Homesickness

No change. Well, that's not entirely true. Overall I am discovering small improvements, like the ability to eat more in one sitting and go longer without food, which really helps me achieve productivity. It's hard to do everything in 30 minute intervals because I had to eat every 45 minutes. But then I still can't have any "real" food, especially after about 4 pm. When I tried to eat some chicken last night at 5 pm, I ended up having a terrible night where I threw up twice and spent hours with my stomach cramping and gurgling dangerously.

It's been hard to figure out what to pray. Jen's recent post on the granularity of prayer has a great explanation of focusing our prayers. Right now, I feel that it's pointless to pray, "Lord, please let this nausea end soon," partly because I don't REALLY want that. If the nausea means my Little Mango is growing and healthy, then good, bring on the nausea. Mostly, though, I feel like it's just going to end in its own time, and praying for it to end sooner is aiming my prayer at the wrong target.

So I've tried to pray, "Lord, give me the strength to endure this with grace." That's slightly better, and I definitely have felt an improvement in my mood and attitude towards this pregnancy. But really, that's a very self-centered prayer. I want God to help me be happy and kind in my suffering so I can gain graces from it and give glory to God. But I'm only 1/5 of the equation here. There are four other people (my husband, my children, and my mother) who are suffering as much as I am, and that prayer doesn't include them.

Mostly, what I do is offer up the suffering rather than praying about it. I know offering up is a form of prayer, so in that sense I am praying, but somehow it feels fundamentally different to say, "Lord, let this suffering go to help those tempted to adultery," than to ask for something for myself.

Still, these are ALL prayers of petition, as outlined here. I am still asking God for something, whether it's for me or not. I've come to realize that a big part of my spiritual dryness right now stems from a lack of a key form of prayer: Adoration.

Because I am trapped at home, I have not been able to attend Mass and bask in the literal presence of God. I have not been listening to K-LOVE as I drive my kids around and run errands. I have not been encountering my friends' stories of God's presence and power in their lives. I haven't even been able to gaze at the mountains in the distance and admire God's creation. I've been missing all my usual sources of adoration, and it shows. I am suffering daily, offering that suffering up, and yet feeling as far from God as I ever have.

I fully understand why monastic communities are careful to balance their days with everything their members need for spiritual nourishment. There are different sorts of prayer times throughout the day: communal worship, honest work, private devotions, study of the Word, and fellowship, all combining in a way that enables each person to receive what they need to continue their vocation. I've cut off a major source of spiritual nourishment, and I am starving.

It became clear to me what the problem was when I did my last Wednesday Fast. Since abstaining from food is not an option, I've been abstaining from TV for the day. That's actually a very difficult sacrifice for me, since I can't read without growing dizzy, I can't move around very much, and I have no major responsibilities. Mostly, I am on the couch, trying to distract myself from the nausea. (In my defense, it's not all Star Trek reruns, though those do factor heavily. I've been watching lots of documentaries on historical figures and science shows on geology and such. After all, I need to have something on the TV that I don't mind my kids staring at, too!) On Wednesdays, though, I deny myself this distraction. Instead, I put on the radio or spend some time sitting outside listening to the birds. And I noticed something remarkable: I felt closer to God even though I felt MORE nauseated. Setting time aside each day for some Adoration is making all the difference.

So I'm trying to be better about reading my blogs and listening to K-LOVE, two forms of Adoration that are available to me at home. And I'm looking forward to the day, a few weeks from now, when I will be better and able to rejoin the community of believers that has been such a source of spiritual strength to me since we moved to Colorado. I miss my parish SO MUCH. That's where I encounter God most forcefully, not only at Mass but through the people I know there. The physical discomfort of my nausea isn't anywhere near the worst aspect of my quarantine. It pales in comparison to the spiritual starvation I've been experiencing as a result of being cut off from the fount of faith that pours out of my Parish. I can't wait to go home again!

Picture credit.

Prayer and Fasting

I had the privilege of attending a talk by Ivan Dragicevic, one of the 6 Medjugorje visionaries, last Monday night. We had an hour of the Rosary, during which the Virgin Mary appeared to him up by the altar, then we had Mass followed by Ivan's talk on Mary's message.

Her message, as it always does, revolves around peace, love, and a call to prayer, sacrifice and deep devotion to God. That is what she has been asking for in just about every apparition in all the centuries. Ivan talked to us about the type of prayer she wants: nothing less than wholehearted, passionate, intimate conversations with God, who made Himself incarnate to draw us nearer to Him.

