Too long since my last post, Mea Culpa

The last time I posted I was getting ready to go visit the Dominican Nuns in Summit, NJ and I was excited and nervous and scared and happy and all kinds of things.  I had found the place where I wanted to live out my life and the people I wanted to spend it with.  So I went.  Sr. Mary Cecilia picked me up at the airport and I was introduced to Gypsy (their GPS) and off we drove to Summit from Newark (where I saw pigeons in the airport).  When I got their I met Sr. Mary Catharine and Sr. Mary Denise (prioress).  I loved being there.  I even loved rising at 5.30a to go to Lauds.  I loved going to mass and saying the Divine Office.  I got to help the sisters with some renovations (read I got to clean).  I ate with Fr. Martin for lunches, a lovely Dominican priest from the Canadian province.  On Saturday I met with the Council.  We talked about my past and my prayer life and my academic interests.  I spent Sunday waiting to hear.  On Monday I finally asked.  Sr. Mary Catharine told me that while they believe I have a vocation and I am, without a doubt, a Dominican they were not sure that I had a vocation to the contemplative life.  She said the sisters loved me and loved having me there, but they were not sure the contemplative life could provide me with an outlet for my personality.  I loved my time with the sisters and I loved being there and I would highly recommend them to anyone considering the Dominican contemplative life.  I had a wonderful weekend and they were the first community I fell in love with.  Hearing that they were not sure if I could come back or not broke my heart.  So I came back and I cried, a lot.  Not long after coming back I went to see my dad and he told me that he has frontotemporal dementia.  The doctors say that he's had it for two to three years.  So, he should have his memory for another year and then he will slowly die and his body will fail.  I will watch him become an infant.  The plan is that when he needs to be taken care of that when he can no longer take care of himself that I will take care of him until I can't.

I would love to say that I have prayed and kept up my prayer life through all of this, but I haven't.  I can't seem to find the calm and the peace.  I'd like to say that I haven't been tempted by my old demons or given into them, but I have. I would like to say that I am handling all of this well, but I am not.  I know God is with me through all of this, but I am so turned around, upside down that I have trouble seeing that.  I am a living testament to how God works in each individual's life.  He has brought me so far and taken me to such great heights.  I have not turned my back on Him, but I am having trouble talking to Him.  I have had to give up my active discernment, which has further spun my world out of whack.  I am starting to turn toward my old comforts (a romantic relationship).  I find myself having feelings that I have not had in awhile.  I wonder if they are me trying to find some human comfort in all this or my being scared or if I was never really called to the religious state or because I am no longer praying as I once did.  I have so many thoughts and feelings right now and I have no idea which way is up or even down or left or right.  I know I need to very seriously turn to God, spend many hours in prayer, but I cannot seem to sit still long enough to do it.  I need some guidance, preferably in the form of a voice I can hear with my physical ears.

I have given into my impure thoughts, into alcohol, and I have come and am still so close to giving into cutting.  My cutting is my hardest demon to battle.  Cutting is the one place the devil gets me almost every time.  I can hide the cutting, I get immediate relief and I instantly feel better and I feel the most guilt about doing it and get so easily sucked in and trapped in that cycle.  There is little that gets me to confession slower than cutting.  I am quicker to go to confession for being unchaste than for cutting because I encounter a different kind of shame with cutting.  I wallow in my shame and I do not want to leave it.  I feel the urge so strongly to cut lately.  I'm also fighting the depression and the thoughts that accompany my desires to cut.  I feel trapped and I know the only way out is through God and His son. I have given into my depression, but not totally.  I am still fighting all of it, but I am overwhelmed and feel as though I am about to be overtaken and I can barely see the reason why I should fight any of it.  How much longer before I lose the light and then lose the fight?  I feel so alone in all this.  I am being stripped and I hate it, but I must persevere and push forward and trust that God is here and know in my heart that He is all I need and He will take care of me as He always has.  God help me to be faithful and to trust in you.  Help me to turn to you first, for you will never leave me.  When all others are gone there will be you.  Help me to know that.

