Oct 30, 2015 |
A Grief Unveiled by Gregory Floyd
reviewed by Grace.
“There is a difference between early grief and later grief. Early grief is acute; later grief is more diffuse. Early grief smacks, stings, punches; later grief is more gentle. Early grief is a stalker; later grief is a companion. Early grief is crags and crevices; later grief is furrows softened by the passage of time” (Gregory Floyd).
Each of us experiences this mysterious phenomenon of grief in our lives, to which I am certainly no stranger. In the early months after leaving the community I had discerned with, my mom, who spent many years in the field of social work, gently said to me, “I think you’re grieving. You need to let yourself grieve. To cry. To work through what has taken place. You lived a very beautiful and yet difficult life and it is a loss for you.” To which I responded, “No, I’m not. I’m fine. The Lord called me to leave and there is grace for me to transition. I’ll get through this.” Little did I realize that while there was a tremendous amount of grace, that I was in fact certainly going through the grief process, but didn’t want to admit it.
A dear friend of mine passed away during my canonical year and as I was trying to make sense of it all, A Grief Unveiled was given to me. In my opinion, it is one of the best written works on grief available as it articulates the rawness of feelings and emotions one can experience as well as a magnificent integration of our Catholic beliefs to anchor and carry us through the storm of loss, whatever form it may take. As I read it again for the second time in the different context I now find myself in, I receive new insight to what often lies unable to be articulated by my heart. How grateful I am to the Floyds for writing their journey of the Cross so that others might be led to the glory of the Resurrection, the fulfillment of Calvary.
From the back cover of A Grief Unveiled: One Father’s Journey Through the Death of a Child
A candid account of sudden grief and recovery
It was a lazy afternoon in April, 1995, when the unthinkable happened. Six-year-old John-Paul, the youngest son of Gregory and Maureen Floyd, was playing in the front lawn with his brother David when both were struck by an out-of-control car. Rushed to separate hospitals, David survived with bruises, but John-Paul died instantly. In A Grief Unveiled, Floyd reveals with painstaking candor his journey through the sorrow of losing a young child – dealing not only with his own broken heart, but also with the struggle to reconstruct his role as husband, father and protector.
Sep 17, 2015 |
By Emily.
“Come, let us return to the Lord, for it is He who has rent, but He will heal us; He has struck us, but He will bind our wounds.” (Hosea 6:1)
We know by faith that God has a plan for our lives and that nothing happens unless God wills or permits it. But for so long after I left the convent, I had a hard time having the faith and the humility to accept and believe that this goes also for my weaknesses and mistakes too. In many ways, my time in the convent was very beautiful and full of many graces, but I cannot deny that I also experienced a lot of emotional and spiritual pain while I was there, as well as after I left. For a long time I felt much guilt and shame. I was convinced that it was my personal incompetence that was the sole reason that everything happened the way it did. I felt like I had messed up God’s plan for my life. I knew He’d draw good out of it, somehow, but I struggled to forgive myself for messing up the way my life was “supposed to” go.
Did I make a mistake in entering the convent? Was I supposed to have followed a different path but I was just too blind to see it? Or was perhaps this indeed God’s plan for me, but through my own fault I ruined it? These questions tormented me.
A few months ago, in a flash of insight that I knew could only have come from the Holy Spirit, God gave me the grace to understand my past and especially my time in the convent in view of His love, mercy, and providence, and most especially, His desire to bring me deep inner healing.
I realized that everything from my past, particularly my experiences in the convent, was all part of God’s plan to bring me where I am today. He knew that my time in the convent would bring to the surface and open many of the wounds that I carried inside, many of which I wasn’t aware of previously. I realized that as painful as it was sometimes, it was necessary so that Jesus could begin the healing process in me. I think that this was a big part of why He called me to that particular community, as well as back out to the world: precisely because He wants to heal me!
