Welcome to the Desert

"Remember, man, that you are dust and unto dust you shall return."

It's hard to believe it's that time again....but it is...it's lent. This year, just like many in the past, I find myself powerfully reminded of the need for conversion, fasting, and prayer. Lent is the time to repent- to struggle, to fast, pray, and see our sinfulness and return to God's loving arms begging mercy and forgiveness. The sacrifices of lent and the suffering encountered therein take different manifestations each year for me, but each one with it's own revelations and poignant lessons. Last year it was being in Host Defense for all of lent, missing holy Thursday mass because my exam was on Good Friday. It was about yearning for God, seeking His will, and recognizing that I'm just as sinful and wretched as everyone else. This year is no different...already full of suffering. Gracefilled? yes. An inspiration to pray and fast all the harder? YES!! Fun? Not so much.

Yesterday morning, my friend and I went to mass at 7am before our 8:30am class, received our ashes...big, dark crosses displayed across our foreheads. Seeing us walking into class made me think of revelation, when the followers of the beast all get the mark but only those who follow the Lord do not- not having the mark sets them apart for ridicule and shame. So it was with us. The 3 of us sitting in class of 160 people, our faith clearly displayed across our faces literally. No hiding our opinion or our thoughts on what we were about to discuss....which was controlling contraception. Little did we know that our whole class yesterday was going to be on birth control, abortion, and sterilization methods. in His mercy, my friend and I (and our other faithful Catholic friend) were all sitting right across the aisle from each other. We started with a case of a 16 year old girl who comes in for birth control- as we cared for her over the next 20 years of her life she went through 2 pregnancy scares, 1 abortion, 1 STD, 3 babies, 1 divorce, and 1 considered tubal ligation. All of that....I can't help but feel that this is a sad statement of what we've become as humans...that we kill our own children and rationalize our way out of it citing "convenience" and "free choice".

Well during this whole discussion I sat there with tears in my eyes and rosary in my hand. My friend, the spitfire that she is, actually had the guts to ask the professor if they spend as much time trying to save the baby as they do preparing the mother for the abortion. The tension and disdain in the room was tangible at that point. God forgive me, but I was fearful and timid. I know what I believe, but really didn't want to incur that wrath upon myself. I can rationalize it saying that I know they wouldn't have listened anyway, but still....I'm ashamed that I was almost embarassed, praying that she wouldn't draw too much attention to our cross lined selves sitting there like silent statues, nausea and tears. When I think about it now, it makes me think of the women who stood at the foot of the cross- silent, tearful, sad, and praying. And that's what I was= interceding that the holy spirit would give my friend wisdom in her words, and that God would work in the hearts of my classmates- me, a silent intercessor calling down the ranks of heaven to defend us and to defend what we believe.

I don't think anyone listened, at least not really listened. People label us as crazy fanatics, irrational and cruel. 'how can you make someone suffer like that?" they ask me....ironic since they're they ones killing someone. Even my physiology book says "Immediately after fertilization, the zygote or fertilized egg begins to divide and a new life begins." What is worse than just not agreeing with our viewpoint is the amount of anger and disdain that we encountered. I logged onto facebook that same day and a good friend of mine (who I spend a lot of time with - enough to know that we have VERY different perspectives on this subject) had posted something to the extent that if we don't agree with learning about abortion we should have gone to a Catholic medical school. This comment was obviously about my friend who was speaking up in class, but it still stung me. what's worse is that about 13 of my FRIENDS here at school liked the post and made additional comments. Of the ones I read, they were all negative towards the church and our beliefs about sex, masturbation, and the right to life. So much anger and ridicule. They must have known that I would see that- didn't they think about the fact that one of the people they are attacking and ridiculing is someone they're friends with??? I was tempted to send her an email, say SOMETHING about it- to try and speak up and put a face with the people they attacked- hoping it would turn their hearts or something. But God spoke to my heart and simply whispered "PRAY". So that's what I've been doing ....for the last 2 days I've been offering it up, fasting, and praying. Praying for my friends that seem to hate the most fundamental parts of who I and what I believe so much. Praying for an end to abortion. Praying for all the woundedness in the world. Praying that not a single soul would be lost to the fires of hell.

More than anything I'm just sad right now. I'm so sad at what we as a society have become, and the moral gymnastics that we flip to rationalize what we want. I know that the anger and all of that comes from deep inside - from hatred at seeing actions in the light. What we say is NOT what they want to hear, so they reject it whole heartedly and make us into fanatics and judgmental oppressors, when the reality is that we are the most free of everyone.

