Journeys of a Catholic Poster Girl

Surrender is hard.

OK , we knew that. If anything about Christianity was easy, then a lot more people would be good Christians–myself included.

Today at Mass we heard the end of John Chapter 6, which we’ve been reading all month, also known as the “Bread of Life” discourse, where Jesus gives us great Eucharistic theology–”My flesh is true food, and my blood is true drink”.

John tells us that many of the disciples stopped following Jesus after this–the saying was “too hard”. But when Jesus spoke to the twelve–”Do you also wish to go away?” Peter said, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of everlasting life.”

Peter is an interesting apostle. He can be brilliant–here, and when he says that Jesus is “The Christ, the son of God”, in Matthew, –and he can also be breathtakingly stupid–telling Jesus not to go to Jerusalem, “thinking as men think”–or just way out of it–wanting to build the booths for Moses, Jesus and Elijah on Tabor.

But the thing I like about Peter is that he falls, and then gets back up and does it all again. He denies Jesus three times, but then goes on to be Pope, and to be crucified. Peter is entirely, wonderfully human.

When I think about surrender, I think about what Peter said in today’s gospel. Where else can we go? If you are Christian, you believe that Jesus is “The way, the truth, and the life.” That’s it. No other way. Only Jesus can take us to the Father. So we follow him, because he has the words that Peter was talking about–the ones of life.

But to really follow him, we have to give everything, and follow him. Sell it all, leave family and friends, and, most importantly, leave behind self.

But we like ourselves, don’t we? For the most part, anyway. There are things I don’t like about myself, but for the most part, I like how God made me. And if God made me this way, then why do I have to give it up, to follow him?

Again, we get Peter and Jesus:

[Jesus] said to [Peter] the third time, “Simon, son of John, do you love me?” Peter was distressed that he had said to him a third time, “Do you love me?” and he said to him, “Lord, you know everything; you know that I love you.” (Jesus) said to him, “Feed my sheep.  Amen, amen, I say to you, when you were younger, you used to dress yourself and go where you wanted; but when you grow old, you will stretch out your hands, and someone else will dress you and lead you where you do not want to go.” (Jn. 21:17-18, NAB)

Where you do not want to go.

That’s the thing. It’s not that we mind “dying” to self, if that means giving up those irritating habits, and becoming a “nicer” Person, someone who “does what Jesus would do.”

But dying to self means just that–dying to it. In Peter’s case, he would be led to a cross, just like Jesus.

And I think we know what surrender means. And we don’t want to go.

It’s hard to surrender. I haven’t done it. I might think I’ve done it, but then someone reminds me that everything comes in God’s time, and God is in control, and then I sit there going, “yup. I’m dumb.”

He knows everything. And I know just about nothing. But I always think I know better. Just like Peter.

From that time on, Jesus began to show his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and suffer greatly from the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes, and be killed and on the third day be raised.

Then Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him, “God forbid, Lord! No such thing shall ever happen to you.”

He turned and said to Peter, “Get behind me, Satan! You are an obstacle to me. You are thinking not as God does, but as human beings do.”

Then Jesus said to his disciples, “Whoever wishes to come after me must deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me.

For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.

What profit would there be for one to gain the whole world and forfeit his life? Or what can one give in exchange for his life?

For the Son of Man will come with his angels in his Father’s glory, and then he will repay everyone according to his conduct.

(h/t NRO)

What Ardent Practicing Catholics Do
Correcting Pelosi.

