Coping with Suicide: I'm Not Well

I've been avoiding going to the doctor's for years.
Each time I go, I'm told that my symptoms are in my head, either directly or implicitly.

They've been right. I've not wanted to hear it and they've not offered the support that I needed.
Oh, sure, it's not a GP's job to counsel. It is, however, their job to refer.

This Friday, I gritted my teeth and went to a GP recommended by the great people at Pregnancy Assistance and by Sr Bernadette MG. Mum's been wanting me to have a 'once over' 'full check-up' for a while now, and my counselor (well, my previous counselor) suggested I go to the GP and specifically mention that I was exhibiting some of the signs of depression. So much for getting back to normal.

Anyway, so I went. Not without trepidation. Turns out I was late. Very late. She saw me anyway, and for an extended period of time. She didn't push me out the door and she recognised that, although it was all in my head, that didn't (doesn't!) mean that it can't be treated.

Sure, she put me on anti-depressants straight away; they aren't what they used to be. I won't be on them forever, and they're a low, therapeutic dose. She's also writing me a referral to go and talk to a psychiatrist. Hopefully the psychiatrist will give me a diagnosis and allow me to talk. I find myself wanting to do that a lot. To talk. But I want to talk to someone who will get it or, at least, someone who won't fob me off part way through. "There is not limit," Glenn Morrison tells me, "to the number of times we need to tell our story," and I want to tell mine again. Or, rather, I want to tell it all out in full.

In the mean time, my prayer-life has been sucky and I was feeling bad about that, but realised that it's not my fault. Then, this morning, I watched There Be Dragons and, this evening, read some reflections of the Stations of the Cross. From each of these sources, there is something that I wish to record here:

From There Be Dragons:

"...I came to accept that [God] can be terrible... I fight Him with Love."

And from the reflections of the Stations:

"In a painful illness, it may be (no, it IS) more pleasing to Him to take with gratitude the remedy or relief offered rather than bear the pain with a bad grace. It is quite possible that when depression weighs down upon one, the right course is to shake it off by curtailing one’s penitential acts and one’s prayer and allowing oneself more time for lawful recreation." (Rev Robert Nash, S.J x)

Both of these have been some kind of minor relief.

I told Tyson the other day that my difficulty in not reacting on an almost entirely cognitive level is disrupting my relationship with God, while at the same time saving it. I've been trying to put together an entire post on this thought but haven't got far. I will post what I have so far underneath. It is by no means complete, but I'm not sure I'm in a fit state to be finishing it at the moment.


Mental illness is strange. It can be just as debilitating as a physical illness but it is so easy to forget that it's there. It's easy for friends and acquaintances to forget, assuming they know; it's easy for family to forget; it's easy for the person who's unwell to forget.

It's easy for me to forget what it's like to be well. I don't remember, but I've not yet entirely forgotten. Being mentally well is not a memory that I hold; however, I'm sure that it exists and that I'll remember when I am again.


I am relying on prayers right now. There is so much more still ahead of me, so much more still to come. Yet, though I walk in this vale of darkness, no evil will I fear.  Pray for me, and I will, as I can, pray for you too.

Coping with Suicide: Now, or, In Pictures

Or, A Post With Nothing to do With The Doctor

Questions I ask:

a

What I would like to do for a few days:

b

Where I would like to do that:

b

Things I should probably remember:

c

and:

c

Because:

d

I guess I just need to be prepared to be vulnerable to Him again...

Ora pro me?

From Erin

at her Random Ramblings

Do you hear the Catholics sing?
Singing a song of holy men
It is the music of a Church who

will have a new Pope again

Benedict 16 was great

And we will miss him very much

But even in his retirement, he’ll pray for us

 

Quote of the Now

. . . the silence of St. Joseph does not demonstrate an empty interior, but rather the fullness of faith that he carries in his heart, and that guides each of his thoughts and actions. A silence through which Joseph, together with Mary, guard the Word of God, known through sacred Scripture, comparing it continually to the events of the life of Jesus; a silence interwoven with constant prayer, a prayer of blessing of the Lord, of adoration of his holy will and of boundless confidence in his providence.

