A Month That Has Left Me Empty

 What I anticipated the first month of the year to look like:

• a more relaxed January after a lovely but hectic end of the previous year 
• my prayer life not being as packed with end of multiple long-term novenas (9 month novena & 54-day Rosary novena) and consecration (Marian & Divine Mercy) and oblate promises renewal. 

What actually happened:

• first hospital (emergency room) trip in 14+ months due to the aftermath of a digestive issue (which has not resolved as of yet) and the fears of a possible adrenal crisis (which can be fatal if not addressed quickly) or sepsis
• The lowest point of the spiritual aridity I’ve been experiencing for the last couple of months
• Being completely inactive for weeks because of how much this relapse has knocked me down
• My eyesight once again worsening for the first time since almost completely losing it in late 2020

As I’ve already said on both my Instagram (@lapetitefleurmariale) and Twitter (@MelissaCeciliaG) accounts, this has been a rough month for me… but it’d been building up for months. 

I’ve been dealing with a lot of things, internally, that I hadn’t shared with others. 

The loss of one of my best friends. 

Seeing someone I love deteriorate before my eyes due to their long-time battle with depression and feeling helpless when they refused help. 

Noticing the decline in my eyesight in recent weeks but hoping it was nothing that would last this long. 

Then we have the spiritual battles.

Unable to get to Mass and/or confession in the last 3 months due to health, lack of transportation, and other factors outside my control. 

No desire to pray. Zero. Not being able to concentrate or even pay attention due to an easily distracted mind. 

Feeling absolutely stagnant in and not even wanting to continue my vocation discernment. 

Feeling completely disconnected from God and my faith. 

I could go on and on but you get the gist. All of this seems to have hit me all once — this month — but I know it’s been building up for some time. I was just trying to push it to the side until I couldn’t anymore. 

Since I couldn’t do much — and slept so much when I was really struggling, physically — I ended up discovering my new favorite show… and binge watched it (twice!) in 3 weeks-ish and that brought some enjoyment but it still wasn’t the same. (For the record: the show only had 2 seasons and a movie and I did a lot of fast forwarding and playing at 2x speed to get through parts I could’ve done without so it isn’t as bad as it sounds.) once I finished the show, I felt the void of having something bring me a little bit of relief from the desolation… but it was never the same. It still left me feeling empty. And numb. The show was just a temporary bandaid, not the cure. 

I don’t know what the cure is. I don’t know how I will get out of this spiritual funk… but this evening I had a little ray of sunlight I hadn’t seen in a long time. 

As I wrote on my IG post evening, “I’m not out of the spiritual desert yet… but I have hope that is starting to bring me some consolation.

I didn’t ask for the consolation. I didn’t ask God for anything…. & yet He let me know He was there even when I couldn’t feel Him. He showed me His love. He showed me I’m His beloved daughter. He showed me that what I was going through was a growing pain because I’d outgrown the spiritual state I was in & that had thrown me off since I’d gotten comfortable in that little bubble. He showed me that even if this desolation were to last for the rest of my life, I would be okay… because, despite what was being said & what I felt, I was still trying. 

I’ve kept up my prayer life — majority of Divine Office hours & daily Rosary — despite not feeling it. I’ve kept my promises as a Benedictine oblate as well as I could in my current state of life. I’ve not given up when it seemed like so many others had.

S

Like I said, I’m not out yet. I don’t expect this aridity to leave anytime soon… but I’m now willing & even maybe a little more prepared for the suffering that will endure. 

Like I said on the last blog post I wrote last year, St. Joan of Arc’s quote, “I’m not afraid. I was born to do this”, has once again “entered the chat” & will be my motto as I try to find the light in the darkness once again.”

So; that’s where I am right now. There is a little glimmer of hope. It’s teeny tiny, but it’s there. 

