What happened [to me]
.. little book at the end of my life.
Imagine a big ole sigh as I begin this..
I’ve struggled with what, exactly I want to say. Some will tell you there’s no point in revealing private issues, but you and I know we live in a community of knowing, of love, of elevating souls toward heaven.. to help, at least.
That’s pretty much been my existence on social media.. or at least I thought it was.
Toward the end of August, about 10 days removed, my family got hit with Covid. Our eldest, fit and healthy in his mid-20s, got hit hardest, then my husband, overworked and not so fit, then me. It trickled and wanted to invade my 4 other children, but it didn’t take. They got funny throats, stuffed ears, and lamb coughs, but we healthed it out of them.
The scene I want to give you is this: my father with Alzheimer’s, who can no longer speak nor eat on his own, is admitted to ICU at the time for pneumonia, husband and eldest son are declining in quarantine, and all the fear and unknown of 1 1/2 years comes rushing upon me.. unprepared. When the house shut down, we hadn’t been to confession in about 2 weeks and I hadn’t been nurturing a prayer life I knew I’d need to get me through a crisis like this. When death knocked on our door, I went to my knees. Woe to me who was not already in that posture in prayer.
I was absolutely at God’s mercy.
This seems.. such a trite statement, it’s so known, almost cliche’ among our circles, so let me do a little better and describe the bottom I experienced.
We are your average devout Catholics, catechized, aware of global politics and the problems plaguing Holy Church. We’ve attend the TLM since Lent of this year, fully intent on continuing to do so as long as it’s offered. We go as a family, half-grown and fully-grown adults and all, a reflection of the beautiful families with smaller children. We pray the family rosary daily, and my husband and I are secular Carmelites. This means we have made our final promises to Our Lady’s Order to follow the Evangelical Counsels on our Way to Perfection. We say the Daily Office and contemplate for a minimum of 30 minutes a day.
The day the plague came into our home, we thought we were covered. God showed me otherwise.
An absolute shroud of black covered my existence for about 12 days. I could not pray for myself, and I could not see God. Any mystical quality to my life — where I could see God and His wonderful action in my daily life, in the lives of those close to me, and in the world around me — evaporated. I felt like a pagan and the Faith I had could only be expressed through my dependence on the prayers and guidance of others. I could not see God. I could not hear Him (in prayer), I could not taste nor touch Him (in the Holy Sacrament). My interior life for the past 20 years dried up in a moment and for days, I could not reach for Him. I existed, simply because He allowed me to, a Truth, but deeper than this. I could not see Him, but He was all around me, another Truth. But He was entirely, entirely hidden, more than I have ever known in my whole, entire life.. more than when I indulged in mortal sin, more like a soul who wonders if there really is a God.
Never did I doubt, though. Nearing the end, He let me see the God I experienced was the Triune God, the same, powerful Creator of the Universe, omnipotent, omni-present, gigantic, overpowering, magnificent and majestic. Throw in every larger-than-life words you can imagine, this was Him in whom I was shrouded but could not see. He wasn’t Jesus, whom I know, nor the Holy Spirit, whom I know, nor my beloved, beloved Eternal Father, whom I know and would die for, weeping to my death if He wills it now.
For 12 days I was crushed by God and not allowed to do anything except care for and nurse my husband and son from a distance. I felt forsaken and alone, weeping at the foot of the cross for I don’t know what — my past sins, my past life, begging.. begging some more, for what, I still don’t know. The only thought that got me through was Jesus’ forsakenness during His Most Glorious Passion, and how He absolutely had no one to help Him or minister to Him, by choice, of course. Doubtless, all of the Heavenly Court surrounded Him, but I know He chose to suffer as He did for my sake and for yours. During my 12 days of suffering — experiencing black, not being able to pray or turn my face up to God in Hope as I always do (such had been my posture, always wanting to see God face to face) — I knew angels and saints helped me and that God was with me.