I have questions, so many questions.  The one currently weighing on my mind is this: if we lose our memory, our ability to remember those we love, to recall them are we still who we are?  Aristotle tells us that memory is what makes us teachable and able to learn, what, in a sense, makes us human.  He also tells us that memory comes from the soul.  Aquinas tells us that body and soul are intimately connected and that without our soul we would not be who we are.  If you put another person's soul into another person's body that body would not be inhabited by the same person the soul came from, but would be someone different.  So if we have no memory do we have no soul or is the soul muted or...?  (I know, it's rough, but I'm not at my intellectual best right now).  Am I called to the married life or am I meant to walk this earthly plain alone?  I am not sure I can take another heart break.  I long for comfort and some companionship, but I cannot seem to find nor find a connection to another human being.  We humans are meant to be with each other to care about each other, but so often we forget that and deny it by isolating ourselves in our technology, but we physically need each other.  God designed us to love each other and care for each other.  We are all intimately connected, but I cannot seem to find a connection with anyone.  I wonder if this is another point where God is stripping me down and breaking me down to my most basic self so that He may rebuild me into more of the fullness of who He created me to be, but I do not know.  I go to mass every day and I pray and some times find the quiet of mind that I need so that my heart can speak to God so that He may heal it.  I love God and I find myself so lost without Him.  I need to go to Him and to be with Him in that place in my soul that only He inhabits.  I need to spend days there so that I may know His will and fulfill His will.  I need a retreat.  To be with Him, in His home, comforted by His presence... There is nothing more sublime than that.  He is my love and my life, yet I continually deny Him.  I leave Him for days on end and expect Him to wait for me because I know He will.  I take His love, patience, mercy and forgiveness for granted.  I must be a more attentive friend and lover.  I must go to Him and prostrate myself so that I may be in His favor once again.  God give me strength and clarity and help me to know you and to be with you and to seek comfort in you.  help me to know your love and grace, to know your mercy and forgiveness.  Help me to no longer take you for granted.  Help me to comfort rather than to be comforted.  Lord God, Lamb of God you give to those who ask, help me to seek your help first and to ask for it before seeking help from others, help me to accept your help, your mercy and your grace.  I ask this in your name.  Amen.

In Christ our life,

Thomas Catherine

A huge case of nerves

So I am going to visit one of the monasteries this weekend.  I will be there in less than a week.  I am so very scared.  I am having a horrible case of the 'what ifs'.  It has suddenly occurred to me that these visits, the visit to the monastery down south and the one in yankee land, are actually a big deal.  I will be going and sharing in the spirituality of the women that could one day be my sisters; women that I could spend my entire life enclosed with.  Women that I will watch grow old and one day die, women that I will share everything with.  I will share the most intimate part of my life with them and they with me: we will share our spirituality.  I am so nervous and so worried about all this.  What if they do not like me?  What if I do not like them?  What if I was wrong all this time?  What if I only followed my will and not God's?  What if I have done this for all the wrong reasons?  What if... What if... What if... So many what ifs and they are all plaguing me.  I cannot get rid of them.  They fly through my mind and my heart stabbing me, attacking me,  torturing me.  To add to this I have been reminded that although I am surrounded by people who call themselves my friend I do not actually have any real friends.  My one friend that really supported me in my discernment has gone.  He has decided I have no real place in his life.  I am to only be there when he needs me.  I do not actually matter to him anymore.  In this world I am alone, all I have is God.  While I love God and His Son, I am human and am in need of human companionship.  God made Adam and then He made Eve because He knew that we need each other.  We need to feel connected to each other.  I have no one to connect to anymore.  People connect to me and, I guess the connection scares them, and so they leave.  What will happen with my sisters?

Pax,

Thomas Catherine

Failings...

As I work at balance and at prayer and therefore as I come closer to God I find the evil one attacking me.  Last night I had obscene dreams and today I have been fighting obscene thoughts and urges.  I failed at the fight at one point today when I was somewhere between sleep and awake.  I feel so guilty for giving in, for not fighting harder.  I truly need to find time to go to confession so that I may confess my sins.  I also need to see my spiritual director and speak to him about all of this.  Santa Teresa de Jesus warns us of these attacks.  She tells us that as we grow closer to God that the Devil will attack more frequently and with greater force so that he may claim what is not his and was never his to begin with.  This too will pass though.  I must fight harder and spend more time with God and pray for strength.  He will give me the grace to overcome these trials of the flesh.  I have overcome much harder trials with His help and grace.  I have overcome so much thanks to His love, His grace and His strength.  I shall overcome this too.  In less than a week I will be off to visit a Dominican monastery.  I will be there for three glorious days.  Pray that I am able to listen to God and to do His will while I am there.  I will be in Holy peace and quietude.  I will be praying and eating and going to mass with the nuns.  Then at the beginning of September I will be with the nuns that I hope to find my earthly home with.  If all goes well at both of these monasteries I will be invited back to stay in the cloister for a week or two.  Then back again for a month and then entrance.  Pray for me as I pray for you all.

