What Happened During My Divine Office Experiment

Confession: I got sidetracked by my brother's visit which is why I didn't blog sooner. Sorry!

Ah, the Liturgy of the Hours. My former spiritual director thought it would be a good match for me and recommended I try it out. I have tried it... and it's never stuck. I got back into the rhythm of driving Mom to work in the wee morning hours so I figured that since I was up from 4 a.m. until 6-7 p.m. (and then up again at 9-10 p.m. to do nighttime prayers), I could get almost all of the hours in. 

I know I have the luxury of sleeping when I want and doing what I want with (most) of my time. I get up at 4 a.m. to drive Mom to work. Unable to fall back asleep immediately after, I have the chance to pray in the peace and quiet that accompanies the pre-dawn hours. There are no distractions... there is no noise... there is no worry about anything else. Sounds ideal, right?

Let me tell you why it didn't work for me as I was doing it: I got too overwhelmed.

I'm one of those "go big or go home" people. Moderation is hard for me; it's not something I was taught as a child and am having trouble with practicing as an adult. It works out in some situations but backfires in others... and this was one of those times when it backfired. Long story short: I got so caught up in doing the LOTH and the Little Office of the Blessed Virgin Mary (which I love and have been doing for a couple of years now) that I started to sacrifice sleep when it finally hit (the sleepiness, I mean).

I kept saying, "No, I'll never get another chance to pray like this again, especially if God has a husband and family in store for me in the future. If this is going to stick, I need to get in the habit of it now. Besides, I want to be a Benedictine oblate and this is one of the things that's recommended we do." I thought that if I couldn't get through it, even for a couple of weeks, I would fail at being a Benedictine oblate. Oh, poor, sweet, not-too-bright Emmy. lol.

Okay, here's what I learned during this experiment: my perfectionist tendencies made the Divine Office completely overwhelming. Why? Because I tried to hit every hour, on the hour, on top of the other devotions I have (Little Office, Rosary, and the Angelus). It was too much, too soon. I didn't wade into the Divine Office; I took dove off into the deepest part forgetting I had a (metaphorically) weak limbs that couldn't help me to break the surface again. "Faithpalm," anyone?

This is what I decided to do: this week, I've let myself take a break from continuing the LOTH as I try to catch up on sleep. Okay, I don't actually have a choice when it comes to this because I've already missed two nights of prayers (Rosary included one of those days) because I'm so exhausted that I just sleep through the alarms from 6-7 p.m. until 3-4 a.m. the next morning. I need to sleep because without sleeping I cannot focus on the prayers; they just blur together and I go through the motions without actually focusing on what I've just read. Depending on how the rest of this week goes, I may also take the following week to try to get back into my regular sleeping schedule and then try the Divine Office once again.

New game plan: 

• Continue with the Little Office... but I'm not setting my alarms to hit every hour (6 a.m., 9 a.m., noon, 3 p.m., 6 p.m., and 9 p.m.). Instead, I have my usual alarm at 8-9 a.m. I'll try to pray Matins and Lauds (and depending on the hour I wake up, Prime or Terce) when I wake up. 
• Once I have that down (again), incorporate the Divine Office whilst reminding myself that as a future oblate, I'm not required to pray ALL the hours. I am a laywoman and I have things to do; though, ideally, I would like to be able to do all the hours. This one will be hard because of my perfectionist tendencies.

Has anyone else fallen into a similar pattern with the LOTH? Does anyone have any advice of how best to go about incorporating it into daily life... and/or not feeling bad about having "so much time" yet not being able to pray all the hours? Your suggestions would be most welcomed!

Alright, that's it for now. I have several days of emails to catch up on and want to get to them while everything is nice and quiet at Casa Emmy.

I hope you're all having a lovely start of the week!

As always, thanks for reading and God bless! :D

A Thirst for the Eucharist

I haven't attended Mass or gone to confession is three weeks. Three. It's not that I haven't wanted to go. I've been sick (ranging from digestive issues to dizziness and in between) and/or haven't been able to drive to Mass because of the heat. (side note for you new readers: I have a hereditary sensitivity to the heat and will get close to fainting in temperatures over 84 if I'm not in the shade with water or in an air conditioned place. My car hasn't had working air conditioning since my car accident last October.)

I miss going to Mass. I miss going to confession. I even miss feeling physically close to my home parish. It doesn't help that I've had a slew of temptations thrown my way, some of which I didn't think I'd have deal with. It was a nice reminder that I'm not as strong as I thought I was and that I'm susceptible to unexpected (to me) yet very human weaknesses. No, I need God. Very badly.

I hadn't read yesterday's Mass readings before I emailed one of my best friends, telling him that I felt as if my soul thirsted for God. Sounds dramatic but that's how it's felt lately. The longer I am kept from attending Mass and receiving the Eucharist, the more my soul desires it. Nothing and no one can satisfy it. Nothing and no one appeals to me more than receiving the Eucharist these days.

It occasionally feels like a physical emptiness, like a gaping hole in the middle of my chest. It's almost like a spiritual drought, except I've felt very close to God in the last week or so. Maybe it's because I haven't been able to physically receive Him that I've felt this way; maybe I feel close to Him because He wants to remind me that He's still here, even when I struggling with temptations and have yet to go to confession. Perhaps this is why St. Catherine of Siena (patroness against temptations) has been in my life more than usual lately. Yes, I just put two and two together there; I didn't even realize it until I wrote it out.

