Lately, I have had issues in my faith. It seems like it is wavering in public. My praying life is getting weak, I don’t feel good when I do, I just feel like I am repeating, or like I’m not 100% into it. In Mass and our CCD class, I have heretic beleifs like it is a cult or something. I never thought like this before, and I was insanely close to God at one point, even when I went to confession last Saturday I didn’t feel different. What is wrong with me?
I think when we have the faith for a lifetime, we will have highs and lows, times of spiritual dryness. Some call it the “dark night of the soul”.
I heard Mother Teresa had a “dark night of the soul” for decades!
To me, we place a lot of faith in our feelings, which change from moment to moment, are to some degree, sometimes even sort of fickle.
The way I have come to think about feelings is to take them “with a grain of salt”. Yes, by all means, we need to listen to them, but I don’t place all my eggs in that basket.
I’ll tell you why I have learned not to.
I used to believe our feelings were everything, to listen to them in all kinds of circumstances as an incredible guide also on what to do.
However, I’ve since noticed in myself that my feelings come and go and those of others as well.
An example might help drive home the point. Some people feel they are “in love”, that they have found their “soul mate” so get married. Then they proceed to “fall out of love”. might even divorce.
Then, they might say they have fallen in love all over again with someone new, have a new “soul mate”. Sometimes, while the person is still married, he/she finds a new love, a new “soul mate”, that the feelings are saying that this time, THIS one is the one, not the other one that he/she married.
This can cycle again and again. So, while I listen to feelings, I don’t think feelings are everything.
For example, in marriage, it is in good times, bad, sickness, health, rich or poor. Now, admittedly, there will be times when there is sickness, poverty, bad times, it may not even “feel” like what we would associate with love, but it very well can be.
A mother who gets up despite the fact she is absolutely EXHAUSTED to feed, or change, her baby is expressing love. At that moment, though, it may not FEEL like what we normally consider as love, but I believe it definitely qualifies.
Sometimes, in “love”, we confuse “infatuation” with love. Love is what will give us the staying power to go on even when we DON’T feel like it, when we don’t feel like going to confession, don’t feel like going to church and don’t feel like praying. In fact, to me, that is what separates the wheat from the chaff, doing some things whether we always feel like it or not.
With receiving communion, some people have wonderful spiritual experiences, and that’s great, but we can’t think it will always be that way. There will probably be many times we receive communion, don’t feel one single thing!
I think that’s normal and okay.
Marriages and relationships go through periods like this, and I suppose our relationship with God is no different.
Some people say that in a marriage, when these difficult times come, to take some kind of action, do something about it. Some see this happening, go to Marriage Encounter, on a retreat, a Cursillo, spend more time together, do something different to spice up the relationship, keep it fresh.
I suppose relationships are like a garden that needs constant tending or else will deteriorate into a mess of weeds.
I have experienced something similar of late, myself, found it very hard to pray, that I have difficulty staying focused. Maybe I should find a Cursillo and take my own advice, try to spice up my own spiritual life!