Pax,

Thomas Catherine

Balance

I have got to work on this balance thing.  I have got to get the hang of it.  I need mass, confession, adoration, and prayer like I need air.  Air is more important than food or water or shelter for without air we cannot breathe and if we cannot breathe nothing else matters.  If I do not have prayer, adoration, confession and mass I cannot breathe, I cannot live.  I need to find a balance between the real world and between the world that I long to live in, that I lived in almost all summer.  Oh, my Jesus, forgive me for neglecting you for not spending all the time I should with you.  Forgive me, My Lord, my love...forgive for not being the faithful servant that I should be, that I can be.  Oh Lord forgive me my sins and my inadequacies.  Forgive me for all that I have done.  I need you Lord, I need you to be in my life, in my heart, in my soul.  I need to reach the place where you reside inside my soul so that I may dwell there with you for all eternity.  I need to find that balance that allows me to be in the world and spend any spare second I have in my interior cell. Oh My Lord how I need you!  This love for you is greater than any love that I have ever known.  My love for you is all consuming.  This lack of balance, this lack of time with you has left me with a dryness, with a hole that I cannot fill.  Without you I am nothing and I can do no good.  I must find balance so that I can be rid of this dryness and this hole.  I miss you and I long for you and I cannot wait until the day I can be with you for eternity.  I need to find a balance between the outside world and my prayer world.  I need Him too much.  Oh my Lord help me to stay with you, to be balanced, to spend every spare second with you.  Hear my prayers and the deepest desires of my heart.  Hear me Lord, hear my cries, hear me begging, hear my pleas.  Oh Lord help me.

Pax,

Thomas Catherine

Reading...

Last night I finished Teresa of Avila: The Progress of a Soul by Cathleen Medwick.  St. Teresa's life was filled with suffering and illness and doubt.  Of all the saints I have read about I identify most with St. Teresa and St. Catherine of Sienna.  Both of these women initially and throughout there lives resisted God's call.  St. Teresa had the wicked life before answering God and St. Catherine's parents tried to force her to marry and tried to take her faith away from her.  I feel drawn and called to these saints.  I know what it is to have led a wicked life and to have my parents try and strip me of my faith.  They inspire me to keep moving forward with my vocation.  If St. Teresa can be not only a nun but a saint then so can I.  In her time what she did was wicked and shameful and in my time the things I have done have been wicked and shameful, though many would say what I have done is worse than what she ever did, but given the time periods I would say we are about equal.  I, like St. Catherine, have no obeyed my parents wishes for me, instead choosing my own path.  I have chosen God over my family.  Right now I am reading St. Teresa's Vida.  I have not gotten far, but I look forward to reading what her confessors forced her to write in defense of her spirituality.  I wish that I had more today, but today has been fairly normal for me.  I was offered, by my father, a new car, new clothes and money, but, as usual, these are not the things I want or desire.  I have a car and clothes and money.  My needs are met and I am happy and content.

Pax,

Thomas Catherine

Prayers do get answered...

So I've been begging for God to allow me to share in His suffering and to know His pain and to share in the pain and suffering of my brothers and sisters.  God has seen fit to grant me this favor.  Today has been so long and so hard.  When I look at someone I can see their pain and I can see their suffering.  I can feel it; as though it flows from them to me.  I am filled with a compassion and an empathy that I did not know I had.  I have always cared for others and I have always had a great sympathy and compassion for others who are suffering, but I have never had this much.  When someone touches me their pain and suffering threatens to overwhelm me and over take me.  I have spent so much time crying today and praying for the souls of my brothers and sisters who's sin causes them such pain and suffering.  I have always know that sin, great or small, causes suffering in the soul, but now I know how much pain, anguish, suffering that accumulated sin and hidden sin can cause.  If only everyone knew the beauty of confession, how being granted absolution can heal the soul.  I need to go to confession more often and adoration and mass.  The saving grace of confession and the Eucharist are amazing.