An NRO Primary Document

EDITOR’S NOTE: Fr. John De Celles, STL, is an associate pastor at Old St. Mary’s Church in Alexandria, Va. This is his homily for the 22nd Sunday in Ordinary Time (Aug. 31, 2008), as prepared for delivery.  In last week’s Gospel we heard Jesus’ words to Peter:  I say to you, you are Peter [Rock], and upon this rock I will build my church, and the gates of the netherworld shall not prevail against it. I will give you the keys to the kingdom of heaven. Whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven; and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.” But this week we find the incredible thing that happens right after that, as Jesus tells Peter: “Get behind me, Satan! You are an obstacle to me.”  How does Peter go from being called the “Rock” of the Church to being compared to “Satan”?  First of all, see how Jesus tells Peter about the keys in response to Peter publicly proclaiming: “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.” But Jesus chastises Peter after Peter spoke to Him in private; Scripture says: “Then Peter took Jesus aside and began to rebuke him.” The keys relate to Peter’s public proclamation, the rebuke pertains to Peter’s private, personal words to Jesus. Also, we see that Peter’s public proclamation was about a dogma of faith: that Jesus is the Christ and Son of God. But his private rebuke was about his personal desire for Jesus’ safety: “God forbid [you be killed in Jerusalem].” And again, when Jesus gives Peter the keys, he blesses Peter for listening to God: “flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my heavenly Father.” But when he chastises Peter he says: “You are thinking not as God does, but as human beings do.” In all this Jesus teaches us that although many Popes would be less than perfect as individuals He, Christ, would always protect them in the public proclamation of the truths of the Gospel. Because of that all Catholics are bound, by Christ, to follow the definitive teaching of the Popes, And when do not hold ourselves bound by the Pope’s teaching the gates of hell will inevitably prevail against us. Of course this can mean personal disaster: sin. But it can also mean social disaster.  For example, in the year 1839 in a document called “In Supremo,” Pope Gregory XVI reiterated the Church’s ancient teaching against slavery, specifically reproaching those who: dare to …reduce to slavery Indians, Blacks or other such peoples…. as if they were not humans but rather mere animals. Unfortunately, some Catholics, in particular, some American bishops — especially Southernbishops— tried to argue that the doctrine didn’t apply to American slavery, because somehow it was “different.” It seems, caught up in the prevailing attitude of the world around them, these bishops twisted the clear teaching of the popes into something that makes us sick to think of today. They fell into the trap that St. Paul warns against in today’s 2nd reading: Do not conform yourselves to this age but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that you may discern what is the will of God.” This, shall we say, confusion among the American bishops of course led the laity to be confused as well. And that confusion led to a terrible social disaster just a few years later, when in 1857, a supposedly “devout Catholic” named Roger Taney, writing as the fifth Chief Justice of the United States, wrote the opinion in the Supreme Court case known as Dred Scott, upholding the institution of slavery in the America. This is what happens when bishops — and priests — fail to clearly teach, or purposefully dissent from the well defined doctrine of the Church, handed on and protected by the office of Peter. The gates of hell prevail in society: slavery, the Civil War, and a 100 more years of racial oppression. But when Peter is heard and obeyed, wonderful things can happen. Almost exactly a century after the Dred Scott case, in 1956, an American Catholic bishop humbly accepted the teaching of the popes, and even in the face of the mockery and violence, refused to conform himself to the world he lived in — the world of racial segregation of the deep South. His name was Francis Rummel, the Archbishop of New Orleans, and what he did was desegregate the Catholic schools of his archdiocese. And when large groups of Catholic lay people continued try to block his efforts, after ample warning, he excommunicated their leaders. Imagine if the American Catholic bishops of the mid-1800s had been as obedient and courageous as Archbishop Rummel in implementing the teaching of Pope Gregory: if they had stood united against slavery. Maybe the Dred Scott case would have been decided the same way, but it probably would have been without Roger Taney’s help.  Now, some say if the Catholic bishops and priests in the South had actively opposed slavery they would been both marginalized and actively persecuted. Maybe. But the Prophet Jeremiah records the same problem in today’s 1st reading: “All the day I am an object of laughter; everyone mocks me.” Even so, he felt compelled to proclaim the truth — and did: “I say to myself, I will not mention him, …But then it becomes like fire burning in my heart…” Some say all southern Catholics would’ve been persecuted, or that southerners would have left the Catholic Church in droves. Maybe. But that sounds a little like Peter, when he “rebuked” Jesus because he was afraid that Jesus might be harmed in Jerusalem. And Jesus told him: “Get behind me Satan.” Didn’t Jesus tells us: Whoever wishes to come after me must deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me…. ? I wish I could say this kind of thing is all behind us, but I can’t. Of course slavery is behind us, but unfortunately, many Catholics now accept an even greater social evil. Because while it’s horrible to take away an innocent person’s freedom, it is clearly even worse to take away an innocent person’s life. And so we face the abomination of the 21st century: abortion. #more# Yet the popes in our time have taught very clearly on this as well: the Church has constantly andinfallibly condemned abortion as a grave evil — a mortal sin. From the first century teaching in the book called the Didache: “You shall not kill the embryo by abortion and shall not cause the newborn to perish.’”To the 20 th century teaching of Pope John Paul II in Evangelium Vitae: by the authority which Christ conferred upon Peter and his Successors ….I declare that direct abortion… always constitutes a grave moral disorder, since it is the deliberate killing of an innocent human being.” Fortunately, virtually all the American bishops see this very clearly. Maybe they don’t all always speak up about it as they might. Still, one wonders if they imitated Archbishop Rummel, acting a bit more forcefully, if there wouldn’t be less confusion among Catholics about this terrible evil. But the bishops are not silent. This last week I counted at least 13 bishops who, in very strong and unambiguous terms, publicly condemned abortion and corrected those who support abortion. Unfortunately, or providentially, their hands were forced. They had to react to the public remarks made by a Catholic Politician,Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, as she publicly defended abortion on “Meet the Press” last Sunday. She argued “over the history of the church, this is an issue of controversy.” and disingenuously sought to defend herself by twisting the teaching of the greatest theologian in the history of the Church, St. Augustine.  