One comparison I use to try to understand this is to think of God as being like a surgeon. A surgeon’s desire is to heal his patient, but in order to heal, the surgeon must make an incision so that he can access the underlying problem that the patient has. That is to say, the surgeon must wound the patient in order to heal him. As the prophet Hosea writes, “Come, let us return to the Lord, for it is He who has rent, but He will heal us; He has struck us, but He will bind our wounds.” (6:1)
God does not heal us in spite of the crosses we bear. He heals us precisely by means of those crosses. Even when it feels like the crosses we’re carrying are our fault alone. They say hindsight is 20-20, and looking back I can see much more clearly both my shortcomings as well as those of my former community. It’s a constant temptation to beat myself up for not seeing all that ahead of time – but looking at it from deeper perspective, I truly see God’s providence at work even there. God’s plan isn’t conditional on our perfection. As St. Paul says, “God works all things together for good for those who love Him.” All things – both the positive and the negative. Nothing, absolutely nothing, in our lives takes Him by surprise or leaves Him scrambling to figure out how to fix it. What at first seemed to me like “plan B” for my life was really God’s “plan A” after all. He knew beforehand all about everything that would happen and has led me through it all, both good and bad. He knew about all of it, and it was all part of His plan from the beginning to heal me and bring me closer to Himself, because it was necessary for the negative things to come to light so that He, the Divine Physician, could begin the process of healing me. He permitted the imperfections of it all because it was all part of His plan that is leading to something so beautiful. One thing in particular I’ve learned these past several months is that God is indeed guiding me and healing me, in His own time and in His own beautiful way, even, and perhaps especially, when He does it differently than I would’ve expected. But I see now how even our imperfections are incorporated by God into the tapestry of His loving plan for each one of us. May God fill your heart with His healing and peace!
Jul 29, 2015 |
How to deal with anxiety, from the pen of a paranoid schizophrenic.
By Stephanie Grace Cesare.
Jeremiah 29:11: Yes, I know what plans I have in mind for you, Yahweh declares: plans for peace, not for disaster, to give you a future and a hope.
Trust has been a major problem in my past, but if we believe in God’s goodness, how can we not trust in Him completely? Every second of our life God knows and allows to happen to us. “There is a spiritual world all around us, can you not see it?” – Jane Eyre.
Because of my condition I am always worried that the worst thing possible is going to happen at any second. The only way I could overcome that was to believe in God’s loving providence: to actually live second to second with a great belief that everything was in some kind of play book for my life. It is when the waves start crashing in on us, when we think we are alone and will drown, that God says, “O you of little faith”. In that moment the Apostle Peter cried, “Lord, we are going to drown, don’t you care?” Whenever we take our eyes away from God, that is when we become anxious, scared, feeling we are on our own and will drown in worries: that is when we need to cry, “LORD!”
This is where suffering must be understood.
Luke 11:11-15 says, “What father among you, if his son asked for a fish, would hand him a snake? Or if he asked for an egg, hand him a scorpion?” Suffering as the saints know it has infinite worth. God allows suffering to come upon us for this reason, that we may fill up what is lacking in the wounds of Christ, and that we may actually participate in God’s salvific mission for the world. God works through us when we accept life’s difficulties
2 Cor 12:7-10: “Wherefore so that I should not get above myself I was given a thorn in the flesh, a messenger from Satan to batter me and prevent me from getting above myself about this. I have three times pleaded with the Lord that it might leave me but he has answered me, “My grace is enough for you.” For power is at full strength in weakness. It is then about my weaknesses that I am happiest of all to boast, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me, and that is why I am glad of weaknesses, insults, constraints, persecutions and distress for Christ’s sake, for it is when I am weak that I am strong.”
Some examples in my life… God is in the details. To let go and realize every detail of the day is God’s will, will give you an extreme amount of peace. One day I realized I wasn’t going to be able to have a job because it was so stressful so I gave it up to God. I am a cosmetologist and I am supposed to take the next person on the computer list no matter what they want done, so I said, “Lord, please send me the people that I would be able to handle.” This went really well. Every time I went to the list I had the confidence that the Lord would help me with the next customer. He must really want me to have this job so I trusted.
I was in a religious community when I was having signs of schizophrenia and had decided to leave. I went into an extreme depression that landed me in the hospital several times. I didn’t know how a good God could push me away from him and not want a girl who dreamed all her life since the age of reason to be his spouse; to be incapable of it! How could a good God abandon me like that? “And I will dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life” – that just wasn’t true – or, “She has chosen the better part and it will not be taken from her” – hmm, what about that one? I was telling God how to make me holy rather than trusting that he knew the best way. Then one day, I read that God sent the man who had asked to be his disciple to go home and be a witness to his family and home town – “How can I do that?” I thought. Well, I have had the chance to help those in the world with me more than I ever had in the convent with my peers, family and customers. I am planning on volunteering at a nursing home so I can talk to the infirm about God while doing their hair. I never had this in the convent…the chance to get close to people and love them. To get to know them, unlike I would ever have in the convent. That’s when I realized I was called to the single life and so be a witness.
One night I was crying hysterically over the fact I left the convent when my parents came home from Louisville with a note from a homeless person on the street to me. It said, “I have chosen you to bear fruit.” That was the quote at my clothing in the convent on my card. It made me realize that I have a mission greater than I could ever imagine as long as I did God’s will.
I was chosen, but how and for what? The most anxiety you go through is not knowing your calling in life and the second is not trusting and giving up your will to God. Mother Teresa said, “If you want to make God laugh, tell him your plans”.