Pax,

Thomas Catherine

Suffering

Since my dream I have been begging Christ to allow me to suffer as He did, to allow me to be nailed to the cross with Him, to have the privilege of having His wounds.  I know that many will not understand wanting to suffer, much less begging for the privilege of suffering, especially suffering as Christ did, but suffering is an amazing gift.  To suffer for others, to suffer for God and for Christ is truly a privilege.  Suffering opens our eyes to the pain of others, to the suffering of others because we look for someone to suffer with us.  What we do not realize is that there is always someone suffering with us, we never suffer alone.  Christ is always with us suffering for us and with us.  He walks with us knowing our pain, our heartache.  No one knows our suffering like Christ does.  Suffering is the one thing we all have in common, we have all suffered, we all know pain.  To recognize that pain in others and to suffer with them is an opportunity to help another Child of God and to witness to the power of Christ's love.  Yet, we turn down that opportunity all the time because we refuse to see that someone, who is different from us, is in pain or, if we do see it, we believe they deserve it because they are homosexual or Muslim or are simply just different from us.  People who do not know Christ's love and forgiveness are the ones who most need our help and our compassion and who most need someone to suffer with them.  Oh to suffer as Christ did and to suffer with others and for others is the most beautiful thing and is, in part, what it is to love God's children.  How I long to suffer as Christ did and to suffer for and with other children of God.  Every time I go to adoration or pray the rosary I find myself praying for the sins of others and asking God that He may help those who sin and do not know His love, His mercy and His forgiveness know His love and mercy and forgiveness.  I ask, I beg to be allowed to suffer for those people.  Christ so loved His brothers and sisters that He committed the ultimate act of obedience and under went tremendous suffering so that we all might know His father's love, mercy and forgiveness.  I can only hope and pray that He will allow me to take on some of that suffering and bless me with the gift of suffering for the sins of others.  I have known His love and forgiveness and I will do anything so that others may also know it.  Oh to have His wounds and be on the cross with Him.  To be that obedient, to love my brothers and sisters and my Heavenly father so much that I would die for their sins.  I am deeply in love with Christ crucified and for me there is nothing more that I want than to be on that cross with my love.

Today I went to mass and I get the privilege of going again tomorrow.  My need for the Eucharist and confession and mass are the same as my need for air; I cannot survive without them.  To have Christ fill me is an amazing feeling.  When I am with Him nothing else matters.  I long to fall down in front of Him and profess my love openly.  I long for the day when we are wed and I am free for Him alone.  My love, my God how I long for you when I cannot be with you.  There is no other for me, there is no other that could love me as you do and I could love no other with the passion, the calmness, the intensity that I do you.  I would give my life for you if you asked it of me.  Oh my Lord how I love you.  Give me strength, give me the ability to suffer as you did for us, give me your wounds, allow me to be on the cross with you.  Allow me to suffer for my brothers and sisters in Christ so that they may know your love and forgiveness, so they may know what it is to be filled by your love and healed by your mercy and forgiveness.  Oh Lord that is my greatest wish and desire; that everyone will know your love, mercy and forgiveness so that they may know your Father and be with you in His kingdom.

Also, today was the Feast of the Assumption.  In the homily at mass today Father talked about how selfless Mary was.  She gave no heed to the things that were bothering her, but instead was always caring for others.  The gospel reading was about when Mary had just found out that she would be the mother of God.  Can you imagine getting that news?!  The questions, the worries, the concerns.  Most of us would lock ourselves in our room and have a total nervous breakdown.  Not Mary though, she went to her cousin Elizabeth and cared for her.  Mary gave no thought to her concerns or fears; she ignored them and went to the one who needed her.  I long to lead a life like that.  To lead a life devoted to others, completely devoid of self.  This is one reason I fell in love with the religious life and why it "fits" me.  I want to devote myself to being of service to others.  By being of service I realize that my life isn't bad, my concerns are not a huge deal, neither are my problems when compared to the homeless addicts and alcoholics I worked with or the abused and neglected children I worked with.  I have everything I need; a place to live, food, clothing.  I am not lacking anything.  So I give my money that I do not need to feed others or house them.  I try to live my life as selflessly as I can, because while I sincerely doubt I will change the world, someone I help, someone that I believed in might.

Pax,

Thomas Catherine