…by clinging in faith to Him, without feelings.

St. Therese, the Little Flower, had a dark night of the soul for about two years.

The Lord does wonderful things in our soul when we cling to Him in faith during this trial!
 
Yes, it was Mother Teresa of Calcutta who had a very long dark night of the soul. She clung in faith and grew in grace and touched the hearts of many people because of this. That is how followers of our Lord Jesus Christ show they truly love Him…by clinging in faith to Him, without feelings.
Click to expand...
Thanks, Dorothy, I thought it was Mother Theresa 👍
 
Dear brother,

I have gone myself through a period of horrible dryiness… Very long and very dry. Having a longing for prayer and time with God and being unable to utter a word, as if my heart and mind were made of stone…It was a very bleak time.

I feel that this period gave me a real, deep-down understanding of one basic truth… That we cannot go to God unless He gives us the grace to do so. I will never think again for one minute that I can pray, or praise, or even think of Him all on my own… Truly without Him we cannot do anything.

I hope this helps you to endure… Never lose hope.
 
I want to thank everyone again for their advice and encouragement given during that time. Many things happened at once, and at my most weak and vulnerable, I still tried to do everything myself…and as we all know that’s impossible.

Now, my heart is overflowing, and I know why Cleophas and his friend’s hearts burned within them while talking with our Risen Lord on the way to Emmaus. Praise be to God that I finally gave up and stopped trying to “get” that “loving feeling”, and started focusing more on giving Glory, which is His whether or not I feel like it, to God. Also, I have been more actively discerning a probable monastic vocation (including a week long retreat at a convent and meeting a few times with the vocation director there), so it would be more accurate to call me Sister (though not for a few years 😉 ).

Again, thank you all so much!

E
 
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