I Am Three Years Old Today

[Gabriela]

You know, in Catholic years.

[littlesister]

Happy Birthday to you !  

[Makarioi]

Happy Birthday!!!   So, how does it feel to be 3? 

[Gabriela]

Happy Birthday!!!   So, how does it feel to be 3? 

​I feel old.

 

No, really, I feel kinda' "settled in", and I can tell my relationship with God is changing. He took off the training wheels, and I can already feel the initial intensity of that first year of huge graces and fervor wearing off. It's kinda' scary. How does one hold on to that stuff?

[puellapaschalis]

​No, really, I feel kinda' "settled in", and I can tell my relationship with God is changing. He took off the training wheels, and I can already feel the initial intensity of that first year of huge graces and fervor wearing off. It's kinda' scary. How does one hold on to that stuff?

​I don't think you necessarily can; I've sometimes thought that the 'memory' of the grace is something that (sometimes/often) has to be relinquished, and one has to be content with the knowledge that one had once had that fervour. And part of the next task is then not being bitter about losing the experience and being left with only the knowledge memory. If that makes sense.

[Gabriela]

​I don't think you necessarily can; I've sometimes thought that the 'memory' of the grace is something that (sometimes/often) has to be relinquished, and one has to be content with the knowledge that one had once had that fervour. And part of the next task is then not being bitter about losing the experience and being left with only the knowledge memory. If that makes sense.

​It makes sense. But it's depressing.

 

[puellapaschalis]

It's certainly not very easy to live through - but then we don't have a choice. It takes an iron will, and a very perverse one at that, to be able to somehow suppress the event/realisation/emotion/experience and just carry on.

[Makarioi]

It's like marriage. While dating, the wedding and for a time thereafter, the excitement wanes, feelings and emotions that were sharp are now rounded. You settle in. You are learning about each other, being tolerant, developing a deeper trust and understanding.  

[Nihil Obstat]

I had a homily saved somewhere from a great saint who spoke about the initial zeal of new converts, which necessarily transforms over time to become deeper, though less frantic, perhaps we could say.

I will try to remember who it was, but I am not confident that I will he successful. It was just a passing thing I read some time ago.

[Gabriela]

It's like marriage. While dating, the wedding and for a time thereafter, the excitement wanes, feelings and emotions that were sharp are now rounded. You settle in. You are learning about each other, being tolerant, developing a deeper trust and understanding.  

​Yeah, I had this thought today in prayer.

[Gabriela]

I had a homily saved somewhere from a great saint who spoke about the initial zeal of new converts, which necessarily transforms over time to become deeper, though less frantic, perhaps we could say.

I will try to remember who it was, but I am not confident that I will he successful. It was just a passing thing I read some time ago.

​I would like to read it. Honestly, in the year before I was received into the Church, I had all the zeal—and desperation—of Mary Magdalene. I should probably be glad I'm not so desperate anymore, but without a sense of desperation, it's hard to feel zeal.