– Pope Benedict XVI

Address before midday Angelus in St. Peter's Square, December 18, 2005
Quoted at stjosephaltar.blogspot.com.au/

Coping with Suicide: WANTED - Body Parts

WANTED Body Parts, Various
To Borrow:
Ears, for listening
Shoulder, to cry on
Hand, to hold.
(Preferable all from
same person.)
To Keep:
Two (2) Legs, to stand on.
Must be tangible and
in good working order.
Contact: Kelly

"We need to tell our story over and over again. There is no limit to the number of times we need to tell it." - Glenn Morrison

Here’s the thing: All the people I trust have heard my story to at least some extent and I’m reluctant to tell it to them again.

It’s dad’s birthday this Sunday; this is a date I’ve always simultaneously acknowledged and avoided. I had been hoping this year would be different. If I’d made contact with dad before Christmas (as I’d hoped,) I wanted to be able to see him for his birthday. The best laid plans…

Anyway, That’s not even what I want to talk about and it’s not that I don’t think those around me wouldn’t want to listen. I believe that all of my friends, if I told them that I needed to talk, would want to be there for me. Most of them, however, aren’t capable, for various reasons; capable of listening to me as I need, that is. Some of them are capable, but I wouldn’t know where to start; some of them are capable, and I wouldn’t know how to finish. There are very few of my friends that I’m comfortable around at all, fewer still that I’m comfortable crying around on rare occasions.

I don’t know how most of my friends would react to me crying on their shoulder, though I believe all of them would want to be sympathetic and, as much as possible, empathetic. Not knowing, however, both scares and deters me. As I wrote in At The Moment, I still need to know how a given social situation is likely to play out. In fact, this is something that I normally need - yes, there are still parts of my life that are normal - it’s just that my need is more encompassing than usual.

A dear friend and brother asked me the other day how I was, how I am. When I failed to find words to express my answer, he kindly and accurately suggested “struggling.” In my aim to ‘get back to normal’ I have realised that I have lacked direction in my life for some time. By remaining at University, I had deluded myself into thinking that I had direction. A degree for the sake of being at University, rather than being at University for the sake of a degree. I saw at the end of last year how futile and, frankly, facile this had been and decided to give up the gag. Now, however, with the rest of my life whirling around me, I feel like my legs have slipped out from underneath me and that I have little to stand on. I am struggling. If the Holy Faith I profess was not so solid, if I did not have within it the support and structure that I do, I would have nothing at all to stand on.

***

As I’ve been typing this, I’ve wondered whether I should post it. I don’t want my friends who may read it to think that I think that they’re not there for me: I know they are. I am relying on their prayer and the love they bear me in Christ to get through. I know that if I approached any one of them to talk to them, to ask to cry in front of them, to ask them to hold my hand as I find my feet, they would be there in a heartbeat. I know that, in Christ, I am loved by so many. I am so grateful for that; I am grateful to them and, most of all, to Him Who loves me through them.

I will post this, praying that those who read it, whom I consider friends, will not take offence because none is meant.

I will post this because this is how I’m coping at the moment.
I will post this because the point of this series is to put out into the public sphere the story of someone dealing with a suicide.
 I will post this because I must,
whether or not anyone listens.

Coping with Suicide: The Scottish Play

In my first post in this series, I said that I wanted to get back to normal as son as possible. This particular hour, these past few days, I am not sure what ‘normal’ is. My normal is doing lots of things so as to avoid discovering, as Henri Nouwen would say, my loneliness.

This past two months has been so slow. It’s been 52 days since Christmas and 73 since dad died. It feels like it was only this week that we had his funeral. It feels like only a few months ago that I saw him, alive and in Canberra.

I miss my dad. It seems like an odd thing for someone who avoided seeing their father to say, I guess; but I really do miss him. I’ve missed him for the past few years. There’s a voice in my head that says I should have made more of an effort to see him, but that voice isn’t reasonable. There is no way that I could have.

I had put in so much work to be able to get to the point where I felt like I could call him, to talk to him, to relate to him as both of us were able and as I needed. It was only the end of November when I had, with the help of my counselor, got to the point where I thought I might be ready to call him again. I’d intended to do so around Christmas time.

