Private Vows in The Laity/Spirituality

[Guest]

I wrote most of this last night and most of yesterday I was cleaning out the fridge and packing non perishables into it.  It was for me physically taxing. Tomorrow I have a visitor and then a specialist appointment in the afternoon (could have a cancer on my nose).  Friday morning I will be collecting in a shopping centre for a badge day for St Vinnies.  After that, I hope to do some grocery shopping.

Next week looks like half the week a commitment to ironing, although I never really know until the load arrives and I can sort it out then approximate the time needed to complete.  Because of my back and leg problems, I can only iron for a short period and then have to take a break.  It is 'in my blood' (habit/conditioning) now.  We have had buckets of rain today and a tour outside tells me I have heaps of bark on the paths to sweep back once the sun dries out the bark.

I move in and out of "my life at the moment is ok" to "my life just now is not ok" It is a temptation to think of my way of life at this point as quite meaningless.  From a strictly human glance, it might seem to be so.  Spiritually it is not while the struggle continues interiorly between the two points of view.  I have commenced reading on Kindle the Life of St Teresa of Avila - but I can only do so in very small doses.  It is not really my cup of tea - for quite some time now spiritual reading of the classics anyway has become a real labour - and not one of love.  I have noted however that I have highlighted and made notes rather regularly as I have been reading St Teresa of Avila - it might be interesting to go back over these at some future point.

I keep offering my personal problems up to God in the rather desperate hope that such meaningless nothings to me in the scheme of things just might have some value with Him.  While having no satisfying awareness that it actually does, other than in a quite dark sort of Faith and trust.  "Dark" meaning there is no emotional reward in Faith or trust - it is solely a forced act of the will or the intellect to believe and make an investment in Faith and trust.  That is, that I move into that mindset and then after a while I move out of it to a confidence that my way of life is productive though at the time of discouragement, I cannot grasp that I will indeed move out of it again.  Explanation? I have none............it is simply the state of my life just now.

 From this vantage point, I cannot see much changing at all until after November and my finances start to look more healthy. Healthy finances should occasion options.  At least I can consider study with the University of The Third Age online since I should have the funds necessary.......if physically I cannot consider much else.  If only........if only.........if only can drive me nutty....................if I let it.  This has to be another of the difficult stages of my journey, wherever I am in the scheme of things.   I storm Heaven as it were realising that what I am REALLY asking deep down somewhere is for a sense of satisfaction in my way of life just now - no matter how I might word my prayer..................as God may will i.e. that I either move on to something rewarding personally - or that I remain in the struggle............in all my imperfections and failures aplenty.

I have spoken with my SD about the above and he thinks that study might be a good option to keep my mind active and deflected (in hope) from the above.

Heaps of negatives in the above.........the positives? Frankly, I cannot sight any at this point other than there just might be positive value in just putting one foot in front of the other day by day.

I seem to move into a light and then sooner or later into the dark again.  Rightly in the past did I term myself "God's yo-yo".  Back then it was because I would have an episode of bipolar and go right off the tracks - followed by an episode of normality when I could put things back together again.  I see-sawed between those two mental states for at least 20 years, hence "God's yo-yo".

Now I seem to have another type of see-saw state of mind on my hands.

______________________

I have taxi vouchers because of disability which means that I only pay at any time 50% of the ordinary taxi fare.  A while back, the government department that supplies these vouchers asked me to return my used books as there was a problem with them - and that was about all they told me other than that on the basis of their findings, my vouchers would be renewed or cancelled in the future.  This of course was a concern, though I knew that I had done nothing wrong really and subjected it to prayer and God's Will and I found a lasting Peace in that.  I really was unconcerned about what the government department actually decided.  There was one point on which I knew I had failed and that was not always filling in the information that they required (really just a fail to dot my i's and cross my t's) and I did think that they might possibly cancel the vouchers in the future on that point, as minor as it was.  I remained, however, unconcerned.

I rang the department this morning to ensure that they had received the used books and was advised that they had and that a new book was ordered for me.  This meant that they found nothing wrong and the vouchers would continue providing in future that I did indeed dot my i's and cross my t's.

