Our Lady of Knock and My Addiction

 

Our Lady of Knock (and the reintroduction of my Claddagh ring on my ring finger) has done something that’s been missing for years — a renewed interest in Ireland. Not only that, she is who I’m going to need to help me fight my increasingly obvious addiction.

Now, I should say that I never truly lost my Hibernophile ways. I’ve loved Ireland for as long as I can remember. I always looked forward to St. Patrick’s Day. Up until last month, I also did as much work on the family tree as I could to see if we had any Irish ancestry because we have many blue-eyed, auburn-haired, freckled people in my immediate family, including my very ginger-haired middle brother. The closest I got to a potential Irish ancestor was my 7x-great grandmother Barron on my father’s side of the family but since I can’t locate any official documents to confirm it — and she’s too distant to claim any Irish ancestry — I’ll simply hope she was of Irish descent. It sounds silly but I love Ireland so much that I do hope I have even the smallest bit of Irish blood running through my veins.

I think what waned my interest was the passing of Irish laws that made this formerly strong Catholic nation a shadow of its former self. I heard about the state of the Catholic Church in Ireland, saw what people were doing and saying… and that just disappointed me deeply. That’s when I stopped keeping track of what was going on in Ireland.

Recently, I started watching a show produced for Irish Catholics that is aired on EWTN Europe (I’ll watch their feed instead of the American one sometimes) and it started renewing my interest in the Emerald Isle. I started hearing of how some Irish Catholics are working hard to fight the increasing secularism that is eroding Catholic values. Then I watched a special program on Our Lady of Knock and it brought back memories of the deep love I have for Ireland. But, most importantly, the program made me realize just how much Our Lady of Knock is the title of Our Lady I most need in my life right now.

Our Lady of Lourdes is quite possibly my favorite apparition of Our Lady (and this year has been a very French Catholic themed year for me; I’ll blog about this in the future) but Our Lady of Knock is the most relevant for one big reason: her silence.

Someone correct me if I’m wrong but I believe that Our Lady of Knock has been the only approved Marian apparition that has been silent. There was no big message; it was simply her presence along with that of St. Joseph, St. John the Evangelist, and the Lamb )Christ). Though it all happened in silence, it was a powerful apparition that I’ve only begun to dismantle in terms of the symbolism and how it personally touches my heart. As I said, I think it’s because of the silence that it’s been the most relevant to me at this point in my life.

With my month off of Instagram (day 18 today), my desire to detach myself more from social media and from speaking unnecessarily (a very Benedictine thing), and wanting to repair and renovate the interior garden of my heart, Our Lady of Knock is my perfect companion. I can ponder her silence… which spoke volumes. It very much reminds of St. Joseph whose words were never recorded in the Bible but whose life was a model of virtue and humility. I can spend so much time just musing about it on this blog but it’ll make the entry even longer so I’ll just say that I have a feeling Our Lady of Knock has entered the chat because of how much I’m struggling with the silence and the detachment.

No, I don’t actually miss Instagram nor am I counting down the days until my self-imposed IG fast is over. Instead, I’ve noticed that I’m struggling with simply sitting in silence. I think I wasn’t actually addicted to IG itself but rather to distraction and noise. Why do I say this? Because I’ve found other things — noisy things — to replace IG. Yes, I’m being more careful with what I’m consuming in terms of music and entertainment (as I said in the previous post) but I’m still consuming too much of it. If I don’t have music on, I have something in the background. I feel so uncomfortable in silence, which is strange for an HSP (highly sensitive person) and someone who needs as limited stimulation as possible to help heal my HPA axis. 

What am I afraid of? I don’t know, but I’m going to have to find out. I cannot keep a constant stream of noise going on. Perhaps that’s what’s feeding my mental fog and my inability to concentrate; the constant bombardment of noise in my life. And when I say “constant” I mean even when I’m trying to sleep as I have gotten into the habit of having a fiction audiobook playing when trying to fall asleep. Enough is enough. I need to knock (pun intended) this addiction to noise out of my life and I think Our Lady of Knock will be perfect for this.

I found the beautiful prayer card my friend Allison sent me a couple of years ago (pictured above) and I fully intend to have one of our blessed Candlemas candles lit in front of it when I try to have some quiet time. I know it won’t be easy and I know it’ll be incredibly uncomfortable for me but I also know that I’ll have Our Lady with me, helping me get through it. I’ll start small (15 minutes) and increase the time in silence as time goes. This won’t be a short-term plan/goal as I know just bad things are but that’s okay. Things that are worth doing will be hard and take time.

Anyway, these are just some thoughts bouncing around in my mind.

It’s still early in the day (not even 10:30 a.m.) but I’m feeling physically exhausted so I’m going to try to take a nap while it’s still relatively quiet. My neighbors were making a ruckus until very late last night so I didn’t get great sleep.

I hope you all have a lovely start of the weekend! 

As always, thanks for reading and God bless! ☺️