Put to the test through the walk in the valley of the shadow of death

CONFESSIONS OF THE WALK THROUGH THE VALLEY OF THE SHADOW OF DEATH (revised with inserts from the “DARK NIGHT”)

      For the past couple years Lent has been for me a time where God raises me up from the dirt,the dirt of my addictions selfishness and despondence to God, where I usually spend the rest of the year.  From what I’ve observed last Lent and then again this new years Lent, this seems to be so true, awkward but true. Actually it’s been somewhat of my personal experience with the changing seasons within our Catholic calender since my full return home, home being our true mystical home which is the Catholic Church.

 But those who are very weak he keeps in this night for a long time. Their purgation is less intense and their temptations abated, and he frequently refreshes their senses to keep them from backsliding. They arrive at the purity of perfection late in life. And some of them never reach it entirely, for they are never wholly in the night or wholly out of it. Although they do not advance, God exercises them for short periods and on certain days in those temptations and aridities to preserve them in humility and self-knowledge; and at other times and seasons he comes to their aid with consolation, lest through loss of courage they return to their search for worldly consolation. God acts with other weaker souls as though he were showing himself and then hiding; he does this to exercise them in his love, for without these withdrawals they would not learn to reach him.

 And who was it that brought me home…but of course our dear Holy Mother, Mary.           I have this tattoo on my right arm of the Miraculous Medal. Having come to a personal revelation of the very true existence of God and His Son at the age of 18, at a time when I was amongst the worst that St.Dominic’s Parish had confirmed a year earlier under the patron saint of thieves,St.Dismas. Not practicing my faith as many young adults are sadly accustomed to do in todays society, the culture of death, as our late beloved Pope John Paul II referred to it, skeptical of the Church due to a lack of understanding, I put my faith in the promises of the Mother of Christ in reference to the private revelation of her miraculous medal. I so wanted to break free from my addictions that I skipped the wearing of the medal and straight out tattooed it to the back of my arm. Half a year later I looked back and thought it was having no effect I was still doing the things that I didn’t want to be doing. I took a closer look, throughout that year Mary had brought one of her servants into my life, Brother Michael Mary. He was introduced to the parish the sunday before Lent that year. That was my first real lenten journey. That Lent I was brought back to the confessional, I was taught to pray the rosary, and yes I began to go to Mass again, even daily Mass,and my faith in practice,especially my faith in Mary, led me to begin to see the real presence of her Son in the Blessed Sacrament.  I now recall last year when as I was approaching the end of Lent, I was crying out in my prayers,”please Lord don’t let me go back to the dirt!”.  During Lent I actually become a worthwhile husband and father, and my prayer life is at its top of its game, so I thought. 

       This year the Lord has shown me a clearer insight of myself and has given me some understanding to the necessity of the dryness and darkness that a soul must endure in order to make advances in the spiritual life.  As I spend my time in my darkness I am broken loose of my self-righteousness and pride which I tend to be unaware of during my lenten observances. This year began no different. I’ve been pulled out of my struggle with my addictions. The grace of the season has once again freed me to retreat with my God in prayer and fasting.  The cry out to God, to not allow his grace to be pulled away from me, already happened the Wednesday after Ashwednesday while I was adoring him at the tabernacle at St. Anthony’s Church in San Gabriel during my lunch hour. I lamented just that once, but this time I heard myself add,”please Lord whatever it is you’re trying to break me from help me to learn the lessons you set before me that I might not have to return  so much to that dark place”, and placing it all in his will, because after all I truly believe that he allows all things for the good of those who love him, though it hurts I best be resolved to trust in him no matter what. I have been aware of something a little different this year, not able to exactly put my finger on it, but one big thing being my better awareness of how I do become self-righteous  due to his grace protecting me from committing bigger sins. My pride and self-righteousness seem to just jump out at me as thoughts of criticism and judgments of others pop into my head, and because of my time previously spent in my darkness I’m better able to stop those thoughts and contrast them with  my own sinful conduct, “who am I to judge when I myself am such a piece of poo-poo”, I say to myself . Still I kind of seem to forget my sins as I’m supposed to because of the grace I receive in Reconciliation, but I think it’s more of a forgetting of my shame and guilt, not the fact that I am a weak sinner. I need to remain in the truth that I am a sinner in order to keep myself recollected in the truth of just how much I’m in need of God’s mercy and grace to sustain me. I need to be always aware of my dependence on God for everything every moment of my life. I mean do we provide for ourselves the food we eat or does God? Ok so we know that it’s God who provides everything. The same goes with prayer and all else that is done in the spiritual life. God provides all our temporal needs as well as all the grace which is needed for us to perform corporal and spiritual works of mercy. Without Him we can do nothing. The very means to ‘master our sinfulness and conquer our pride’ is His grace. This has been proven to me by my experiences during Lent. Wow, Jesus even quoted it from scripture when He Himself was being tempted,”man does not live by bread alone but by every word which comes forth from the mouth of God”.