For the record, and summarizing the bishops’ responses: this is a load of bunk. Now, it is true that St. Augustine did wonder when the soul entered the body of the baby, andguessed that that occurred at about 3 months gestation. But 2 things to remember. First, Augustine lived in the 4th century and worked with 4th century biology: he had no clue about the development of the fetus. So he thought the soul entered the baby’s body sometime around the “quickening” — when the mother first feels the baby begin to move. But a careful reading of Augustine shows that he knew he was only guessing and working with limited science, and that if he had today’s science he would have agreed with the clear conclusion of medical science today that the embryo is alive at conception.  Second, even so, Augustine, like all the Fathers, condemned abortion from the first moment of conception, not merely after quickening. It’s true that there was a greater penalty for abortions committed after the quickening, but that was mainly because in those days, before the marvel of ultrasound, the movement of the baby was when there was absolutely certainty that the baby was alive. And with greater certainty comes greater culpability.  Finally, even if there was “a controversy” in the past, which is there was not, there can is nocontroversy today. Again, turn to Peter, and see the absolutely unambiguous language of John Paul II in Evangelium Vitae that I quoted earlier, and that Pope Benedict XVI quotes over and over again in his writings: “direct abortion…always constitutes a grave moral disorder.” And consider John Paul’s equally unequivocal words later in that same document: Abortion and euthanasia are thus crimes which no human law can claim to legitimize. There is … a grave and clear obligation to oppose them … [I]t is therefore never licit to … “take part in a propaganda campaign in favor of such a law, or vote for it.” In other words: it is always a grave or mortal sin for a politician to support abortion. Now, some will want to say that these bishops—and I— are crossing the line from Religion into to politics. But it was the Speaker of the House who started this. The bishops, and I, are not crossing into politics; she, and other pro-abortion Catholic politicians, regularly cross over into teaching theology and doctrine, And it’s our job to try clean up their mess.  But there’s something more than that here. On Sunday, before the whole nation, she claimed to be an “ardent, practicing Catholic.” Imagine if someone came in here and said “I’m a mafia hit man and I’m proud of it.” Or “I deal drugs to little children.” Or “I think black people are animals and it’s okay to make them slaves, or at least keep them out of my children’s school.” Are these “ardent practicing Catholics”? No, they are not.  And neither is a person who ardently supports and votes to fund killing 1 to 1.5 million unborn babies every single year. Especially if that person is in a position of great power trying to get others to follow her. Someone, for example, like a Catholic Speaker of the House, or a Catholic candidate for Vice President of the United States, or a Catholic senior Senator who is stands as the leading icon his political party. Like the proud and unrepentant murderer or drug dealer, they are not ardent Catholics. They are, in very plain terms, very bad Catholics. But the reason I say all this is not because I want to embarrass them or even correct them — they’re not even here. It’s because of you. Because back in the 1850’s when Catholic bishops, priests, and politicians were either silent or on the wrong side of the slavery debate, they risked not only their souls, but the souls of every other Catholic they influenced. I cannot do that, and Iwon’t do that. Some would say, well Father, what about those people who support the war in Iraq, or the death penalty, or oppose undocumented aliens, Aren’t those just as important, and aren’t Catholic politicians who support those “bad Catholics” too?  Simple answer: no. Not one of those issues, or any other similar issues, except for the attack on traditional marriage is a matter of absolute intrinsic evil in itself. Not all wars are unjust — and good Catholics can disagree on facts and judgments. Same thing with the other issues: facts are debatable, as are solutions to problems. But some things leave no room for debate. One of these is that it is always gravely evil to enslave human beings as if they were animals. And another is that it is always gravely evil to kill an innocent human life being — particularly the unborn. So, as Cardinal Ratzinger wrote to the American bishops just 10 months before he became Pope Benedict XVI: There may be a legitimate diversity of opinion even among Catholics about waging war and applying the death penalty, but not however with regard to abortion…. Now, all this is not about bashing a politician, or about politics. And it’s not about telling you how to vote. Its about the truth and the teaching of Christ and his Church. About learning from the terrible mistakes of the past in order not to repeat those mistakes today. It’s about warning you against following those who would lead you to believe that you don’t have to love your neighbor because she’s still in her mother’s womb. It’s about following Christ in perfect union with his Church and his Pope, even when it’s difficult, even when it means picking up your cross.  As we enter more deeply into the mystery of Christ’s Cross and Resurrection in this Holy Mass, let us pray for ourselves, and for one another, and for our leaders in the Church and in public life. That each one of us may never conform ourselves to this age, but may be transformed by the renewal of our minds, always discerning the will of God. That we may be true followers of Christ, and in the most honest sense of the words, “ardent practicing Catholics.”

