Praying

I love praying and I love having the freedom to pray.  Prayer doesn't cost a thing.  Prayer is intimate.  St. Therese of Lisieux says it best, "For me, prayer is a surge of the heart; it is a simple look turned toward heaven, it is a cry of recognition and of love, embracing both trial and joy."  Prayer is also listening to God, as He speaks in the silence.  Why would He choose to be so quiet, when one whisper from Him can sound like thunder?  God speaks in the silence because He wants us to choose to listen.  I didn't grow up in a church and after high school I was busy doing whatever I wanted to do.  Most of it was bad for me, but I was having fun.  Then one evening, as I was walking, I wondered who I could ask about my life and why I was living.  Then I heard Him say, "Ask Me."  I had to turn around to make sure nobody was behind me, because I thought I must have said that out loud, but nobody was behind me.  I continued to wonder who I could ask and thought about my Kunsi's, my mom, and then I heard His voice again say, "Ask Me."  Instead of looking around me, I looked up.  In that moment of quiet for me, wondering about the meaning of my life, I heard God speak to me.  Since then I've been seeking His voice, His love, His consolation, and His mercy in everything and everyone.  I couldn't do a thing without prayer:  praying through it, praying after, and giving thanks to God for revealing His love and mercy.  Prayer is life.

Within the past few weeks I feel like I have suffered in my prayer life.  I've been having anxiety attacks every day, sometimes twice a day, and I feel like I suddenly became spiritually numb, but I have stuck to faithfully praying the rosary every morning, even though it feels like I'm just repeating words; like the words just fall out of my mouth with no meaning and they don't make sense to me.  My mind goes off somewhere else and the moment I realize what I'm doing, I tell Jesus that I'm sorry.  I know He is with me and He knows how truly sorry I am, but I am disappointed in myself for being so distracted in prayer.  I don't know if what I do should be right or wrong for me.  It's as though my soul and my body are two different beings, and both are thirsting for what is opposite of the other.  I feel no consolation in choosing which thirst to satisfy.  I wonder how this could be, how this happened, and when is it going to end.  I wonder if I'll fully get over this, or will it always be a struggle to satisfy each one separately?  Sometimes I'll get bursts of joy that could float me off my feet, but they don't last long.  As quickly as they come, they leave, and then I have to force myself to continue in that joy.  Even though my body and soul feel like two separate beings, each thirsting for what is opposite of the other, there is always Jesus at the end of every thirst.  If I satisfy the thirst of my body, Jesus has to be the beginning and the end.  If I satisfy the thirst of my soul, Jesus has to be the beginning and the end.  I don't know how this happened and I often reflect on what I could have done to prevent this, but my memory is also in a twist.  One afternoon I could not remember what I did that morning, and it had only been five hours before.  

An anxiety attack is being overwhelmed with fear and terror that something awful is going to happen, or that you're going to lose your mind.  It's thinking that you're going to have a heart attack.  It's trembling and shaking.  It's not being able to sit down.  It's not being able to focus.  It's having a million thoughts in your mind all at once.  There is always one thing that I am sure of - I love Jesus.  In all those millions of thoughts, I find Jesus and I hang onto Him.  In the fear and terror, I think of Jesus hanging on His cross and I know that whatever happens I am always His.  I choose Jesus.  When I can't sit down, then I walk and think of Jesus carrying His cross.  There is another thing that I am absolutely sure of, which has been guiding me in this - receiving Jesus in Holy Communion.  I had an anxiety attack before confession, so I didn't want to go but I knew I had to.  When I walked into the church and knelt to pray, I almost got up and took myself to the hospital because I felt the anxiety rise up again but I held myself there, and even though I had no words to pray I told Jesus, "Looking at You hanging on the cross gives me comfort. I have no words to pray but I give this all to You."  I don't know how this happened to me but I know it is not without the will of God, and thank Him for the friends that have been through this and offer me support and encouragement.  I couldn't handle this without the support from them. 

Please pray for me. Of course, without praying as much as I usually do - I don't feel like myself.

I have a couple anxiety disorders, please pray that I overcome this, for and by God's will - through His love and mercy.

A very comforting quote by Saint Maria Faustina Kowalska, 

   "In spite of everything, Jesus, I trust in You in the face of every interior sentiment which sets itself against hope.  Do what You want with me; I will never leave You, because You are the source of my life."  