I continue to mess up in little ways, most of the time without intention. My struggle with scrupulosity (yes, I have been known to occasionally struggle with this as well) will make me beat myself up over a couple of things. I'm grateful that my best friends will bring me back to reality and remind me that no one is perfect and even saints had to deal with certain things. Still, I have moments in which I go "oh, God... I try hard but I just can't do this." I need His help more often than not.

I feel like my relationship with His is growing due to everything that's been going on lately... yet I feel awful for missing Mass and for having little life hiccups along the way. I guess I need to remind myself to trust in Him and His mercy more often. I sometimes fear being justly punished more than remembering that the Sacrament of Reconciliation exists for a reason.

Anyway, these are just some of the thoughts that have been bouncing around in my mind lately. I'm not entire sure why I shared this other than I was just inspired to. I hope someone can get something out of it. :)

Alright, it's almost the end of electricity base hours and we want to conserve energy since it's going to be at least 110 degrees F in L.A. today so I should skedaddle. Please say a prayer for me if you can and please feel free to send me your prayer requests as well. :D

As always, thanks for reading and God bless! :D

Lenten Lesson: Letting Go of Perfection

I will be the first to admit that I'm somewhat of a perfectionist. And by "somewhat" I mean "lady, sing 'Let it Go' because perfection is unattainable."

Towards the middle-end of Lent, I asked the four people who know me best what they thought I needed to work on. Wanting to be the best version of myself, I knew there were things I would undoubtedly be in denial of. My bestie replied -- honestly but gently -- that I'm too hard on myself and that I'm quick to put myself down. It's true. It's a horrible habit that I developed in my pre-teens/teens. I can pinpoint with whom it started and why I took it hard. While I'm not angry nor do I hold ill will towards the person, it became clear that this needed to change. I was so much happier and healthier before this habit became stubborn and hard to shake off. Wanting to be more confident and comfortable with who I am, I decided to make this change.

Slowly, I noticed my perfectionist/negative side keeping me back on matters of the faith. Honesty time: I can border on being scrupulous at times. "No, we have to do things this way" or "Oh, my... if I do/don't do x, y, and z I won't be able to receive communion." Sound familiar to anyone? Two Sundays ago my mother called to ask if I could help her at work because she was feeling anxious and overwhelmed with the workload. I was so tempted to say "It's Sunday! It's supposed to be a day of rest" but then I thought about what Jesus might be happier with -- the fact that I observed the day of rest or that I decided to help my mother out when she needed help, regardless of whether it was a day of rest or not. I decided to choose to help her out. I was reminded of how the Pharisees were all about doing things by the book and how they got in a snit and (basically) said "um, hello, Jesus you can't perform miracles on a Sabbath!" I don't want to be a Pharisee. I'd rather do what I think God would be most pleased with. I got in the car, drove to Mom's work, and helped her fold what needed to be folded. (side note for new readers: my mother works in the laundry at a convalescent hospital.) I got great joy out of helping her, not only because I was able to do a little thing to make her stress levels lower but also because I genuinely love folding laundry.

When it came to prayer life and I saw that I couldn't concentrate at times I would beat myself up over it. This is something I've done for years. I still do it at times. In fact, I have so many things going on this morning that I couldn't concentrate on my morning prayers. I wanted to -- I even repeated some things a couple of times -- but my mind just wouldn't cooperate with me. When I couldn't concentrate on something in the past, I would groan and be hard on myself. "I want to do this!" "I can do this... why can't I do this? What's wrong with me?" I wanted to do things "right" the first time. Over the years I've had numerous priests tell me that I'm too hard on myself over the years but it never sunk in until my bestie pointed it out to me. I'm so glad I asked her because it's started this great journey that's enriched my prayer life and my relationship with God.

I'm also learning to let go in other parts of my life and trying to remind myself that so-called perfection is truly unattainable. Nope, you can't convince me otherwise. I've turned a new leaf. Instead of worrying about perfection, I try to see the beauty in things. As I was driving to church this past Sunday I noticed that a driver had failed to use his signal to make a left turn. This is a pet peeve of mine because a lot of accidents could be avoided if people would just use their signals properly. Instead of ranting about it and how it affected me, I noticed the mountain range in front of me and thought "wow, what a beautiful sunrise we're getting." That helps; being mindful of other things instead of what you can't control (which, really, is most things) makes letting go a bit easier.

One of the benefits of letting go has been that my anxiety levels have greatly diminished. I still have moments in which I momentarily relapse into my old ways of thinking but, thankfully, I've been able to pause and snap back into how I need to let things go. It's not easy nor will it be for a long time. This is a bad habit I've had for nearly two decades so it's not going to go away overnight. Still, I'm going to try and I'm optimistic. I'm going to work hard at it until it's automatic for me. It can be done. My CBT therapist even told me that it's possible so there's hope. ;) Rome wasn't built in a day... God didn't create everything in a single day... I won't change overnight. ♪ Let it go, let it go... ♪ lol, sorry.

Anyway, those who know me well enough to be happy over this development, I give y'all permission to keep me accountable. If you see me slipping back into this pattern of negativity, snap me out of it! Don't let me be a Pharisee! It takes a village... or any army... or something. :-P

Alright, it's still early in the day (before noon, yes!) and I want to get a couple of things done/started before I have to go pick up Mom from work so that's it for today. I hope to have the last Lenten lesson posted tomorrow. Stay tuned. ;)

As always, thanks for reading and God bless! :D