The teenager days are usually the most arrogant. I’m going to be rich, I’m going to change the world, I’m going to be famous. There is nothing wrong with having these goals, as long as we give our will to God, but many do not and go into despair when they do not accomplish what they desire. This has caused many college-age students to commit suicide because their goals are so high. Many people come out of religious life and this can be devastating to live a humble life of a lay person or the married state. In Abandonment to Divine Providence, Fr. Caussade explains that it is not in seeking holy things or circumstances, but seeking holiness in all our circumstances, that makes saints.
We will never have peace unless we trust that doing what is in front of us is God’s will and that doing it well (little detail by little detail) will take away the anxieties of life and will lead to greater, wonderful things. Think, when you offer your life to God in your daily duties, of how much more God in his generosity will give you to accomplish in your life. He is all goodness, so do you not believe he will give you a grand adventure – one that will bring you to heaven?
In living each moment the way God calls (the little details) God will give greater things for you to do. I love St. Therese because she taught the little way to heaven. Doing every little thing because it is most humbling and therefore more meritorious in the eyes of God. Once we realize the great worth of these small details, the more at peace we will be. Believe in PROVIDENCE! Just realize that our daily duties are so important when done with love – how much more at peace. God will always outdo us with love, and the more we offer up these small things, the greater the things he will call us to, and we will be at peace in his love.
Psalm 131, song of quiet trust: “O Lord my heart is not lifted up, my eyes are not raised too high. I do not occupy myself with things too great and too marvellous for me, but I have calmed and quieted my soul, like a child that is quieted at its mother’s breast; like a child that is quieted is my soul.”
Our Lady of Guadalupe to Juan Diego: “Listen, put it into your heart, my youngest and dearest son, that the thing that disturbs you, the thing that afflicts you, is nothing. Do not let your countenance, your heart be disturbed. Do not fear this sickness of your uncle or any other sickness, nor anything that is sharp or hurtful. Am I not here, I, who am your Mother? Are you not under my shadow and protection? Am I not the source of your joy? Are you not in the hollow of my mantle, in the crossing of my arms? Do you need anything more? Let nothing else worry you, disturb you.”
Jun 12, 2015 |
It is true that saints and devotions chose us. For someone who hates pink, Valentines Day, and all things frilly and girly, it is an unlikely devotion for me to be called to embrace. That is how I know it is the work of God. He often reveals His Love through this devotion, most of the time when I am convincing myself that all things are lost.
This particular story reminds me of the line from Saint Paul that “Love never fails,” and I would agree except I would add to this … “even when it seems like it already has.”
About six years ago when I was studying abroad in Rome I made plans to meet my sister in Capri with her friends, who were visiting on Spring Break. I got up early and went to my favorite Church, the”Gesu,” (where there was a sweet little Sacred Heart Chapel) for early morning Mass before going to the train. I got there with plenty of time and was excited to see my sister after being tied down to school work because of midterms.
There were only a few minutes until the departure but there was still no track number. After inquiring about this I was told that this train was canceled. (Only in Italy!) Devastated, I walked around the train station and wandered into a nearby Church to wait for the next one which would shorten my excursion significantly.
Surprisingly, I felt much peace after praying for a few minutes and wondered which Church this was. I went to find a bulletin and found out it was a minor basilica…of the Sacred Heart. I felt much better, jumped on the next train, and got to where I was supposed to take a ferry to get to the island.
When I got to the ferry I realized that I had just missed the one I was trying to make. Frustrated even more I walked around and found a little Chapel almost hidden in the rocks of the rocky coast. I felt better again after prayer and looked up to see large banners hanging from the ceiling, images of the Sacred and Immaculate Hearts of Mary.
I was being cared for, I wasn’t alone!
Soon after I hopped on the ferry, )which happened to be an express!) I eventually got to Capri and met up with my sister, and as we were taking the ferry back to Rome I realized that it was Friday, and not just any Friday, but First Friday.
Just when I feel everything falling to pieces around me, when I feel like my life itself is a failure, this is the moment when the Love of God touches us. It doesn’t prevent us from missing trains or getting lost but it gives us the assurance that we belong to the Heart of Jesus.
The devotion of the Sacred Heart of Jesus isn’t always (or isn’t usually) a romantic “feeling” but it is the great privilege of being Sons and Daughters of God, or “co-heirs with Christ.” May the Lord reveal to you His great love this day.
Almighty God and Father, we glory in the Sacred Heart of Jesus, Your beloved Son, as we call to mind the great things His love has done for us.