The Good Lord keeps protecting me and it is a source of confused gratitude.  Why on earth protect such as I, as He does - and in ways where I just cannot doubt that He is protecting me.  It does cause great confusion because I am so very acutely aware of all my faults and failings ........ of the lack of any deserving, of which I have none whatsoever. None!  Truly has Jesus come for sinners!  Somehow I think now and then that with all the confusion and non understanding, the battles and struggles, with the frustrating sense of losses........I just might be on a sort of safe path in that Jesus is still walking with me.  I ask my conscience in all sincerity "Am I free of mortal sin?" and think that I just might be so and therefore, according to what The Church tells us, Jesus is indeed with me...........and with me in all the frustrating and confusing mix of my life just now......in the dark/lack of emotional reward of it all........I can't speak to myself of the dark night of sense or any other type of dark night either.  None of that is any consolation on any level at all - none of it makes sense to me.

Plenty of negatives in all the above.  As for the positives? Well, just now I cannot see any at all.  This does not mean one bit that they do not exist - only that this finite weak creature cannot see them.  Must go and prepare for my visitor.

.......one foot in front of the other day by day................

[Guest]

St Vincent de Paul Society

Daily Reflection – August 10

Daily Reflection

“Whatever may happen, you must not fret but rise above it and remain in peace. No harm can befall you if God does not will it; and if he permits it, it will be for a good end since, to those who serve Him, all things turn out for the best.”
– St. Vincent de Paul

– Lord, help me to rise above disappointments. Don’t allow me to yield to useless anxiety but in faith, believe that whatever happens will glorify you and help me to grow.

[Guest]

Thursday 11th August 2016:  Saw the specialist today about the strange patch on my nose.  She said that it looked smaller than when she last saw it about 6 months ago and gave me some more ointment to use twice daily.  She thinks it is something glandular and not cancer and a relief.  I see her again in March 2017.

I swept the bark off the front of the unit today.  There is much more bark on the paths on the side of my unit but I will wait for the sun to dry it out (doesn't take much sunshine) before sweeping it back.

Caught the bus back home and walked to the shops.  Came home with a trolley load of groceries - and that was pretty much the end of the day for me - my back and legs were really painful.  I did manage, however, to get most of today's tasks here in Bethany out the way. I can finish things when I get home tomorrow afternoon.I have to get up at around 6am tomorrow to get ready to collect for our St Vinnies badge day in a local shopping centre.  So it will be an early night tonight.  I am just now (7.52pm here now) getting my second wind but have resolved to put the computer off and initiate the process for bedtime at around 9pm.

As difficult as I find this stage of my journey just now, I keep 'hearing' my psychiatrist say now and then "It's ok to retire in your seventies, you know" and that does make me smile.  How on earth have I arrived to be in my seventies !  Why on earth am I grieving/upset/dissatisfied/whatever, its not as if my life to this point has been uneventful...........and perhaps that is at the heart of my ...........whatever.   I am unaccustomed to living out the days as they are just now and never gave it a thought that one day I might have to do so.  Tapping away at this keyboard just to pass the time.

Putting one foot in front of the other.....one day at a time only.

[Guest]

Friday 12th August 2016 7.31pm

Some quotes below from St Teresa of Avila I found helpful after a better day today than yesterday - courtesy of God's sunshine I tend to think. I did notice a real change in mood and also, weirdly, memory.   I have been reading up on bipolar and changes in the weather but haven't quite put things together just yet.........together for me that is.  I haven't found as yet that interior personal place where research and my own experience are two ends (or subjects) meeting.  If that makes sense.  Or in other words, I don't feel comfortable as yet writing about recent interior experience and weather changes here in Adelaide.........also I'm finding it difficult to allow the fact that I still do suffer an active bipolar condition (minus psychotic episodes) to internalise or to admit to myself in a public manner as much as I do want to do so..........if that too makes any sense.  Not to do so would reinforce a sense of two identities within.