As Jesus passed by he saw a man blind from birth. His disciples asked him, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?” Jesus answered, “Neither he not his parents sinned; it is so that the works of God might be made visible through him.

Today’s Gospel is my favorite Gospel passage, since it reflects so neatly upon my own experience. Many people today share the same feelings as the disciples–if you have an illness, or are experiencing difficulties and trials, you must have “done something” to deserve them. Because God is a good and just God, so why would anyone endure trials or sufferings if they didn’t deserve them?

A corollary is also seen–people who are “oppressed and afflicted” (Isaiah 52) wonder what they have to done to offend God. “Why me, God?” can be a frequent cry (see the Book of Job). And here, Jesus provides the answer: “so that the works of God might be made visible through him.”

In Catholicism, Suffering is not Suffering for its own sake. As John Paul The Great wrote in his encyclical Salvifici Doloris (On the Meaning of Suffering) in 1984:

The Redeemer suffered in place of man and for man. Every man has his own share in the Redemption. Each one is also called to share in that suffering through which all human suffering has also been redeemed. In bringing about the Redemption through suffering, Christ has also raised human suffering to the level of the Redemption. Thus each man, in his suffering, can also become a sharer in the redemptive suffering of Christ.

In the Way of the Cross message of 2005, John Paul invokes Paul:

The adoration of the Cross directs us to a commitment that we cannot shirk: the mission that St. Paul expressed in these words: In my flesh I complete what is lacking in Christ’s afflictions for the sake of his body, that is, the Church. (Colossians 1:24).

So here we have some of the basis of the Church’s doctrine of “Redemptive Suffering.” It is not a waste to suffer. God sees and sympathizes with us. All of us suffer to different degrees–spiritually, physically, mentally, etc. But this doesn’t mean that God doesn’t love us. Mother Teresa once said that in suffering, Jesus is bringing you close enough to Him so that He can embrace you, He can kiss you. Suffering brings you closer to God.

