Over the past 8 days, I have been on spring break from seminary studies. In case you weren't aware, I do not enjoy going on break from seminary where I have to live at home. This isn't because I don't enjoy my parents. In fact, it is an opportunity to grow in charity and follow the fourth commandment. It isn't because my home town has less to do compared to Wickliffe where the seminary is located. It isn't because I don't enjoy seeing old friends at daily Mass. There is just something that always happens when I take a break from the normal routine, and that is what I want to discuss today.Anybody who comes back to the faith or temporarily deepens their faith knows how hard it is to run the race when whatever program you were participating in goes away. For college students, how hard is it to maintain a daily prayer life over the summer when the structure of the Newman Center is taken away. When the local parish's Bible study for moms goes away for the summer, where do these women find community and accountability if their husbands don't provide it for them? What about the family who travels on vacation to somewhere like Disney World? Where does God get his time when Mickey Mouse seems to demand your whole day from sunrise to the nightly fireworks? Even when the family does find their way to Mary Queen of the Universe parish in Orlando for Sunday Mass, are they able to enter into prayer well? Or are they merely fulfilling their obligation while they feel an itch to get back to the theme parks?
There are a few common themes in this paragraph of 'examination' that I just typed. There seems to be a change in routine or schedule that is forced upon us to some degree. This previous schedule likely became a habit which was easy to follow. This is great! The goal of virtue is to form good habits so making good choices is quite easy. When this habit is disrupted, we go back to the front lines of the battle. This isn't a battle between just God's attention and the world's attention. This is a battle between God's attention and the accuser's attention. This past week, we celebrated Ash Wednesday. It was much easier than normal to go to daily Mass because there was almost an expectation that I would be there. It turns out that if the world expects me to be at daily Mass, finding the motivation to schedule Mass into the calendar isn't too difficult. However, on the Saturday after Ash Wednesday, I find myself sleeping in instead of going to Mass. If there was some sort of expectation for me to be there, I would have likely gone.
The second common theme of that examination that I typed is the priority list of the person who is planning their schedule and making decisions. For the Newman Center student, is God at the top of their priority list? If so, they would have proactively searched for a young adult group to join before they went home for the summer. I actually decided to do this in 2022 when I lived in Detroit for the summer, and it was amazing! I still talk to guys from that mens group on occasion. For the Moms Bible study, who is volunteering to host women at their own house? Just because the parish minister stops organizing groups doesn't mean the groups aren't allowed to spend time with each other. For the family going to Disney World, is it the Lord's desire that you spend 14 hours a day at the theme parks and trying to capture the greatest level of happiness possible? Perhaps there is a way to encounter the Lord in the Magic Kingdom, but what if the family was to plan a day in St. Augustine, Florida as a pilgrimage to visit where some of the first Catholics celebrated Mass in our country?
So where does this leave me? I am a seminarian whose life supposedly is rooted in the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass. What must be the center of my day then? Mass. A major part of seminary formation is growing in the spiritual life. What must be a part of my day then? Sufficient time for prayer. Are there some places where prayer is easier than others? Yes? Then I need to visit these places to pray. Do I have homework that needs to get done in order to have a balanced life once I come back from break? Yes? Then I should make time to actually get some work done and go to a place where this is possible. With previous experiences of break, I usually fail to live these practices out and I find myself back in the confessional wondering how my will could possibly be so weak. It isn't as if I have parents who are actively discouraging me from these practices.
This year, I was able to pray something that resembled an extended time of meditation for 30+ minutes each day except one. I was able to make it to Mass every day except for the two Saturdays. I was able to sit down and get some daily spiritual reading in. I took a few afternoons and actually got some assignments done for school. Did I have a lot of wasted time in the midst of this week? Absolutely. But did I take some concrete actions to improve from previous breaks? Absolutely. I think one of the best decisions that my sister and I made was taking part of my bedroom and making a home altar with a Bible, some images of saints, and a pair of red church candles. It provides a concrete space that says: "prayer happens here." It cost me about $15 total to set up, and it makes praying at home so much easier. I don't know why, but it does. I consider it to be a grace from Our Lord.
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Pivoting themes now, I want to discuss how prayer has actually been over break and how my spiritual reading is helping me to navigate it. I have written much about my experiences of desolation on this blog, and there is a good reason. Prayer hasn't been flashy at all. Over break, it seems to have pivoted from a sense of dryness to a sense of numbness. It feels as if I have lost the thirst for God, but it hasn't been quenched by Living Water either. I go to Mass, and I feel nothing. I go to Holy Hour, and I feel nothing. After a while, I feel a bit lost, so I may play a couple of nostalgic worship songs to remind myself of what it's like to feel something. One day this week, I was interviewing a retired priest for a school project, and in the middle of the interview, we got an emergency call to anoint somebody. I witnessed a poor man dying of ALS that was surrounded by his family, and I got to watch a priest walk in and provide a sacrament. I saw how much the priest meant to the family, and I saw how death really softens people's hearts. However, a tempting thought came into my mind: "Is he really doing anything right now? Is it just a placebo?" I was a bit horrified that my faith has descended to this level, but did it actually descend?