. Quotations from St Teresa of Avila:

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"There is no such thing as bad weather. All weather is good because it is God’s." here

Quote

"Dream that the more you struggle, the more you prove the love that you bear your God, and the more you will rejoice one day with your Beloved, in a happiness and rapture that can never end" here

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“We shall never learn to know ourselves except by endeavouring to know God; for, beholding His greatness, we realize our own littleness; His purity shows us our foulness; and by meditating upon His humility we find how very far we are from being humble.” here

Quote

“One must not think that a person who is suffering is not praying. He is offering up his sufferings to God, and many a time he is praying much more truly than one who goes away by himself and meditates his head off, and, if he has squeezed out a few tears, thinks that is prayer. “ here

  (I really liked the "meditates his head off" touch)

[Guest]

St Vincent de Paul Society

Daily Reflection

Daily Reflection – August 12

Aug 12, 2016 12:00 am

“Have patience, and have it in Our Lord who is pleased to try you.” – St. Vincent de Paul

[Guest]

August 11, 2016

Don't Give In To Discouragement (Catholic Exchange article)

Dom Hubert van Zeller

Quote

Excerpt Only "............Even if we do not reproduce the Passion in any other re­spect, we have the chance of reproducing it in perseverance under exhaustion. If, as we have seen, the Passion is con­stantly being renewed in the members of Christ’s Mystical Body, there must always be some aspect of Christ’s suffering to which our own personal sufferings can show an affinity. If we are bearing witness to the same truth, opposing the same evil, moving in the same direction, then the same means must be used by us as those that were used by Christ — namely, patience and endurance in the all-but-defeating experience of life. The effort that we make to regain the position lost by ei­ther circumstances or sin will reflect the effort made by Christ to return to the interrupted work of cross-bearing. Nothing of our experience need be wasted, not even our sinfulness................"............

 

[Guest]

Today here in Adelaide, the sun has gone contrary to yesterday.  The sky is grey and overcast - the weather generally is cold as we move on towards Spring in September.  With the grey and overcast day, all the inspiration I thought I might have had has vanished.  All that never deserts me is a knowledge of God's Love and Mercy, even if it is only confidence on the intellectual level without any emotional support nor input save on a level that I cannot explain.  I am growing more aware too that I suffer an active bipolar condition without the serious psychotic episodes which once marked my brand of bipolar and by which I identified my particular brand of the illness.  I have never denied suffering the illness in the past - it seems to be settling in on a new level just now, a more internalised active and conscious level.  I am arriving at the knowledge that my brand of the illness has changed and I can no longer identify it by serious psychotic episodes. I need to identify and reflect from a different angle.   Again, I don't really have the precise and accurate wording.  I can put it into the context of the Passion of Jesus which is meaningful and this does speak to my previous post "Don't Give In To Discouragement".  It is difficult (not impossible) not to give in to it discouragement when it is what one is feeling and intensely on a feeling level.  My interior dispositions, however, whatever they might be, no matter how negative, do not show in my outward behaviour and relationships.........thankfully!  While collecting for St Vinnies in a local shopping centre (and again next Friday) I ran into two old friends and our exchange was warm and loving, nothing of discouragement or a negative type of mood.

I was reading Sr Laurel O'Neal's website this morning "Stillsong Hermitage" and read the following poem by Teilhard de Chardin's poem there.  Since one cannot copy anything on her website, I chased down the poem below on Google.  Incidentally, there is some excellent reading on on Sister's website  "Stillsong Hermitage" website

The poem spoke to me, if not as consolation then at least as awareness and insight in a spiritual context of where I seem to be just now, which really is a nowhere sort of place to me.  It is always a consoling sort of place, however, when someone seems to understand one and even to be or have been in the same place or experience "bear ye one another's burdens" as it were.  It tells me that I am not going crazy and that others have and have had the experience too.  I daresay rather confidently that if the sun came out shining and grey skies became blue, my attitude and reflections would change too.  I have long been aware of this weather related yo-yoing and see-sawing and am now highly suspicious it might be bipolar related.  I guess I have always thought it might be bipolar related, but now I am becoming more confident that it probably is.  This is not to write off faults and failings as any fault of bipolar, not at all.  Those I own as my own creation.

My hope is, given time, that I will start to make some sense once I am able to put things together.  I have no reason to think that I will not going by past experiences.  Because of those past experiences, I have no reason not to actively hope.  Just now, as is obvious, I am writing from a confusing sort of place.
 