Sure, there are ways we’d like to get closer without actually suffering. I don’t know anyone who wakes up and says, “Yes! Today’s another chance to suffer! Woohoo!” But God does not abandon us. Even when we think he has–as Jesus did, on the cross, “My God, My God, why have you abandoned me?”–he has not. Through His Passion and Death, Jesus has been through everything a human being can endure. He knows what we are feeling.

Our suffering can bring others to him. When I was in the ICU in 2001, friends that hadn’t been to church in years went and prayed. The same thing happened during my transplant. I’m not aware of any Great Conversions from these experiences, but my circumstances brought other people before God, and made them aware of Him and His dominion over us. My talking and normal activities hadn’t done that–it took something very, very dramatic to get these kids into a church. Maybe they haven’t been since; I don’t know. But I know they were there at least once, asking God for a favor. Sometimes the “God as ATM” theory is the first way you get people to go to church–ask God for something and see what happens.

God’s work can be made manifest through you–but you have to consent to it.

Bread is the most satisfying thing for me to make, in any incarnation–corn bread, loaves of bread, biscuits. It’s such a basic food, but so vital to out everyday lives. There’s a reason the “Our Father” says “Give Us This Day Our Daily Bread.”
So this weekend I have taken to indulging my bread making side, and am currently making some brioche (my first try!) courtsey of Barefoot In Paris. You can find the recipe here.

Another favorite is Irish Soda bread (here), which is an easy to make bread (no yeast or rising)–great for St. Patrick’s Day! (Also great for breakfast, spread with a nice thick jam.)

 Someone want to tell me how the Church Jesus Christ founded, headed by his apostles, upon which “the gates of Hell shall not prevail” is heterodox? Because I’m missing it.

Sometimes, when I’m home and bored I like to poke around Wikipedia. Today I stumbled across the entry for the Lutheran Church–Missouri Synod (LCMS), which I am familiar with, having several friends who are of this denomination. There was a link to their official website . Once there, I found a link to the differences between Catholicism and the LCMS church. Well, I was a bit curious. I decided to check this out, because I have long wondered where, precisely, some of my friends had gotten their rather strange ideas of Catholicism.

The page lists 8 issues that are listed in the form of questions. A few of the points I found, um, interesting: my comments in bold
(Read on …)

If you are what you should be, you will set the whole world on fire.

–St. Catherine of Sienna

DISCIPLESHIP isn’t easy. Jesus told us it wouldn’t be. He sent us as sheep among wolves. People would hate us, He said, but we were to remember that the world hated Him first. And since He was persecuted, we would be as well. We cannot escape it.

So often we think of this in terms of martyrdom, or great acts of faith and courage. But we must stand for Christ and His Church everyday. It’s our duty. It is our mission. It is our calling. We must defend the Truth always. God will give us the words and the courage if we ask for them. We must always stand up for the Truth and not be afraid. God is with us. He will give us the words, as He has given each of us our mission. He alone knows what He desires for us, and knows what we must do to achieve the glory He has envisioned for uys. If we but trust in Him, He will not abandon us.

It is hard.  We my not face the scaffold or the soldier or the blade, but we face the loss of respect, of friends, of understanding. Why do we need these? Yet we do. We crave human acceptance and approval. Yet is is so much more important to crave God’s approval. We must strive to do His will. We can do it, every day, if we ask for God’s help. He holds us in the palm of His hand–He will never forsake us. He loves us more than we can fathom. Let us love Him with abandon, with fervor. Let us defend His Church and Her Truth. “The gates of Hell shall not prevail against it.” We are the vineyard workers, we are Christ’s body on earth. We are His disciples now.

Gandhi said that if Christians truly lives their faith, there would be no Hindus in India. We must love and live our faith, our complete faith, without picking only the parts we can handle. The Cross is hard. Christianity is hard. Catholicism, at times, can seem even harder. We must persevere in faith. We must  strive to live and teach the Truth. Veritas Splendor. “Be not afraid!” It sets us free, but first it must be taught an embraced. We cannot hide it. We must not hide it. To do so is to deny Christ and His love for us.

We are not perfect. We all stumble on our road. But we must be like Peter, and not Judas; we must realize our mistakes, confess them and strive to do better. We must not despair.