Know that this was accompanied with the suffering of my father, my son, and my husband — three men so interiorly joined to my heart and soul — which was unspeakable. My father has cancer thats untreated, he cannot speak of the pain he undoubtedly experiences.. my son lost 11% of his body weight in 7 days (25 lbs) combatting this disease, as did my husband (33 lbs in 10-14 days). Their bodies went into metabolic overdrive to fight this hell. They were alone, I was away from them, as were the rest of the family. We’re a family that touches, caresses.. We live in a small home, and in 20+ years of family life, we have never really been in a room alone, without one another, crawling over one another, sitting and talking with one another, cuddling, hugging, listening to each other’s breathing, the beats of each other’s heart. The separation was agonizing.
Life began to change when I caught the thing, and I joined my husband after 10 days of isolation in our bedroom. When I came into our room, my husband was curled up in a ball, trying to protect me with a mask.. I sat down in a chair before him, and he expressed worry for our family cat Dantes.. I was sitting in his seat he likes to curl up on, he told me.. but Dantes hadn’t been in the room for almost 2 weeks. I had to talk my husband into letting me stay there with him.
The room was exactly as I had left it, 10 days prior, my rosary beads and chaplets were still on my prayer altar, my crucifix, icons, and framed photos scattered about. I began to rearrange the space to be more conducive for nursing souls. It was then that I saw Mary, kissed her feet and begged her for everything to stop.
That’s exactly what happened.
Mary took care of everything, I credit her entirely. When I could not bear the confusing, pressing weight of my powerful God in what He was allowing us to go through, I remembered Mary when I laid eyes on her image.. and I was a little girl again, going to the only Mother I’ve truly ever thoroughly known, this same Woman who taught me how to pray, who taught me to be a mother, true wife, true friend, true daughter.
My chaplets and rosaries I took up and held close again. After several days, I could sense the beginning of the return of new normalcy in my interior life. It’s been entirely penitential. Why? Was I in moral sin at the time? Was I that great a sinner? Didn’t I go to Holy Mass every Sunday, say the Holy Rosary with my family every day? Didn’t I lead my family into closeness with God? Show them how to pray? Reveal the beauty and importance of the Bible? Of our friends the saints? Of tradition and doctrine of Holy Mother Church?
Yeah.. but I presumed a lot.
This event defined — for me — that I had rested on the laurels of Holy Mother Church. Holy Mass and receiving Jesus in the Eucharist and Confession were the two faces of my holy revolving door. As long as I lived close to those sacraments, I was whole and complete. I was safe. I believe in this expression of the Faith still, but I want to go directly to heaven and never want to be at risk of hell. What I realized was that there is much, much more to be done. Much, much more, but simply and purely: I must, MUST put God first.
In everything, in every way, every day, I must work toward reforming my own mind, my own habits — and those that I love and He put in my charge — to Right Order of heart, mind, and soul to God, and through neighbor, for God.
If I do it right, nothing really changes, I stay the same, do the same, but the heart changes to work, play, see through Him, and only Him.
I wasn’t doing this.
I was interested in my own opinions, my own perspectives, placing my own value on whatever was around me.. interiorly evaluating, pondering, measuring according to my standard, my preferences, my will.. little god of my own little world of my soul, which isn’t really mine — I’d given it to God long ago. Jesus paid for it. Who am I? Who is like unto God?
Presumption.
If there was a great sin I was guilty of, this was it. I presumed too much: I’d given my God His due.. went to His Mass, said His rosary, fed His children, loved my husband with whom I’d given Him my marital vows, beheld my neighbor He placed in front of me without too much contempt. Sacrifices and crosses were mixed in there, I’m sure.. but I didn’t care to define them, didn’t care to seek them out, didn’t care whether I pleased God or not. Pleasing myself was more important. Such is the will of self-love.
Presumption.