I truly do believe that this might be a spiritual growing pain, one I need to go through to get to whatever God has in store for me. Whether that is moving forward with my vocation discernment or “discerning out”… whether that is embracing a new way of life… or whether it’s something that will be even more life-changing than I expect, I don’t know. I just know that I will keep trying, even if the path is filled with tears, cuts, and bruises along the way. 

Social Media is a Lion’s Den But I’m No Sts. Perpetua & Felicity

As I was praying Prime this morning and meditating on Psalm 6:3 (“Have mercy on me, O Lord, for I am weak: heal me, O Lord, for my bones are troubled”, Douay-Rheims) I had a very curious and random thought pop into my mind: the internet, specifically social media (especially Twitter), is like a Roman arena… and I’m guilty of being weak to its siren song. Well, the second part didn’t come until I prayed the Rosary after breakfast but it’s something that’s stuck with me. I know the psalm isn’t about this — it’s about mercy and how God loves us despite our weaknesses — but that’s what came to mind. 

I thought about how people use the internet to attack others and how those with more power and influence can utterly destroy the lives of others through it. I thought about the mob mentality that gets intense on Twitter. I thought about what I personally went through on the last day of the year for simply stating that superstitious traditions associated with the New Year go against Church teachings earned me verbal attacks and criticisms. I thought about how all those gossip accounts and websites report fodder for the masses, wasting our time. And I thought about how I’ve been guilty of falling into those traps. 

I’ve come to the conclusion that my love/hate relationship with social media comes from a combination of my want of privacy, my weakness when it comes to moderation, and all the bad things that happen on it. Of course I see the good: the friendships I’ve made through it, the growth I’ve made as a person, the good things I’ve learned… but the negative is what affects me the most and usually outweighs the good for me. 

I thought about Bl. Carlo Acutis (thanks to that funny yet not actually real tweet about a guy supposedly talking smack to him on an online gaming forum) and how he limited his time on things like gaming to do better things for the world. Actually, I think about that a lot since I’ve been wasting a lot more time online during the holidays. I thought about how prayers have become an afterthought during this time and how hard it’s going to be to get back into my prayer groove after 9 months of a specific novena routine and another 54-days of another novena routine. 

I actually cleaned up my Instagram feed quite a bit yesterday since that’s where I’m weakest. Yes, I know it’s funny that the place I’m most addicted to is a visual site while I’m visually impaired. lol. But I cleaned it up because I was spending way too much time on it and a majority of the accounts I was following were not good for me. They didn’t add anything good except some extra dopamine hits and it actually detracted from my spiritual life. Bl. Carlo’s example was like a bucket of ice water that woke me up from that (as I’m calling it) siren song. 

Then, as I mentioned in the beginning of this post, I thought about how social media is like an arena and we’re sent out to the lions… except we do it to ourselves. Those who imprison us are both those created the sites for making (and keeping) them as addicting as they are and ourselves for willingly using them. We’re social creatures so it’s natural for us to want to connect but I think a majority of the time we put too much of an emphasis on the online connections and we neglect those offline. 

I thought about how we Catholics and non-Catholic conservatives who don’t go to extremes are very likely going to become, in a way, white martyrs for professing our faith in the lion’s den that is the internet. The only thing is that I’m no Sts. Perpetua and Felicity. I may say what I say but I don’t have the courage they had to face that martyrdom. I log off. I hide. I don’t regret what I post but I also don’t stick around and that makes me feel like a coward in a way. There’s some great people who fight for and defend the Faith online and do it in a wonderful way that I could never do. That’s not my forte. I’m too sensitive for that. 

All of this is going to make me think long and hard about how I’ve used the internet and social media, how I’m currently using it, and how I want to continue using it from here on out. It’s going to be something that will undoubtedly take time for me to figure out as I’m still struggling with moderation when I’m not busy. 

And that concludes this year’s first blog post. lol. It’s not exactly what I had in mind but it’s something I felt like sharing.

I’m going to go ponder this a bit more and see what the Holy Spirit will help me figure out. 

I hope y’all had a lovely New Year’s Day and have a wonderful year! 

As a always, thanks for reading and God bless!