 

The Irresistible Force

Every Friday evening my sister-in-Christ and I spend an hour in the Divine Mercy Chapel, adoring, praising, loving, and giving all to Jesus.  Outside the door of the chapel is a bookcase filled with all kinds of faith inspiring books.  One of the saints that has made an obvious impact on my faith is St. Bernadette of Lourdes.  I love her!  A few Fridays ago I was scanning the bookcase for something to read or meditate on, when I saw the book called, 'Bernadette Speaks: A life of Saint Bernadette Soubirous in her own words,' by Rene Laurentin.  I've discovered many things about St. Bernadette that surprised me while reading the book.  When asked how old she was, St. Bernadette didn't know if she was 13 or 14 years old!  What is even more surprising is how much St. Bernadette was ridiculed, mocked, teased, threatened, and even slapped for going to the grotto where the Immaculate Conception had called her to and St. Bernadette promised to go.  St. Bernadette's family, friends, teachers, nuns, police, and even priests doubted her and made horrible threats to St. Bernadette if she continued to go to the grotto; they thought she was making up the whole story of seeing a Lady just for attention.  St. Bernadette and her family were very poor and thought very low of already, so people accused St. Bernadette for making up the story for money and food, but every time somebody had offered St. Bernadette anything like that, she refused.  What is so moving about St. Bernadette is how faithful she was to Our Lady, that nothing had stopped her from going to the grotto.  St. Bernadette was interrogated and interviewed countless times, and to the point of exhaustion but St. Bernadette still always told the truth.  The interrogators and interviewers often mixed up or twisted her words, in which St. Bernadette corrected just as quickly.  I think St. Bernadette describes her "call" to Our Lady at the grotto perfectly when she said, while being interrogated by a prosecutor, "I feel too much happiness when I go."  Then the prosecutor tells her, "Happiness is a bad counselor! You'd do better to listen to the nuns, who told you it was an illusion."  St. Bernadette then responds, "I'm drawn by an irresistible force."  I read that St. Bernadette had woke early in the morning and felt the irresistible force and tried to go back to sleep, but the force was too great that she got up immediately and dressed.  Her parents told her to go back to sleep and she could go to the grotto when it was daylight, but St. Bernadette said she couldn't wait.  So her family dressed as well and went with her while it was still dark out.  St. Bernadette saw Our Lady that morning.  How many times have you been drawn by an irresistible force that gave you so much happiness?

Can you imagine that Our Lady has been with St. Bernadette, and everyone, the whole time?  Our Lady wasn't disappearing into heaven when she wasn't appearing to St. Bernadette, but Our Lady is in our hearts and Our Lady never leaves us.  Our Lady didn't call St. Bernadette to a holy place.  The grotto was actually a place of filth and that is one of the reasons they made fun of St. Bernadette.  Why would a beautiful Lady appear to St. Bernadette in a filthy place?  Our Lady was calling St. Bernadette to make known the irresistible force in doing the will of God.  Our calling to His will has nothing to do with how perfect we are.  St. Bernadette didn't know how to read and St. Bernadette also hadn't made her first Holy Communion when Our Lady began appearing to her.  St. Bernadette and her family were one of the poorest, and St. Bernadette was always sickly.  So, St. Bernadette had nothing to offer Our Lady, except her promise to keep going back to the grotto.  What is also amazing about St. Bernadette is how humble she is.  A man had brought his blind daughter to the grotto, where when St. Bernadette saw the girl she immediately loved her and removed the scarf that covered her eyes and kissed her.  St. Bernadette and the girl laughed and hugged.  The girl gained her vision and was able to see; and when being questioned, St. Bernadette had said that it wasn't she who healed the girl.  St. Bernadette hadn't been to the grotto in weeks but she began visiting a boy that had been sick all his life.  The boy had an illness that prevented him from closing his mouth and made it difficult for him to eat.  When St. Bernadette saw him, she was surprised by how unpleasant the boy looked, but she never made that known to him.  Instead St. Bernadette approached him and talked to him.  The more St. Bernadette talked to him, the more the boy ate.  Soon the boy was eating whole meals throughout the day and they began calling it a miracle.  Again, St. Bernadette was questioned and she simply said, "It wasn't me that caused his healing. I have no power at all to heal anybody."  St. Bernadette was a simple and innocent child that followed the irresistible force of God's will.  St. Bernadette never worried of how she looked or what she owned, but knew only that the irresistible force made her happy.   

Also, we are not called to Him by Our Lady, but we are called by Him through Our Lady, the Blessed Virgin Mary.  I think the most powerful prayer we can pray is, "I entrust all to Mary."  Didn't God do that first when He placed Jesus in her womb through the Holy Spirit?  Do you think that the irresistible force is the Holy Spirit?  Do you think Mary felt the irresistible force as well?  I think so.  I hope and pray that you begin to experience and recognize the irresistible force that calls you to God's will.  What also amazed me about St. Bernadette is that she never seemed surprised by the actions of everyone around her.  When she was given the message by Our Lady, the Immaculate Conception, to tell the priest to build the chapel - that was hard!  It was hard to read because the priest was so mean to St. Bernadette, but after all of that she delivered the message and left so joyfully.  St. Bernadette said, "I delivered the message!"  And she went on her way.  St. Bernadette didn't cry because the priest didn't believe her, she wasn't discouraged, and she didn't complain about how hard it was.

I haven't read 100 pages of this book yet and I absolutely love it.  I love St. Bernadette and Our Lady of Lourdes, Jesus, Holy Spirit, St. Joseph, God, and the list goes on....
I'm praying for you - please pray for me and my family.  Thank you.