Quote

 

Patient Trust (by Teilhard de Chardin)

Above all, trust in the slow work of God.
We are quite naturally impatient in everything
to reach the end without delay.
We should like to skip the intermediate stages.
We are impatient of being on the way to something
unknown, something new.
And yet it is the law of all progress
that it is made by passing through
some stages of instability—
and that it may take a very long time.

And so I think it is with you;
your ideas mature gradually—let them grow,
let them shape themselves, without undue haste.
Don’t try to force them on,
as though you could be today what time
(that is to say, grace and circumstances
acting on your own good will)
will make of you tomorrow.

Only God could say what this new spirit
gradually forming within you will be.
Give Our Lord the benefit of believing
that his hand is leading you,
and accept the anxiety of feeling yourself
in suspense and incomplete.

 

 

[Guest]

Always I am in the Presence of Jesus (I rarely speak of it)  and it just occurred to me that this lousy place I find myself in is actually a place to be thankful for.  No matter how negative it seems to be emotionally, mentally and every other ally.  No matter how confusing and dry without consolations much at all -  it is not sinful and insofar as it is not sinful it is where God has placed me and I will give thanks.  It rather reminds me of what St Teresa of Avila said about the weather in a previous post "There is no such thing as bad weather. All weather is good because it is God’s."

But give me a minute or so, and I will have lost that thought too!

Edited August 13, 2016 by BarbaraTherese

[Guest]

I think I am slowly and prayerfully putting things together, although not quite there as yet.  Together re a need to reflect on my bipolar condition from a different angle and as an ongoing condition.  This is not to write off faults and failings, sinfulness, as caused by bipolar - never that.  Bipolar might (and I think it does) trigger changes in mood and at certain times.  Also stress is something I do not handle well sometimes and this has long been written off medically as a result of bipolar.  There might be changes of mood and/or stress situations at times, but these do not of necessity mean that I am confused or unable to make sound choices and act on them - other than confused possibly by the sudden mood change or stress itself.  I am quite able in mood changes and stress situations to reflect on right and wrong, including on deep spiritual levels, and to act accordingly - while common sense and judgement might be a bit off kilter.  It is only when "a bit off kilter" moves to "right off kilter" that a psychotic episode is a potential.  Nowadays, I seem to be able, even under "right off kilter" internal situations and hence a situation of potential psychosis, to work through it without a resulting psychotic episode necessitating hospitalization; however, that is not a fixed rule at all, it is only an experience to date over the past 12 years it must be now.  I am well aware and have long been aware that bipolar can be an insidious type of illness and a serious episode can result at most any time.  It is very difficult, however, after 12 years of no serious episodes not only to forget what it is like, but also to pass from memory the potential of reoccurrence at any time.  That is to be forgetful unless one deliberately applies oneself to recalling those memories........and something that I would do only with tremendous reluctance and for no other reason than that such memories are too distressing to me.

Today, Solemnity of The Assumption, my Home Mass to renew life private vows is now two years in the past, while my private vows must be getting close to 40 years standing.  It has never been (or rarely been perhaps is better) an easy journey, although just now it is as difficult as it has ever been - the only difference is the content of the difficulty.  My private vows are still intact as laid out in my own rule of life.  Deo Gratius.  All is Grace.

____________________________

Reading some discussion sites and threads, it can be very difficult for a person refused entrance into religious life when the life is praised so highly as the very best of God's calls and vocations - and the life is publicly celebrated at the various stages.  Such a person refused entrance into religious life quite naturally feels rejection and very often too I know (although not my personal experience) the rejection is conveyed in words that are quite cruel to the actual person, while the person doing the rejecting will not at all have intended to be cruel.  The wording is either cruel or condescending.  Such a person being rejected can feel not only rejected by religious life but by God Himself and the very experience of a heartfelt desire to love and serve God in the very best way available becomes the source of tremendous suffering and fears of rejection by God as well.

Although I left religious life both times through my own choice entirely, leadership could not resist having a parting rather quite nasty parting shot at me anyway.  However and very thankfully, it was eventually water off a duck's back because I knew she was very wrong.  Her comment did not become lasting useless baggage I carried around weighing me down.   But mine was indeed a blest experience - many others I know do carry around cruel type comments and statements as tremendous baggage for a long part of their journey -  or even for the whole of their whole journey.