I don't really know what I'm trying to say, except- welcome to the desert.

Countdown to Jun 13, 2011 8:00 AM in Columbus

http://timeanddate.com/s/1x21

I used to be wise...

so the other night I was avoiding studying (much like I"m doing now) and I started reading some emails that I have saved from my communications with my friends. I realized that I used to be much wiser...much more centered on God. There I was receiving encouragement and inspiration from myself...from the words I sent to my dear friend. I pray you will be encouraged by them as well...and I pray that someday I may become fully God's someday.

my dear friend...it is hard to keep going in a world that is constantly telling us we're not good enough but there is one thing that gives us hope and strength...God and the truth of His love. You are perfect in HIS eyes...and it is HIS love and HIS promises. It is this truth and this consolation which makes even the darkest day bright. Your Joy in all circumstances can come from the truth that He will never leave you...that HE has great plans for your life...and that HE loves you unconditionally. He is waiting for you my friend...waiting in the tabernacle at your nearest catholic church. Waiting for you to come and let Him love you. I encourage you, especially in this time of uncertainty, to let yourself rest in the arms and the bosom of Christ. In HIm all things are made new...He loves you so much Nick and I truly pray that this can be your constant hope and inspiration. I am praying for you my friend and my brother. Take care and know that God loves you! He has plans for your life...read Jeremiah 11:39.

Jenny

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I know God is there. I'm just so deprogrammed in seeing Him. In your mission have you been able to capture that love? What are the things you look at in life that help affirm that he is there? I see HIM on occasion, but I would love to get past the negativity and always know what to look for. You know what I mean?

I do appreciate your words. I guess the things that give me hope are those who have life experience. and that can bring humanity to God's Grace. At least be able to tell me what it means to them. Please share that with me. I need an other's own struggle to overcome to be positive. It's so easy to say that everything will be okay, but it's another to have seen and be fulfilling what God has sent them to do.

God Bless,

Nick

P.S I guess I just want to hear in your own words that you think of God and the challenges you are faced.

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my dear friend...I have seen Him everywhere...even in my emptiness..even when I didn't realize I was seeing him (hindsight is 20/20). God has shown me how deeply faulted I am. My selfishness, and inability to love He has made crystal clear to me. This could be damaging except I see how this is making me a better person, a better servant. I see Him in the poor. IN their unwavering belief...we go to save them but it is them who teach us what it means to give, what it means to love. It is easy to get caught up in all that I am incompetent at doing (and believe me at times I do...I compare myself to others in the community and hate myself) but then I go before Jesus in the blessed sacrament and he reminds me how much he loves me. I am surrounded by people who are constantly reaching to become the men and women of God that He wants...not only that but I see Him and His love in my kids. in their hope...look for Him in the poor...but most importantly Nick look for Him in the blessed sacrament. There is Grace that comes from that and with each visit to confession, communion, and adoration His GRACE AND LOVE BECOME MORE APPARENT! I am not to the level of a saint where I can find good in everything but I am finally getting to where I am trusting HIm and HIS plan for my life. WE have these delusions that we can fix things, or that our strength is enough to do everything...it's NOT!! only HE is strong enough and once you give up your own will and your own strength it's easy to realize that He is in control.

God's grace is the ability to keep breathing after losing a child. It is the ability to look forward with the knowledge that one day you will be reunited. I have seen it most clearly in the hope...the people I work for who have absolutely nothing but their faith in God and a smile on their face. It is seen in forgiveness...the father who forgives his son's killer...the mother who keeps believing long after her child has been buried...and it is seen in the new life. The first time you smile...realizing that life will never been the same but that it's not supposed to. To see new life and new hope (different hopes yes...but hope nonetheless). As long as there is new life there is always hope...and as long as there is hope there is light...and the darkness can never put out that light.
It can be hard to believe in Love and hope and grace when you are always faced with more pain, more people that I can't help...but he's finally helping me understand that my strength, my resources are not enough but HE IS. That's all I can tell you...run to him in the blessed sacrament....believe even when you don't feel...and know that HE is always there waiting for you (but you don't have all the time in the world to show up). Christ in the blessed sacrament, the mass, and confession are my strength...they are what give me the grace to see the beauty everywhere.
I know these thoughts are scattered but they're the truth from my heart. I used to want to be like Mother Teresa...then I realized I need to be me. If Mother Teresa had been just like St. Teresa of Liseux then there wouldn't have been a mother Teresa. Now the question is praying and figuring out who God is calling YOU, Nick, to be...I am praying for you as always my brother! God bless !