“Quo est veritas?” Jesus, and His Church. We must teach that. It is imperative.  It is our mission. Without it, we flounder and stumble and lose the Light. We are the Light of the World, the Salt of the Earth. We cannot lose our savor. It denies it, it denies Christ, it blunts our purposes and we lose our way. We cannot and must not be ashamed of the light and the Truth. He is our entire purpose. Jesus gives everything meaning. His Truth cannot be changed or “softened” or mutated. It is, always.

We must not be afraid, for Christ is with us “until the end of the age.”

Pertaining to the’08 election and Catholicism:

There is head-scratching in the political marketplace over a looming contradiction. The candidates for president of the United States include a man identified as a Roman Catholic, and among the voters there are, of course, many Catholics. It would be reasonable to suppose that Candidate Giuliani would get the presumptive backing of the Catholic population.

But there are a couple of caveats.

First, is Giuliani a Catholic other than nominally? Because his name is Italian, one assumes that he subscribes to the faith associated with the Italian people. As a boy, he went to Catholic schools, and he was apparently devout; he even contemplated entering seminary. But is he a practicing Catholic now?

In 1999 the question of his religious faith was put to him directly. His reply: “I don’t attend [Catholic services] regularly, but I attend occasionally.”

Now, plop!, this raises special problems in the Catholic communion. Catholics are not only expected to attend Mass every week, they are bound to do so. In the matter of the Sabbath, you can be an easygoing Episcopalian, or Quaker, or even Reform Jew, and no rule is broken of formal consequences. But that isn’t so in the Catholic communion, because there are rules that include attendance at Mass on Sundays. If you’re a Philadelphia lawyer you might here smile a bit and say, well . . . Christians don’t always behave as Christians, so what else is new?

Ah, but that doesn’t work. Because the kind of godlessness expressed by a failure to live a life of charity, sustained by faith and hope, is, unhappily, pretty unnoticeable. Everyone excepting the saints is, under such scrutiny, “un-Christian.” But a failure to attend church on Sunday is, by Catholic standards, contumacious, an ostentatious rejection of a formal obligation. It is the equivalent of an observant Jew biting into a piece of pork. Penitence, if genuine, can minister to any infraction of the faith. But to violate systematically the Commandment that says, “Remember the Sabbath and keep it holy,” is systematically to reject one’s faith.

There are other problems, in the matter of Mr. Giuliani. One’s sense of things is that the religious communities are understanding in the matter of failed marriages (the divorce rate in the United States has been estimated at about fifty percent), but those who aspire to lead are quite reasonably examined more closely, and in the matter of Mr. Giuliani, there is the second and then the third wife, with ugly consequences involving children and living quarters.

Which is to say that a candidate holding out his affiliation with a religious body as a reason to presume harmonious values with other voters of the same faith has to prepare for a likelihood of resentment among coreligionists if he appears lax in the practice of his faith. Members of a club can be relaxed about the member who does not pay his dues. But there is the risk there of continued neglect gradually understood as disloyalty. The way things work in modern times, under modern pressures, more people’s attention is attracted by defiance of a protocol than by inconsistent attention given to it. The guest who neglectfully fails to bow when the queen enters the room is not especially conspicuous, but becomes so if it crosses the mind of others that he is challenging the legitimacy of the sovereign, rather than merely to being absent-minded about protocols.

There is the factor that in any political contest others are aspiring to win the voters’ approval. It is natural that candidates will call attention to the failures of their rivals, and that interested observers will join in. Gary Bauer, for instance, a longtime champion of the relevance of the Christian faith in politics, cannot be expected to be indifferent to the anomalies we speak of. James Dobson is likely to be heard from. And then — and then, there are the bishops and priests who will not wish to be thought indifferent to the indifference of others to the cosmic commitments they have made.

© 2007 Universal Press Syndicate

On of my favorite Bible verses is the verse currently on the sidebar:

Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me. Rejoice and be glad, because great is your reward in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you.”

There are days when I think we all need this verse.