I presumed, little church lady that I was, that what I did was good enough. I lived the Faith of the One, True Church. I went to the best Mass that offered the most reverent, perfect adoration, praise, atonement, praise, and worship to the Eternal Father through His Son Jesus Christ and in union with the Holy Spirit. I went to confession to keep my soul clean. I had no taste for mortal sin and venial sin was pretty useless on my list. Who wants to sin? Not me! I won’t curse, watch bad tv, or indulge too much in x, y, z. I’m interested in tearing down my vices (they’re really not attractive) & building virtue (much nicer!) within my soul and those around me. I like to talk to God. I pray. I get contemplation and meditation. I get what the saints did to get to where they are. I know their path, the Way.
No. I presumed too much.
Knowing this is my first step to obedience, on my way to greater Wisdom.
Truly, this is all I know at this point.. and that all this happened leading up to the Feast of the Exaltation of the Cross and the Feast of Our Sorrowful Mother. ..and that I haven’t truly known crosses in awhile, at least enough to learn to love them like the saints do.
Once upon a time, I had a great cross of trying to survive my childhood and super-dysfunctional family and my apocalyptic, alcoholic father and sede brother who thought the world was going to end with Y2K, who told me when I was 13 they were sorry, but I would never have a life. I survived and was hopeful.
Once upon a time, I had a great cross of great trouble in my early marriage. We survived and were hopeful.
And I told myself nothing would ever tear Hope from me. For the most part, this was true. Until God took this from me and let me experience Nothing, Who let me stare into the abyss, into the true unknown, to know that I am truly nothing, so little and just a speck, yet a smudge He loves. Cannot a smudge be grateful for its existence to its Creator? Cannot it consider her Lord’s Benevolence, Care, and Love? What would she do for Him in regard?
I rested on the surety of Jesus’ marital covenant with Holy Church and on surviving hell on earth in my youth. If He took care of me and helped me this time and that, surely He will always be there, let me play and go to and fro as I will. God would never fail me. I believed this, and He has given me the grace of never doubting. Never doubting.
But I was the one who failed Him. I know I could do more.. because I know more.
And I’ve always, always known that those who know more are that much more responsible for the keys they hold to the Kingdom.
Right now, this all rests in my daily life and nothing else. I’ve been told this in the same words uttered and received by the saints. It’s *all* in the Gospels and in New Testament. Not on the internet, not in takes or the opinions or moods of friends, especially not in my own flawed will.. which absolutely, 100% stinks. My will betrayed me.. and I can see the filth of her slimy, disobedient tracks that span about 3 years. How do I know? Because for all the time I spent doing what I thought was right, it did nothing to prepare me for the deaths of my loved ones.. or to help them through it if that was what God wanted. I could not lay my soul down for them, not as Jesus did for His friends, not even as a tattered cape to be thrown upon the path on their journey to heaven.
The devil blinded me. I allowed myself to be blinded, and I played a very, very dangerous game. Whether or not I’ve been in actual, immortal danger isn’t the point of all this. It’s not a game I want to play anymore, I defer it all to my Lord, whose guiding voice is the only one I want to hear. I want His Word echoing through my heart, not the world’s.
Presumption and penitent. Crosses and staying close to Our Sorrowful Mother, contemplating Jesus life through the life of Mary. Living life simply and purely, with simple intention and in Love. Disinterested, unattached, loving God and my neighbor where I can, when I can.. not thinking too much, not even about the care of my soul, but handing it to Mary and Jesus and trusting they will take care of me, I've just to love and fulfill the Holy Will of the Eternal Father.. and especially, *especially* contemplating to discern His Holy Will, which may take days, even weeks. Because “holy” impulse reaction is unreliable and really just my own will playing games with the salvation of my soul.
Never again will I allow her that much control over me. I belong to Jesus to Mary.
How this will unfold before you has yet to be revealed. That all depends on what God tells me and on what it is He wants me to do, how He wants me to love. :)
in Love,
veronica🔥