Jenny

Dreams

I want to be back out in the mission field...some days my heart yearns so deeply to be walking along dirt roads visiting houses, treating the sick, and living a simple life, that it hurts. I know that I have to be patient and that I have to be faithful to the mission field that God has called me to here...and Now....but it's still hard. I still dream of moving to Africa, of working with the poorest of the poor, of living a life of anonymity with great love and great service. I know it's a romantic notion, an ideal that I will probably never live up to...but I miss being in the third world. You'd never guess that to look at me...but I do. I miss giving of myself, I miss being reminded that there is more to life that just what is in front of me....I miss being real and I miss passion. I must be patient, allow God to work in my heart and give me the skills that will be useful, but I pray that when the time comes He will call me to all ends of the earth to serve with compassion, skill, and love. I wonder sometimes if I'm not still being called to religious life...that life appeals to me so dearly- to spend the whole day focusing on Jesus- loving Him in the poor, serving Him in the poor, and still getting daily mass and holy hour. I dream some days of being a religious sister and serving as a physician in the darkest, poorest parts of the world. I dream of being a martyr of love and self, even to the point of death itself. I know, I know this is foolish and overly romanticized but I just want to love Jesus with all that I have and to give all that I am to Him. I want to live a life that is big and that points everyone to the Lord and His love for all of humankind. I want to be a person that is so full of compassion and charity that people think of God!

I want so many things...but for right now I have to rejoice in this mission field...in the ways I can serve Jesus TODAY...HERE...in Columbus, Ohio and not in Africa. Lord, help me to love you as no soul has ever loved you and Lord, do with me as you will... I am yours...even to the point of martyrdom!

Seamos Santos

It's hard to believe that I'm almost done with my first year of medical school. My last test is a week from today and I'm astonished. I'm astonished by how much I have learned and how much I have forgotten. I still struggle daily with my own wretchedness...how I fail to pray, fail to love God, fail to see and love Him in others. I fail in patience, and discipline, and charity, and prudence. I fail in honesty, and generosity, and in almost every way imaginable. Lord have mercy on me! I know that I must have hope though...that in my wretchedness He will find something usable, something that can contribute to His kingdom. I (try to) praise Him for all of His goodness! That He is teaching me humility and perseverance, that He is teaching me to rely on Him alone. My goal...my desire more than anything is to be holy...that I may live the phrase "Seamos santos" meaning...may we be saints. May we strive to be holy and to be wholly His and do all in love and for His glory!

I'm still struggling with how to live IN this world without being OF this world. But that is something I can learn by grace alone and through many trials and errors. I wonder some days, if I should have entered the Carmelites. The days when all I want to do is sit in adoration and spend time with the Lord (although those days are few), I wonder if my time and life would be better spent in contemplation, spent praying for all the sadness and pain and suffering in the world. Days when all I want to do is sit in my Father's arms but instead must study. In many ways going into the convent and leading a life of prayer feels easier, and more peaceful. But I know that that life has it's own struggles and difficulties, and that it's not what He has asked of me. He has asked me to find peace in the midst of chaos, and to spend my days adoring Him in the tabernacles of the sick and the dying. That I may see my patients and classmates and co-workers for what they really are, Christ in a distressing disguise. They will be my tabernacles, holding the mystery that is God inside of them. I'm trying to remind myself that in each person I see, and each patient I treat, I am treating the Lord and that God is present with me albeit in a different form than in the Eucharist which although different, is necessary.

Just an update on life in general, Monday June 14th I start my externship in family medicine. I'm excited to spend 4 weeks learning and really being with patients. I continue to work as one of 3 student coordinators for one of the free clinics here in town, and am excited to be serving as an orientation leader (with my friend Kristen) in August, and as a member of the Admissions Committee for the next 3 years. All in all, life is quite busy and fulfilling in its own way. That being said I'm still looking forward to a vacation to Hawaii with my family this summer and a trip to Honduras for Etel and Mark's wedding in July.