With the release of Mother Teresa’s new book of letters and writings, a lot of people in the press seem amazed at the discovery of her “dark night,” as if they had never imagined such a thing. Personally, I feel that this is one of the more comforting parts of Catholicism, and it reassures me to know that even God’s chosen (well, OK, what we think of as chosen (saints), since we’re all chosen, technically) experience the absence of God.

Maybe it’s something with the name–both Teresa of Avila and Therese of Lisieux experience the dark night. In fact, in The Interior Castle, Teresa talks about it being one of the steps on the way to perfecting your soul. Only souls that are truly close to God, she says, can experience the dark night. If you’re not spiritually “advanced” enough, then you can’t.  God knows you won’t be able to handle the “aridness,” the dryness, the feelings of abandonment, that come with the Dark Night St. John of the Cross wrote about (OK, maybe it’s a Carmelite thing. ).  Jesus on the cross cried out, “My God, my God, why have you abandoned me?” (Taken from Psalm 22) The theme of God’s silence, or abandonment, is a very common one. The fact that Mother Teresa experienced it really shouldn’t surprise us.

Teresa of Avila was right when she wrote about it. You have to have a certain spiritual maturity to face the Dark Night. Otherwise the faith will just wither and fade, like the seed that falls amidst the thorns in Jesus’ parable. It’s great when you feel that communion with God, the sense thatyou and He are one, that He is communicating with you and you feel his presence. But most of the time, it’s not there, right? We’re at Mass and we’re not feeling that joy, the Presence of God. We’re feeling irritation because the people in front of us came in late, a baby’s crying, kids are dropping the hymnals all over the place and their parents are oblivious, people are wearing tank tops and cut-offs, etc. We aren’t focused on Mass. Or we’re praying, and we’re not feeling anything come back. It’s like we’re in empty space. That’s when it’s so easy to give up and think that God doesn’t care. But we have to pray, to go on, to have faith, even when we aren’t sure God is listening or present. That’s what faith is, right? “We walk by faith, and not by sight.” “Blessed are they who have not seen, and yet believe.”

We haven’t seen. But we have to believe. It’s the only way to truly come to God.

Isn’t it amazing, how God always knows what we need to hear, and when we need to hear it?

My contentedness with a single state goes back and forth, like tides. Some days I am quite happy to be alone in my apartment, running my life to my satisfaction (well, so I think ), deciding what I will and will not do, what social engagements I will take, and the like. I am free to do what I please without asking another person (for the most part). But there are also moments, which have surfaced this week, where I have acutely wanted another person here, to share my thoughts, my life, my activities.

Today my devotional reading was from 2 Timothy, verse 16: “At my first defense no one came to my support, but all deserted me. May it not be counted against them!” The overall passage was sort of esoteric, so I was interested to see what take the meditation would follow. This is what I got:

We must not conclude that the spiritual life rescues single persons from the pain of loneliness. It does not. any times I’ve been acutely aware of my singleness and really felt lonely: preparing a meal for one, asking for a single table in a restaurant, feeling out of it in the midst of a laughing crowd. Sometimes I wake up at night and wonder what will happen to me when I grow old and sick and no spouse or children, no fellow community members are there to take care of me.

This awareness of my aloneness could cause me to become anxious and depressed. I try to remember the positive, spiritual meaning and the psychological contentment that comes with being single: blessing my quiet apartment at the end of a busy day, staying in or going out as a I please, calling a friend or silencing the ring on my phone so I can spend the evening reading and praying. Loneliness slowly changes into solitude also when I recommit myself to the Lord and enjoy his companionship.

In solitude I bring my whole being–physical, emotional, spiritual–before God and ask him for the grace I need to live my single calling joyfully. I do not want to fall into sef-pity or madly seek some meaningful encounter. God knows I need his help to live a harmonious inner and outer life, avoiding the either/or extremes that often tempt singoles: either too much withdrawal or too much involvement.

Personally, as a Christian, I try to center my singleness in the heart of Jesus, the Single Word spoken by the Father. In the Word made Flesh, I am at home with my single calling and united spiritually with all other people, contemplatively present to his will and actively serving the members of his kingdom.