She has said that we should all be praying 3 hours a day. People tend to react with immediate horror whenever they hear this. In Church on Monday the congregation gasped. Three hours! Every day! Impossible!

I don't think it is. Ivan clarified that it doesn't all have to be at once, nor does it have to be quiet, contemplative prayer. Reading the Bible counts. Attending Mass counts. Corporal works of mercy count.

And because I'm a mother, I've compiled a list to illustrate how a typical mom might be able to reach that three hours in fairly simple and straightforward ways without taking too much time out of her busy day:

Daily Mass: 30 minutes (if you're lucky enough to get a particularly long-winded or slow-talking presider, this could bump up to 45)

Morning Offering: 5 minutes

Nightly meditation: 5 minutes

Various daily prayers (to St. Anthony for a lost item, to Jesus, Mary and Joseph for patience, to the Holy Spirit to guide a conversation, to the Archangel Raphael for safe car rides, etc.) 5 minutes

Reading Bible or Daily Meditation: 15 minutes

Rosary after kids are in bed: 15-30 minutes (1 1/2 hours if full 20 mysteries are prayed)

Cheerfully singing hymns while washing dishes: 15 minutes

Moved to tears listening to local Christian radio station while running errands: 15 minutes

Reading Letters of St. Augustine or A Mother's Rule of Life or Daily Catholic news on web: 15 minutes

Making meal for friend who just delivered a baby or sorting and delivering donation to Goodwill or knitting scarf for homeless or packaging books for overseas soldiers or volunteering at nursing home or delivering communion to the homebound, etc etc: 30 minutes

Rocking child to sleep singing slow, meditative hymns: 15 minutes

TOTAL: 3 hours

Other suggestions:

Reciting seven Our Fathers, Hail Marys and Glory Bes while folding laundry/taking out garbage/waiting for schoolbus/emptying dishwasher/scrubbing bathtub/standing in checkout line/waiting on hold for customer service, etc.

Teaching children the name of a Saint and his/her patronage

Divine Mercy Chaplet or Chaplet to a Saint

Listening to Rosary on CD while driving

Confession

Participation in Parish organization (cleaning linens, baking host, St. Vincent de Paul, Extraordinary Ministers of the Eucharist, etc.)

Fasting

This last one I'd like to expand upon a bit. The messages from Medjugorje are explicit in their call for fasting. Mary is asking us to fast twice a week on Wednesdays and Fridays consuming only bread and water, and with the special intention for conversions (defined by Mary as anyone who has not felt the overpowering love of God in their lives.) Since Wendesday was Ash Wednesday and a day of fast anyway, I tried it.

I found it surprisingly easy. Not in the sense that it was fun, in any way enjoyable, or that I'm eager to do it again soon, but easy in the sense that I never felt unbearably hungry. I had thought, since bread and water is considerably stricter than the general Catholic guidelines for fasting (two small meals), that I would be doubled over in pain and nausea by the end of the day, desperate for nourishment.

On the contrary, the worst thing I experienced was a slight case of dry-mouth. My stomach barely rumbled. Like the time I gave up shoping for a week, the fast served to alert me to just how much excess food I consume in a day. It also brought home how often I eat just for the sake of eating. As my mother said when we discussed it today: "I know that I have all this food in my house. I have pecans in the pantry just waiting for me to eat them. Every single cuisine on Earth is available, from China to Argentina. It makes me want to eat." When we are surrounded by temptation, it makes it all the harder to resist.

Yet the truth is, our bodies don't NEED to eat three complete meals a day. We certainly don't need meat more than once a week, and unless we're digging a well or planning to raise up a barn, we certainly don't ever need "seconds."

So why do we eat so much? Well, because it's there. Studies have shown that people consume more food when they are served a large portion at a restaurant, regardless of how much they are paying for it. And if bread, condiments, appetizers and hearty beverages accompany the meal, people will eat those, too. (Interesting tidbit: 3-year-olds resist eating past the point of being full, 5-year-olds do not.)

Plus, food tastes good. We want to eat because we like the taste of things. That was mostly what I thought about during my fast when I was tempted by the smell of something. I thought about how good it would taste to chew it up and swallow it. My body was not sending me hunger signals, but my emotions were.

The hardest part of fasting is not the hunger. It's resisting temptation. Likewise, the hardest part of prayer is not the actual praying, but the setting time aside to do it. Whenever I begin the Rosary I feel such a sense of peace it makes me wonder why I put it off so often or get distracted by something else.

Discipline. That's the key to true spiritual fruit. This Lent, I hope to make myself and my desires smaller, while making God bigger. All Glory and Honor to You, Almighty Father, for ever and ever!