But I couldn’t. I can’t.
He’s dead and I can’t.

Normal, in 2012, was trying to figure out how I could best relate to my dad. That’s not really something I can get back to. The same was true in 2011. Trying to figure this out was difficult and often resulted in poor academic and social performances on my part. I cannot yet begin to relate, even to myself, the process that I went through, mentally and spiritually, to come to the point where I felt that I might be able to relate to my dad in a way that befitted both our natural relationship (that of father-daughter) and the history of our relationship, together with our personalities, various addictions and crosses.

I have supped full with horrors.

Yet, having had my fill, I had begun to digest them. Just as I was preparing for the battle of repairing my relationship with him, I received the terrible news, almost word for word:

Your dad, Kelly, is dead.

He should have died here after. There would have been time for such a word.
I could have at least made an attempt, have tried to heal some of those wounds which I had caused him; I could have shown him the wounds he caused me as the beauty that they now display. They are, in a sense, very much like the Grand Canyon (I borrow here, Nouwen’s image.) They are a great schism, a tear in the surface of my self, my identity. Yet, they have become a source of knowledge about myself. I wish I could have shown this to dad while he was alive.

Glenn Morrison, a past lecturer of mine recently reminded me that there is no limit to the pain a person can feel. There is no limit to any person’s woundedness. There is always, however, also an infinite possibility of healing. Often, there are multiple wounds, multiple levels of woundedness; yet, these always hold within themselves the possibility of limitless levels of healings. But they take time.

All my yesterdays may have lighted fools on the way to dusty death. They have very often lit that way for me. However, they do not have to. Seen in the right light, as it were, the path leads away from dusty death; all my yesterdays can be, should be, are filled with hope. “[A]t the very least, hope is moving from despair to something more positive,” Fr Tony Kelly writes in Eschatology and Hope. “Hope in all its registers implies a trustful and confident movement toward the future.” Despair is not too strong of a word. It is often over used to mean ‘great sadness,’ however, it is more than this. It is defined by the lack of hope; dusty death is the image of despair. If death and dust is all that is left for us, then despair is the most reasonable attitude. However, one would not wish to hasten the inevitable.

Glenn challenged me to change my thinking on suicide. “Suicide is actually an act of hope,” he said, “it’s as if they’re looking forward to something beyond this life.” If anyone other than Glenn had said this, I would have rejected it straight away. However, Glenn’s appreciation of the face of the Other (to use his own terms) makes me think there might be truth in what he is saying. I don’t know. I would like to believe that it is so, but I really, really can’t say.

Tomorrow
I will get up and do things like an average person

And Tomorrow
I will spend more time in prayer

And Tomorrow
I will live in the hope my God gives me through His Son.

Thus creeps in this petty pace from day to day to the last syllable of recorded time:
Time continues to move slowly for me, but I must make the best use of it. I must continue to live in His grace, His Love. In this way, though I am a poor player with but an hour upon the stage, I dare not strut because I rely on Him for everything; I need not fret, for I live in the hope of Him providing everything.

Life is often full of sound and fury, it is so important to  take a break from both. It means switching off, as it were, the voices in my head, the anger, the mistrust, the misgivings; it means becoming comfortable with my loneliness. It means sitting and binding my wounds one at a time. Because life does not signify nothing.

“In Him was Life.” “In hoc signo vinces”

Coping with Suicide: To Life, To Life, L’chiam!

God would like us to be joyful, even when our hearts lie panting on the floor.

I thank Him who has given me strength for this, Christ Jesus our Lord.

Not long after I posted the other day, I quickly ran out of energy. My major accomplishment that day was hanging out my washing. I got very tired from moving my backpack from the dining room to my room and summarily sat at the kitchen table for a few hours. It was strange to me because it happened so quickly. Well, I read a couple of poems, fell asleep for a few hours and was beyond lethargic for the remainder of the day.