While spiritual texts hail The Cross as the Way of Jesus, rather often in the living out of one's life it is not pointed out that in suffering of every kind one can indeed be walking very intimately the Way of Jesus and with Him.  It all depends on one's attitude and perspective to the sufferings and difficulties of life.  There are sufferings too in life that are 'respectable type sufferings' and there are those that have no respectability at all about them - and the latter just might be the most difficult sufferings of all.  After all, on the cross, Jesus was not pretty at all and died a most disgraceful type of death in His day "spurned and avoided by men, a man of suffering, accustomed to infirmity, One of those from whom men hide their faces, spurned, and we held him in no esteem.Yet it was our infirmities that he bore, our sufferings that he endured,

While we thought of him as stricken, as one smitten by God and afflicted." Isaiah Chapter 53

...........and this is something that gets to me every so often.  Why do I not hold it constant in all I think, say and do that The Cross and suffering is the Way of Jesus and welcome it with Peace and thanksgiving........even a certain Joy - and the reason for that certain Joy, it seems to me, is very obvious.  One reason I do not hold suffering as I should can be, I have noticed, is that one's own fears or nudges from satan can cause one to be fearful that one's state of suffering is not only deserved but is intrinsically sinful.  If I am in no way choosing the state in which I find myself it is not sinful - and truth is I deserve far worse than I have ever received.  Thankfully, so very thankfully, we are never dished out what we actually deserve.....never.  The intrinsic reason to me is that we do not insight what exactly sin is in relationship to The Glory of God, or His Intrinsic Nature.

I am slowly reading just now the Life of St Teresa of Avila and she notices a similar in her own life.  It is where in her early years she had as it were one foot or investment in Heaven as it were and the other on earth and the things of this world........and this caused her tremendous suffering, seems to me she is stating that she was a house divided against itself.  I think this is probably a common experience while the actual details may differ.  As a lay person, I need to remember that St Teresa and St John of The Cross wrote largely for enclosed contemplatives, whereas I, as a lay person, am called into the world for the world; nevertheless, most often there is a rule or model underlying the writings of these two remarkable saints for two only, masters of the spiritual life, that can be applied with reflection to a life in the laity.

I think that those called to secular life in the laity (for one only) and as an investment, must needs have an investment in both Heaven and earth with the intention of dedicating the things of earth to God as justly and rightfully His anyway - and in the interests of "Your Kingdom come", or for the sake of The Kingdom.  Newer insights by The Church no longer ask us (as in the 16th century) to view the world as intrinsically bad and to be abandoned, rather the world is created by God and somehow reflects Him - and it is created by Love, His Love - however, the world has strayed with us and it becomes our task to return it to its rightful place in God, for the sake of His Kingdom.

Quote

 

"For creation awaits with eager expectation the revelation of the children of God; for creation was made subject to futility, not of its own accord but because of the one who subjected it, in hope that creation itself would be set free from slavery to corruption and share in the glorious freedom of the children of God.

We know that all creation is groaning in labor pains even until now;

and not only that, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, we also groan within ourselves as we wait for adoption, the redemption of our bodies." Romans Chapter 8

 

 

[Guest]

St Vincent de Paul Society - Daily Reflection

Daily Reflection – August 16

Aug 16, 2016 12:00 am

“If we wish to give satisfaction to our good God, we must not stop to consider what we would like to do,

but rather what he wishes us to do.

Our Lord will know where to find you when he intends to give you other work to do.” – St. Louise de Marillac

[Guest]

St Vincent de Paul Society - Daily Reflection

Daily Reflection – August 17

 

“God does not ask you to go beyond the means he has given you.” – St. Vincent de Paul

[Guest]

I see my psychiatrist on 1st September next and taking time to let things prayerfully internalise (mini retreat) and discuss with my psychiatrist - and after that I can discuss it with my SD along with psychiatric confirmation or lack of it - although I am quite confident it will be confirmation.  It is rather new to me that I might have a quite active bipolar condition (although to this point not psychotic) related to the weather: change of seasons, change of weather generally and of course stress. I have also come, I think, to grasp how bipolar expresses its presence under such conditions.   I will be open too to further comments from my psychiatrist.  She has my psychiatric history going right back into my overtly psychotic years.