     To wrap up this post I need to share what I experienced just this past week. This past Wednesday was a fasting day for me, and when I fast I experience a quieting of my intellect where in I feel more intimately connected to God in prayer, the very hunger I feel is useful in helping me stay recollected in the presence of God. It seems that the tempter has made very effective use of this to catch me unaware. I must have once again fallen into the illusion of my own holiness, namely my self-righteousness. I must have fallen to sleep that night with a sense of deep spiritual pride, I mean I look around and see not even older people around me keeping fasts or  holy hours much less young people my age, I see no one spending their breaks and lunches in prayer or reciting their rosary or 3 o’clock chaplets of mercy, but look at me I’m sooo good. This is a great example of my self-righteousness and spiritual pride, this is what I’m in such need to be broken down of.

 +++These beginners feel so fervent and diligent in their spiritual exercises and undertakings that a certain kind of secret pride is generated in them… Then they develop a somewhat vain - at times very vain - desire to speak of spiritual things in others’ presence, and sometimes even to instruct rather than be instructed; in their hearts they condemn others who do not seem to have the kind of devotion they would like them to have…Some of these persons become so evil-minded that they do not want anyone except themselves to appear holy; and so by both word and deed they condemn and detract others whenever the occasion arises…And when at times their spiritual directors, their confessors, or their superiors disapprove their spirit and method of procedure, they feel that these directors do not understand, or perhaps that this failure to approve derives from a lack of holiness… Sometimes they want others to recognize their spirit and devotion, and as a result occasionally contrive to make some manifestations of it, such as movements, sighs, and other ceremonies; sometimes, with the assistance of the devil, they experience raptures, more often in public than in private, and they are quite pleased, and often eager, for others to take notice of these… Sometimes they confess the evil things they do to a different confessor…embarrassment forbids them from relating their sins clearly, lest their reputation diminish in their confessor’s eyes…When these others notice that someone is trying to give them some instruction, they themselves take the words from their very mouths as though they already know everything… Sometimes they minimize their faults, and at other times they become discouraged by them, since they felt they were already saints, and they become impatient and angry with themselves, which is yet another fault. They are often extremely anxious that God remove their faults and imperfections, but their motive is personal peace rather than God.