Fill us with the grace that flows in abundance from the Heart of Jesus, the source of heaven’s gifts.
We make our prayer through Christ our Lord. Amen.
A beautiful hymn to the Sacred Heart, “Jesus, In Your Heart We Find”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oe86bmolKas
Jun 11, 2015 |
Day Nine: love that brings rest, peace, and joy.
Opening Prayer: Father, we rejoice in the gifts of love we have received from the Heart of Jesus your Son. Open our hearts to share His life and continue to bless us with His love. We ask this through Christ our Lord. Amen.
Scripture Reading: Romans 5: 5-11 God proves his love for us: while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.
Matt. 11: 25-30 Come to me, I will refresh you; I am gentle and humble of heart.
Reflection: There are many reasons to be troubled and worried. It could be one’s health, a problem in the family, economic difficulties, unemployment. It could be a problem in a relationship or some fault or failing that we cannot get rid of. We are anxious and worried, rather than peaceful and joyful.
Precisely when we feel these difficulties, we should turn to the Sacred Heart of Jesus. He invites us, He calls us to receive and feel His love and peace. Come to me, all who labor and are burdened, and I will give you rest, I will refresh you. The love of Jesus Christ is the anchor, the polestar, the rock we need. He is our refuge and our strength. He is our peace and our joy.
Resolution/Practice: 1. Every morning or evening, resolve to take five minutes of quiet in which you recall and thank God for His blessings of God to you and your family. These blessings are signs of God’s love.
2. When something troubling or worrying occurs, try to get into the habit of saying prayerfully: Sacred Heart of Jesus, Your Kingdom Come.
3. Reflect on your practice and frequency of receiving Holy Communion. As Jesus is ready and willing to come and be with us, so we must prepare well to receive Him and His love.
By Emily.
myself up for not seeing all that ahead of time – but looking at it from deeper perspective, I truly see God’s providence at work even there. God’s plan isn’t conditional on our perfection. As St. Paul says, “God works all things together for good for those who love Him.” All things – both the positive and the negative. Nothing, absolutely nothing, in our lives takes Him by surprise or leaves Him scrambling to figure out how to fix it. What at first seemed to me like “plan B” for my life was really God’s “plan A” after all. He knew beforehand all about everything that would happen and has led me through it all, both good and bad. He knew about all of it, and it was all part of His plan from the beginning to heal me and bring me closer to Himself, because it was necessary for the negative things to come to light so that He, the Divine Physician, could begin the process of healing me. He permitted the imperfections of it all because it was all part of His plan that is leading to something so beautiful. One thing in particular I’ve learned these past several months is that God is indeed guiding me and healing me, in His own time and in His own beautiful way, even, and perhaps especially, when He does it differently than I would’ve expected. But I see now how even our imperfections are incorporated by God into the tapestry of His loving plan for each one of us. May God fill your heart with His healing and peace!
How to deal with anxiety, from the pen of a paranoid schizophrenic.
with a great belief that everything was in some kind of play book for my life. It is when the waves start crashing in on us, when we think we are alone and will drown, that God says, “O you of little faith”. In that moment the Apostle Peter cried, “Lord, we are going to drown, don’t you care?” Whenever we take our eyes away from God, that is when we become anxious, scared, feeling we are on our own and will drown in worries: that is when we need to cry, “LORD!”
so I gave it up to God. I am a cosmetologist and I am supposed to take the next person on the computer list no matter what they want done, so I said, “Lord, please send me the people that I would be able to handle.” This went really well. Every time I went to the list I had the confidence that the Lord would help me with the next customer. He must really want me to have this job so I trusted.
y peers, family and customers. I am planning on volunteering at a nursing home so I can talk to the infirm about God while doing their hair. I never had this in the convent…the chance to get close to people and love them. To get to know them, unlike I would ever have in the convent. That’s when I realized I was called to the single life and so be a witness.
We will never have peace unless we trust that doing what is in front of us is God’s will and that doing it well (little detail by little detail) will take away the anxieties of life and will lead to greater, wonderful things. Think, when you offer your life to God in your daily duties, of how much more God in his generosity will give you to accomplish in your life. He is all goodness, so do you not believe he will give you a grand adventure – one that will bring you to heaven?
that disturbs you, the thing that afflicts you, is nothing. Do not let your countenance, your heart be disturbed. Do not fear this sickness of your uncle or any other sickness, nor anything that is sharp or hurtful. Am I not here, I, who am your Mother? Are you not under my shadow and protection? Am I not the source of your joy? Are you not in the hollow of my mantle, in the crossing of my arms? Do you need anything more? Let nothing else worry you, disturb you.”
Day Nine: love that brings rest, peace, and joy.
Recent Comments