Yesterday, although nothing greatly physical was accomplished don my part, I did actually get a lot more done. The, talking with Eliza was all I could manage for hours: I even found reading exhausting. Yesterday, however, I arranged some music that I’m hoping my ensemble will play this year - maybe even for Catholic Performing Arts - as well as reading a couple of chapters of G K Chesterton’s St Francis of Assisi, not only eating but preparing food, showering, writing up some stuff for 40 Days for Life and a few smaller tasks.

What does this have to do with the title and above quotes? I’m not sure; I’m getting to that.

In my first Coping with Suicide post, I finished with a quote from Fr Rolheiser which I will requote here:

Knowing all of this however, doesn't necessarily take away our pain (and anger) at losing someone to suicide. Faith and understanding aren't meant to take our pain away but to give us hope, vision, and support as we walk within it. 

Knowing all what? That God loves me, my family, my friends and my dad. That, as the Catechism says, “We should not despair of the eternal salvation of persons who have taken their own lives. By ways known to him alone, God can provide the opportunity for salutary repentance.” (2283) Knowing all that doesn’t remove the pain and anger and confusion and irritability; it doesn’t help me sleep; it doesn’t help me have the energy to do things, nor to eat. Knowing all that doesn’t help me feel less fragile; doesn’t help me not to crumble under the weight of this cross, so to speak.

However, the Faith does help me get back up again.

You see, the image of an emotional rollercoaster wasn’t particularly helpful when it was first suggested to me a few weeks ago by a well meaning lecturer at the university I used to attend. To be honest, it’s still on a helpful image. My emotions haven’t been roller-coasting: my reactions to them have. Oh, sure, I go through various bouts of being more irritable or angry - yes, they are different - but I have had more or less the same emotions since the 4th or 5th of December last year. My reactions, however, vary just like a rollercoaster. It is not just up and down; there is a much broader depth and deeper breadth to them than that. This is because my emotions are deeper and broader.

Oh, holy Faith!

I can not imagine how it would be possible to cope without the Holy Faith of the Apostles! How, without such great examples of patient suffering, could one manage to bear their own cross of whatever size‽

How, without the sublime help of the One Whose Heart was pierce by a Sword, could I hope to bear patiently this wound inflicted by the death of a family member as She was? She watched His suffering and was helpless to prevent His Death. So, too, did She watch the Death of St Joseph. Ah, how, without the comfort of knowing my God watched His earthly father die could I face my own father’s death? How could I, without the loving support of the Holy Family, reconcile myself to the brokenness of my family; broken before and now, in some way, shattered?

The Jewish people have historically been good at many things. The Scriptures tell us that their ability to mourn far out strips the ability of a post-modern Westerner to do so. Where we would hear a piece of bad news and, typically, react somewhere between stoicism and silently weeping - or, at the most extreme, briefly crying out - (my reaction to the news about dad’s death was closer to that of the Stoic), the Jews of the Scriptures with tear their clothes, wail and weep over all types of ill news. It is easy, then, to understand why, when compared to the Jewish culture, we have an impoverished vocabulary with which to speak about suffering, mourning and grief.

When our hearts lie panting on the floor.

Here is a reaction to long suffering or to grief. One’s heart, ripped from the body by extreme emotion, is cast on the floor where it has room and space to beat, although at the risk of it being trampled underfoot by our post-modern carelessness. Having no room in the chest because it is so swollen with emotion, the heart bursts forth; the struggle of keeping inside and, most simply, of the grief causes the heart to feel worn out. Just as a dog after a long chase will lay down and pant, so too does the heart. Exhausted, worn thin, vulnerable for it’s own protection, the heart - like the dog - can do nothing other than lie on the ground, gasping for breath and trying to return to normality. However, unlike the dog, our hearts don’t quickly recover from the need to be laying, panting on the floor. In a sense, the dog is merely exhausted; the heart, however, is out of it’s natural environment and experiencing extreme pain, and does not recover quickly from this. That is why all the Very Helpful Information says that grief can last weeks, months or years.

Yet, through all this, God would like us to be joyful! Now, if ‘joy’ and ‘happiness’ are synonymous, it is clear that it is impossible to be joyful even when our hearts lie panting on the floor. However, they are not the same thing. Joy, St Paul tells us, is a fruit of the Spirit: happiness does not make the list.