As a principle I held the saying ‘no humility, no sanctity’. Well that night I had such a vivid dream of a woman inviting me to sleep with her and throughout the dream I was so ready to be with her out of lust, I was doing nothing to prevent myself from making it happen, I even recall friends in my dream reminding me of my marriage, so it was more than a fall in lust, it was a straight out attempt to break my marriage vows which is a sacrilege and death to my soul. I even repeatedly woke from my dream, at one time to use the restroom, and as I went back to sleep the dream picked right back up and continued until it was time to get up and get ready to start my day. The act itself never took place but I felt so horrible, so dirty, it was a nightmare for me, a rude awakening. I seem to lose track of how weak I can become without the help of God’s grace. So I got ready and took off to attend the 6:30a.m. Mass at Holy Family.  I got to the church and as I sat waiting for the Mass to begin, still pretty disturbed by my dream, God affirmed His providence over the whole event with the reading of the entrance antiphon,” Test me, O God, and know my thoughts; see whether I step in the wrong path, and guide me along the everlasting way.”(Psalm 138:23-24) God gave me my food for the rest of my lenten journey, if not for the rest of my journey towards Him through the remainder of my life. And so my day continued and I began to feel a dryness coming upon me. Towards the end of that day fear began to grip my heart and soul. I began whimpering, “God I’m not going to make it not even through the end of Lent, no, please not now Lord, at least let me have my time with you through these forty days”, I was being broken down of my pride and self-righteousness, my sense of self-sufficiency, and it hurt. I lost all strength to fight. Then He allowed the testing of my sobriety, a buddy of mine called to grab a couple beers and hang out, left powerless without any strength I agreed. That night I even disregarded my daughter’s need for help with a current event on the Vaticans reformation on it’s canonization process. “Back in the valley Lord, I’m sorry, I’m confused, but thy will be done”, as I sighed in prayer. Well my buddy was on his way over and I just waited there in my living room, but he never showed up, nor did he answer his phone when I tried calling to see where he was. “Oh well”, I thought,” better for me”, as I went to bed depressed. No bad dreams that night, the nightmare was real as I was downcast and broken from what I thought was the end of my lenten journey this year. I didn’t expect to get up to go to Mass in the morning, but the Lord granted it and I was thankful though still spiritually dry. Friday was another fasting day and the Lord granted me the grace to endure. I was fasting yet experiencing dryness in prayer. My rosary on my way to work was dry but I did it anyways as I remembered  St. Faustina’s diary when all she could do was recite her basic prayers as the Lord plunged her into a time of dryness. I went to Nativity parish in El Monte at lunch, they have the exposition of the Blessed Sacrament there every Friday. I went, but all I ended up doing was sleeping in a chair before Him, it didn’t bother me for I knew he understood where I was, I just wanted to stay as close to Him as possible, and I understood it as that being all he was allowing me to do by His grace. I returned to work with a new insight to what this was, but another test. The darkness and the dryness began to fade and He revealed to me how at the end of every Lent as the grace of the season slowly faded away as did my fervor in prayer I became discouraged and that discouragement slowly carried me back into my addictions which would then plunge me into shame and guilt, eventually leading me to despair and despondency towards him. I was then guided to listen to a talk  by Fr. John Corapi where he talked and explained to me the necessity of the darkness in which Christ descended into his tomb which was endured in order for the Ressurection to take place. This is all a new gift of understanding for me, and I don’t know much about it to be able to better explain it. I do recall St. John of the Cross and him being one who spoke about the dark night of the soul [ http://www.karmel.at/ics/john/dn.html ]. What I do know is that the dryness is something that I will have to learn to endure in order to make further progress in my spiritual life. I will have to be trained in that darkness when it comes again. I will have to endure and give whatever I can in order to put up a fight and come out renewed, ressurected. I would rather remain in his light, but it seems that it’s time for me to advance further and in order for that to happen I must be plunged into the dark night, and yes like my Lord  as he cried out,” Father take this cup from me, but yet not as I will but as you will”, I will have to go through the suffering, the struggle up to calvary, and the death in order to come out renewed once again. 

“ THOUGH I WALK THROUGH THE VALLEY OF THE SHADOW OF DEATH I SHALL FEAR NO EVIL FOR YOU ARE AT MY SIDE WITH YOUR ROD AND YOUR STAFF THAT GIVE ME COURAGE!” 

“TEST ME,O GOD, AND KNOW MY THOUGHTS;SEE WHETHER I STEP IN THE WRONG PATH, AND GUIDE ME ALONG THE EVERLASTING WAY.”