My psychiatrist has told me in the past that I am eccentric and that not only others interpret eccentricities as symptomatic of mental illness but that I can do so too (in relation to my own behaviours).  Eccentricity however is not mental illness.  It can be quite confusing to me personally (i.e. bipolar, eccentric or normal?)- but the more I can understand and identify, the higher are my chances of remaining in control and adopting socially acceptable type of behaviours...........and hence, hopefully, avoid the stigma and tag of "mentally ill", which even today can be an exclusionary factor.  It closes doors of opportunities still.  Not only those factors, but staying in control and adopting socially acceptable behaviours, enables me to be just another person - rather than identified by some tag which then tends to become in the minds and behaviours of others the sum total of my identity isolating me with a negative determination or tag.  I can become to others simply "mentally ill" and a tag which others have allotted. It can be impossible to move beyond that allocation as in my previous parish.  I am dismissed on all fronts, at all times, as "mentally ill".  And all embracing dismissiveness it is.

Although, I must admit, I am weary of the quest to avoid the tag and stigma.  I thought I could do so in this newer parish, but it now seems I might be unable to do so at all. Mental illness and eccentricity are not sinful - why worry about them?  It does seem to me however that charity towards others is a factor too in my struggle against what Divine Providence has permitted.   Should I accept these permitted factors or engage in the struggle against them?  These things, I think, will be a subject for my SD.

 

I

Edited August 21, 2016 by BarbaraTherese

[Guest]

St Vincent de Paul Society - Daily Reflection

Daily Reflection – August 21

 

“God made the interests of the afflicted His own.” – St. Louise de Marillac

 

 

Edited August 22, 2016 by BarbaraTherese

[Guest]

Feast of The Queenship of Mary

Mary, undoer of knots, pray for us

 

The painting depicts Mary suspended between heaven and earth, resplendent with light. The Holy Spirit in the form of a dove is above her head, reminding us that she became Mother of God and full of grace by virtue of the third person of the Trinity. She is dressed resplendently in crimson, and a deep blue mantle representing her glory as Queen of the Universe. A crown of twelve stars adorning her head signifies her Queenship of the Apostles. Her feet crush the head of the serpent indicating her part in the victory over Satan. She is surrounded by angels, signifying her position as Queen of the Angels and Queen of Heaven. In her hands is a knotted white ribbon, which she is serenely untying. Assisting her at the task are two angels: one presents the knots of our lives to her, while another angel presents the ribbon, freed from knots, to us. http://www.thinkingfaith.org/articles/20130521_1.htm

 

Edited August 22, 2016 by BarbaraTherese

[Guest]

Insight into St Vincent de Paul - the saint and the man, the priest and religious - and the founder:

http://famvin.org/en/2016/08/20/vincent-tell-good-story/
 

Quote

 

Excerpt only: "On March 28, 1659, a year and a half before his death, he publicly and humbly professed in front of the community:

I lose my temper, I change, I complain, I find fault … at other times I am very brusque with some [people] and speak loudly and harshly … other, boorish persons like me, present themselves with a stern, gloomy or forbidding expression (CCD:XII:154, 155, 156).

His gascon character was prone to exaggeration and yet his conversation was very appealing and that could be viewed as a sign that he was not as dry as he said he was. We know that he was able to combine seriousness with humor and the pleasant with the useful.

One has simply........."......read on at above link.

 

 

 

Pope Francis's Personal Devotion to Our Lady,

Untier of Knots (and a title of Our Lady that really appeals to me too)

http://www.catholicherald.co.uk/commentandblogs/2015/09/24/the-popes-personal-devotion-to-mary-untier-of-knots/

 

Pope Francis's Personal Devotion to Our Lady,

Untier of Knots (and a title of Our Lady that really appeals to me too)

http://www.catholicherald.co.uk/commentandblogs/2015/09/24/the-popes-personal-devotion-to-mary-untier-of-knots/

Edited August 22, 2016 by BarbaraTherese