It is times like these that Minties just don’t cut it, and that people often lose their faith in Christ. I argue, with G K Chesterton, that this is because they don’t have a sufficiently wide enough point of view. In St Francis of Assisi he writes: Men will believe because they will not broaden their minds. As a matter of individual belief, I should of course express it by saying they are not sufficiently catholic to the Catholic. I am not saying that in the face of a truly catholic - and, therefore, Catholic - perspective, all suffering and pain melts away into nothing but just the opposite. It is only with that Catholic world view that suffering makes sense. It is only with the Cross that our crosses have meaning; it is only because of His unjust trials that our trails (of whatever justice) make sense; it is only within the Communion of Saints that our Communion with our suffering God can be realised.

During a 2009 General Audience, Pope Benedict XVI said that, “The saints are true interpreters of Sacred Scripture. In the experience of their lives the saints have verified the truth of the Gospel; thus they introduce us into a knowledge and understanding of the Gospel.” This is the very same Gospel that tells us to take up out cross on follow Christ our Lord and God. It is our Faith in His Redemptive Paschal Mystery that gives us “hope, vision and support” and it is these that give us joy. Therefore, St Paul writes to the Corinthians, “we work with you for your joy, for you stand firm in your faith.” The Saints, the Apostles and Martyrs, the entire Church, works together for our joy.

It is easy to let our trials overcome us and our burdens overwhelm us. It is easy when everything seems to be collapsing around us or when we seem to be collapsing, to give up and to lose our peace and joy. Yet it is important that you “do not lose your inner peace for anything whatsoever, even if your whole world seems upset [because] true progress quietly and persistently moves along without notice,” as St Francis de Sales says. In fact, as he also says,

The devil takes advantage of sadness to tempt the good, striving to make them sorrowful in their virtue as he strives to make the wicked rejoice in their sins, and as he can only tempt us to evil by making it appear attractive, so he can only tempt us away from what is good by making it appear unattractive. He delights to see us sad and despondent because he is such himself for all eternity and wishes everyone to be as he is.
It is so easy to despair while grieving, but our Faith teaches us that there is no reason to lose hope, neither for our selves nor for those who have died, even if by suicide.

I thank Him who has given me strength for this, Christ Jesus our Lord.

Teresa of Avila

... keeps following me.

Tonight, while looking on the iterwebs for a cool quote by either Lewis or Chesterton on the topic of Friendship (with which I intended to start a post over at the other blog) I stumbled across this from my Stalker-Saint, which I leave without further comment:

Lord,
Thou knowest better than I myself
that I am growing older and will someday be old.
Keep me from the fatal habit of thinking
I must say something on every subject and on every occasion.

Release me from craving to
straighten out everybody’s affairs.

Make me thoughtful but not moody;
helpful but not bossy.

With my vast store of wisdom,
it seems a pity not to use it all;
but Thou knowest, Lord,
that I want a few friends at the end.
Keep my mind free from the recital of endless details;
give me wings to get to the point.

Seal my lips on my aches and pains;
they are increasing, and love of rehearsing them
is becoming sweeter as the years go by.

I dare not ask for improved memory,
but for a growing humility and a lessening cock-sureness
when my memory seems to clash with the memories of others.
Teach me the glorious lesson that occasionally I may be mistaken.

Keep me reasonably sweet, for a sour old person
is one of the crowning works of the devil.
Give me the ability to see good things in unexpected places
and talents in unexpected people;
and give, O Lord, the grace to tell them so.
Amen.

My Brother

Aaron is a star.

Him:

"Do you know what the worst thing is?"

Me:

"What?"

Him:

"We're going to have to trawl through AC/DC songs."

Seriously, my brother is amazing.




On a related note, x

Quotes of the Now

We are all called to be faithful mystical spouses of our Lord Jesus Christ. Every sin therefore is an adulteration against our Beloved who is always faithful and always loving; even when abandoned and cheated upon time and time again. O my Beloved, forgive me, embrace me!

Callum Martin

And it is surely unreasonable to attack the doctrine of the Trinity as a piece of bewildering mysticism, and then to ask men to worship a being who is ninety million persons in one God, neither confounding the persons nor dividing the substance.