This is where John of the Cross is so important to me in my current spiritual life. Previously, I had relied on emotion and passive feelings to guide me towards what is true and real. If I felt good during prayer, it must have meant that the Lord was close to me. If I got goosebumps during the consecration at Mass, then I must have prayed it well. If I felt emotion when dealing with somebody who was at a low point, then I was loving them in their suffering. John of the Cross thinks that all of these things that I described indicate that one is immature in the spiritual life. He goes on to talk about the grace of purgation and how choosing faith separate from feelings is a greater act of love than what I just described. What do we do when we don't feel anything? Is it just over? Has the Lord abandoned us? No. Assuming this shows that we don't value our human nature enough. If we use feelings as our gauge of reality, then we are lowering ourselves towards the level of an irrational animal.
Our Lord wants us to choose love and virtue for their own sake, not just because it makes us feel good. Going back to those thoughts that popped into my head, is the anointing of the sick really doing anything? He is still going to die right? Yes, it absolutely does do something. When that person on their deathbed sees the priest walk in, they see the Messiah coming to their assistance. Just because I didn't feel something doesn't mean that the family and person didn't feel something. The Lord didn't abandon me in that moment; he provided me an opportunity to choose him in a more pure act of faith.
I also was able to serve a confirmation Mass yesterday, but I didn't really feel anything there either. Was the Lord absent from that sacrament of confirmation? No. When the bishop shared letters from the 14 year olds about how their Damascus retreat changed their faith life, were the kids just under an illusion because they experienced consolation? No. Why did I even bother to start taking my faith life seriously? I had a sensible encounter with the person of Jesus. Did I act hypocritical and abandon the Lord many times after that? Yes. Did the Lord abandon me and give up on me? Clearly not. Just because I didn't have an encounter with the Lord in those places doesn't mean that others are unable to as well.
I should note that I could do a much better job recollecting in order to notice the Lord's fingerprints on my day. If we take little moments throughout the day to speak to God, we likely won't forget his presence as fast. When I am at the seminary, I do a pretty good job with praying the five main hours of the breviary. Over break, I basically stopped because I don't have the hard schedule built into my day. This is a place for growth, but I am in no way obligated to be praying these on my own, so I don't need to fill myself with guilt. In a couple more years, that will be a different story. However, my sense of the Lord's presence in things is still diminished by my lack of virtue to enter into prayer throughout the day, even if it is just for 30 seconds or so.
In summary, when we come home for break, in no way is the Lord abandoning us. When the feelings leave and virtue is hard to choose, the Lord is presenting us an invitation to purify our love for Him. I could go on further about the temptation to be envious of people's encounters with the Lord, but I will cover that another time...
Actually, why not spend a bit of time on this too while the thoughts are still fresh?
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I used to be quite attracted to high emotion types of prayer, usually involving charismatic circles. These prayer services usually have lots of loud music, emotional lyrics, fog, fancy lights, and a large sense of community. Any time a positive feeling is experienced, we are to say that it is the "Holy Spirit" and anybody who denies this hasn't had an authentic conversion yet. This leads people in these circles to crave more of these experiences and at higher levels. I know that I personally wanted to manifest some of the charisms like healing, knowledge, tongues, and prophesy. I wanted to go out and convert people by simply praying with these gifts and giving them a similar experience of God. The ultimate thing that would be anticipated was if it was our turn to be "slain in the Spirit." It would be described like it was the beatific vision or something, and those who were most "filled with the Spirit" would receive the grace from God.
You can see how this almost feels like the opposite of what I have previously written about with regards to the spiritual life. Where is the mention of virtue? Where is the emphasis of silence that the Doctors of the Church unanimously prescribe? Yes, there is a turning away from sin in these conversion experiences, but I think that the battle of good and evil isn't mentioned enough. The Gospels mention many healings where the person is told "your faith has saved you" and they walk away like a different person. There is no mention of the converted person's new battle with sin and vice. Because of this, I think it is a temptation for new believers to think that these battles go away simply because they profess a belief in Jesus. How often is Paul's account of his severe persecutions and beatings mentioned? What about the martyrdom of the other Apostles? Jesus wasn't the only person who was chosen by Divine Providence to die for the sake of the Church.
This is where the temptation of envy comes in for me. I know that these experiences happen to people, and they leave converted in many cases. I envy them because I know that the spiritual life is much more difficult than what these people performing miracles seem to experience at these prayer events. Why are these events put on a pedestal over the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass by many people? I used to believe that Eucharistic adoration was more important than Mass because "I at least got something out of it (good feelings)" It is so easy to just condemn the entire movement, but the Lord seems to be blessing it because of the reported miracles and conversions. However, I know that I wasn't presented with the fullness of the spiritual life in these circles. Instead of trying to put these events down, I should be taking what the Lord seems to be blessing and cooperating with it.
Lord, grant me the humility and the faith needed to believe in your goodness. Help me to grow in confidence that you indeed are the Good Shepherd who doesn't abandon His sheep. Please don't let me fall too far beyond your protecting help.
Amen