-GK Chesterton, Heretics
via Niko's Nature

 

From America to Perth, via Rome

I like what Cardinal Dolan does. This address to his brother Bishops of the USCCB is all over the 'blogosphere.' Most people are commenting either on his call to return to the Sacrament of Penance or on his mention of the possible return of the US Church to abstinence from meat on all Fridays of the year.

I, however, would like to mention this:

But I stand before you this morning to say simply: first things first. We gather as disciples of, as friends of, as believers in Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior, "the Way, the Truth and the Life," who exhorted us to "seek first the Kingdom of God."

We cannot engage culture unless we let Him first engage us; we cannot dialogue with others unless we first dialogue with Him; we cannot challenge unless we first let Him challenge us.

The Venerable Servant of God, Fulton J. Sheen, once commented, "The first word of Jesus in the Gospel was 'come'; the last word of Jesus was 'go'."

You can listen to the whole thing here, thanks to Fr Z.

It reminds me a lot of a document - also from the USA - recently released by the Council of Major Superiors of Women Religious. An extract here for you, emphases added:

The Eucharist and the New Evangelization are intimately intertwined, since the New Evangelization has Christ at its center and the Eucharist is Christ. Further, the Eucharist is the “source and summit of the Christian life.” Christian life is lived in the Church, and “the Church exists in order to evangelize.” Therefore, the Eucharist is also “the source and the summit of all evangelization…” The truth of this statement is summarized by Blessed John Paul II’s statement, “…the Eucharist is at the center of the process of the Church’s growth.” One sees, then, a reciprocal relationship between the Eucharist and evangelization: the Eucharist nourishes evangelization, while evangelization leads to the Eucharist. Presbyterorum Ordinis accentuates this truth, explaining that “…all ecclesiastical ministries and works of the apostolate, are bound up with the Eucharist and are oriented toward it” and “No Christian community can be built up which does not grow from and hinge on the celebration of the most holy Eucharist.”

                The Eucharist is the source of evangelization, because the encounter with Christ leads one to proclaim Him to others. This is seen in a simple way in the Gospel pericope recounting the journey to Emmaus of the disciples who are unsuspectingly joined by the risen Christ. The two disciples have spent the whole day journeying towards their destination, seeking to unpack the events of the preceding days. Undoubtedly their own fatigue and the unusual attractiveness of their enigmatic companion inspire the compassion with which they invite the hidden Lord Jesus, “stay with us, for it is growing dark.” However, all sentiments of weariness melt away and are supplanted by evangelical zeal when “their eyes were opened and they recognized Him” in the breaking of the bread. They immediately undo the day’s journey, hastening to proclaim their encounter with the risen Christ to the Apostles in Jerusalem.

 My own Archbishop - Arch+ Timothy Costelloe SDB - addressed [also here] the recent Synod on New Evangelisation thus:

In Christifidelis laici Pope John Paul II spoke of the need to "remake the fabric of the ecclesial community" if we are to remake the fabric of the society in which we live. To do this we must recover the ecclesiology of the Church as the Body of Christ, with Christ as its life-giving head.

The first chapter of the Instrumentum laboris stresses this by focusing our attention on Christ and reminding us that the goal of all evangelisation is to foster an encounter between the person and Christ.

The time has come for us as bishops to place Christ at the heart of our preaching and teaching, and encourage our priests and deacons to do the same. We must help people to be captured by the fascination which the Jesus of the gospels exerts on hearts and minds.

To paraphrase the Rector Major of the Salesians of Don Bosco who made a similar remark about contemporary religious life: The greatest challenge facing the Church today is to return the Church to Christ and to return Christ to the Church - not to become other than we are but to become more fully who and what we are.

 Let me paraphrase the paraphrase.
The greatest challenge facing the Church today is to return the Church to the Eucharist and to return the Eucharist to the Church - not to become other than we are, but to become more fully who and what we are.

The Church of the Meek

Hat Tip: The Catholic Breadbox

It will be hard-going for the Church, for the process of crystallization and clarification will cost her much valuable energy. It will make her poor and cause her to become the Church of the meek … The process will be long and wearisome as was the road from the false progressivism on the eve of the French Revolution – when a bishop might be thought smart if he made fun of dogmas and even insinuated that the existence of God was by no means certain … But when the trial of this sifting is past, a great power will flow from a more spiritualized and simplified Church. Men in a totally planned world will find themselves unspeakably lonely. If they have completely lost sight of God, they will feel the whole horror of their poverty. Then they will discover the little flock of believers as something wholly new. They will discover it as a hope that is meant for them, an answer for which they have always been searching in secret.


And so it seems certain to me that the Church is facing very hard times. The real crisis has scarcely begun. We will have to count on terrific upheavals. But I am equally certain about what will remain at the end: not the Church of the political cult, but the Church of faith. She may well no longer be the dominant social power to the extent that she was until recently; but she will enjoy a fresh blossoming and be seen as man’s home, where he will find life and hope beyond death.

--Pope Benedict XVI, predicting our current situation back in 1969 

Dear Mum,

January 22, 2023

Dear Mom:

Can you believe it is already the year 2023? I’m still writing ’22 on everything! It seems like only yesterday that I was sitting in the first grade and celebrating the change to a new century.
I know we really haven’t chatted since Christmas, Mom, and I’m sorry. Anyway, I have some difficult news to share with you and, to be honest, I really didn’t want to call or talk about this face to face.

But before I get to that, let me report that Ted just got a big promotion, and I should be up for a hefty raise this year if I keep putting in all those crazy hours. You know how I work at it. (Yes, we’re still struggling to pay the bills.)

Little Timmy’s been okay at kindergarten, although he complains about going. But then, he wasn’t happy about the day-care center either. So what can we do?

He’s been a real problem, Mom. He’s a good kid, but quite honestly, he’s an unfair burden on us at this time in our lives.Ted and I have talked this through, and we have finally made a choice. Plenty of other families have made the same choice and are really better off today.

Our pastor is supportive of our choice. He pointed out the family is a system, and the demands of one member shouldn’t be allowed to ruin the whole. The pastor told us to be prayerful and to consider all the factors as to what is right to make our family work. He says that even though he probably wouldn’t do it himself, the choice really is ours. He was kind enough to refer us to a children’s clinic near here, so at least that part is easy.

Don’t get me wrong, Mom. I’m not an uncaring mother. I do feel sorry for the little guy. I think he heard Ted and me talking about this the other night. I turned and saw him standing at the bottom of the stairs in his PJ’s with his little teddy bear that you gave him under his arm, and his eyes were sort of welled up with tears.

Mom, the way he looked at me just about broke my heart, but I honestly believe this is better for Timmy, too. It’s just not fair to force him to live in a family that can’t give him the time and attention he deserves.

And please, Mom, don’t give me the kind of grief that grandma gave you over your abortions. It’s the same thing, you know. There’s really no difference.

We’ve told Timmy he’s just going in for a “vaccination.” Anyway, they say the termination procedure is painless. I guess it’s just as well that you haven’t seen that much of little Timmy lately.

Please give my love to Dad.

Your daughter

(Author unknown) via Partick Madrid

Quote of the Now.

Do we recognise that the innate dignity of
every individual rests on his or her
deepest identity – as image of the Creator
– and therefore that human rights are
universal? … And so we are led to reflect
on what place the poor and elderly,
immigrants and the voiceless, have in our
societies. How can it be that domestic
violence torments so many mothers and
children? How can it be that the most
wondrous and sacred human space – the
womb – has become a place of unutterable
violence?

 - Pope Benedict XVI, Welcoming Celebration by the Young People, 17 July 2008

Consummatum est.

My exams are finished for this semester; I leave for New York in a week; I have a better grasp on certain phrases in Latin than I did last week; I have plans for every day in the next week, before I leave; I overuse semicolons.

4 exams in as many days is drainng, at best; thanks to Messers Kreeft, Lewis and Sts Aquinas and Augustine for their assistance over the past few days; also to Sts Basil, John Chrysostom, Bellamine, Teresa of Avila, Teresa of Liseux, John of the Cross, Paul, John Bosco, Gregory Nazianzen, Athanasius, Peter Canisius, Albert the Great, Alphonsus Liguori, Anslem, Anthony of Padua, Bede, Bernard of Clairvaux, Bonaventure, Catherine of Siena, Francis de Sales, Gregory I, both Cyrils who are doctors and all the other Doctors.
I now have the itineries for my trip to New York; the flights were confirmed about a week ago and the daily plan was recieved this morning.
I know know and understand some more Latin phrases; these ones have to do with grace.
I have full days every day between now and when I fly out, except Sunday; Sunday is for prayer; lots and lots of prayer.

Beauty and Deificaiton

I leave with something somewhat unrelated from Saint John of the Cross. Take some time to read it carefully. Reread it.

Let us so act taht by means of this loving activity we may attain the vision of ourselves in Your beauty in eternal life. That is: That I be so transformed in Your beauty that we may be alike in beauty, and both behold ourselves in You beauty, possessing Your very beauty; this, in such a way that each looking at the other may see his own beauty, since both are Your beauty alone, I being so absorbed in Your beauty; hence, I shall see You in Your beauty, and I shall see myself in You in Your beauty, and You will see Yourself in me in Your beauty; that I may resemble You in Your beauty and my beauty be Your beauty, and Your beauty my beauty; wherefore I shall be You in Your beauty, and You will be me in Your beauty, because Your very beauty will be my beauty; and therefore we shall behold each other in Your beauty.

Seriously, take a few hours to mull it over if you can.
Then go and adore Our Lord in the Most Holy Sacarment of the Altar.
Then pray this passage.
All the time.
Even if it's just the first line: Let us so act that by means of this loving activity we may attain the vision of ourselves in Your beauty in eternal life.

Within.

2 Inception related quotes from this weekend for you:

• "Leo Di Caprio never died in the Titanic. The last scene in the Titanic is him going underwater. The first scene in Inception is him washed up on a beach..... It's a movie inside a movie."
• "Conception: A person within a person." 

Both were made without attribution.

Quote of the Now.

"The problem with quotes found on the internet is that they're not always accurate."

- Abraham Lincoln.

That your joy may be complete...

I was doing some preparation for today's Mass when I stumbled upone this quote from St Fancis de Sales:

“The one has great need and capacity to receive, the other great abundance and inclination to bestow. Nothing is more suited to indigence than affluence; and the kinder affluence is, the stronger its inclination to give. The more needy indigence is, the more eager it is to be satiated. The meeting then, of affluence and indigence is sweet and happy; and we could scarcely say which should enjoy the more contentment, abundance to be communicated, or deficiency to be filled, had not our Lord told us that it is a more blessed thing to give than to receive.”

— St. Francis de Sales

Just imagine the joy that fills your heart when you recieve Our Lord after having prepared well for doing so. This joy is nothing compared to the great joy that we will recieve upon entering His presence; this joy, again, is small compared to the joy He has in giving Himself to you, to us; to me.

As my Parish Priest constantly reiterates: "If He could give you more than Himself, He would; but He can't becuase He's infinite and you can't get more than infintie."

Discipleship

Two priests within the past week have each said something hat has made me sit back and consider what being a Catholic means.

"Really, the only sin is not being open to God's Grace."

-Fr Bill

"Christianity is not a sentimental philosophy that we turn to only when things become difficult for us."
-Fr Roman

Not accepting our Lord's Grace is, indeed, the root of all sin; for, without Grace, we can not Love; and since Love is His Way and sin is, by nature, against the Way, sin must be cause by a lack of Grace. Given that Grace is always suffcient and that the only way we can not have the Grace we need to follow Christ is by rejecting - not accepting - it.

This is by no means easy, but it is the only Way to the Father.

I feel so sorry for those people who have never asked themselves why they are Christians. I feel even sorrier for those who have and who can't find an answer they find saisfactory. If eiher of these are you, know that you're in my prayers. I pity those who, in all things, have to see to believe: they will not see the mercy of God, they will not see LoveItself.

A very wise boy once said to me, "Sometimes you have to believe to see."