I continue to pray for you all, to offer up my suffering (however small it may be) for you and your intentions. Please continue to pray for me as well! SEAMOS SANTOS!!

"The end for which we are created invites us to walk a road that is surely sown with a lot of thorns, but it is not sad; through even the sorrow, it is illuminated by joy."- Bl. Pier Giorgio Frasatti

Encouragement

So we have a massive test coming up in a week. It's over 90 bacteria, 90 diseases, and 90 different antibiotics to treat them all. We have to know epidemiology, symptoms, treatments, etc. Basically it's a crap load of information...and I'm scared. I'm scared and anxious...and I'm scared that my anxiety will cripple me like it did for the last test. (On my last test I changed 6 right answers.) At our "review" session yesterday my heart was racing and my chest was tightening...and I'm petrified that this will be like my practice MCAT all over again. So I'm praying right now for grace. For the grace to be at peace and to have no anxiety. Again I feel that this is my strongest witness to my faith, the ability to be calm and at peace in the middle of all of this.

Then there's Pier Giorgio. My wonderful sister Heather sent me a CD on him for Valentines day. I listened to it on my way to visit a friend yesterday and I sobbed and had to stop it half way through. He is everything I strive to be and yet fail to be. He managed to live in the world and have friends who weren't Catholic and still be authentic to who he was and who God was calling him to be without alienating anyone. I haven't learned how to do that yet. I want to!! I want to call others to holiness not by nagging them or acting pious but merely by being who God created me to be. But I'm afraid I missed the boat here. I've been so overtly Catholic that I think people might not want to be around me. I don't know how to balance going out with people and having fun with being a saint (or a striving saint at least). I'm greatly saddened that I cannot find this balance and that I cannot figure out how to be a witness of holiness. That's what I want more than anything! To give myself completely to Christ and to be wholly his! That when I die people would say that I made them want to love God by my love and passion for Him

I have failed...and miserably. I'm overbearing and falsely pious and a wretched, wretched sinner. But I have to keep trying. I can't give up. so this lent I ask Bl. Pier Giorgio to help me live in this world without being OF this world. To enflame my faith and grant peace to my heart. To help me increase in charity and love for all those around me. That I may continue to go to daily mass and pray even though I'm overwhelmed and stressed. To help me to radiate peace and charity at all times...especially when I have nothing left to give and can only rely on the one who gives all things.

So now I ask for your prayers...all 2 of you who read this blog. That next Friday (and all of this lent) you would please pray for me. That God, the God of peace and love, would grant me freedom from my anxiety. That any success and glory may be completely for HIM. That I may learn how to be a witness of Christ merely through my love for Him; not seeking attention or praise for my faithfulness but acting out of ardent love for He who stays with us in the Eucharist. That others may be drawn closer to God by His love for them reaching through me...that I may be a pencil in His hand...a mere instrument to be used by Him for His will and purpose.

Bl. Padre Pio ....pray for us!

St. Gianna...pray for us!

St. Rita...pray for us!

St. Raphael ....pray for us!

Venerable John Paul II...pray for us!

Bl. Mother Teresa...pray for us!

all you holy men and women....pray for us!

"God is faithful, says Holy Scripture, and He will not allow you to be tried beyond your strength...whatever the trial, He will see you through it safely, and so enable you to endure...you are like a piece of pottery, shaped by instruction, fired by tribulation. When you are put into the oven, therefore, keep your thoughts on the time when you will be taken out again, for God is faithful, and He will guard both your going in and your coming out.¨

-St. Augustine

Br. Lawrence of the Resurrection

"The first means to acquire the Presence of God is great purity of life. The second is great fidelity to the practice of this presence and to the fostering of this awareness of God within, which must always be performed gently, humbly, and lovingly, without giving in to disturbance or anxiety. We must take special care that this inner awareness, no matter how brief it may be, precedes our activities, that it accompanies them from time to time, and that we complete all of them in the same way. Since much time and effort are required to acquire this practice, WE MUST NOT GET DISCOURAGED WHEN WE FAIL, for the habit is only formed with effort, yet once it is formed we will find contentment in everything. It is only right that the heart, the first to beat with life and the part that controls the rest of the body, should be the first and the last to love and adore God, whether by beginning or by completing our spiritual and physical activities, and generally, in all life's' exercises. It would be appropriate for beginners to formulate a few words interiorly, such as: "My God, I am completely yours," or "God of love, I love you with all my heart," or "Lord, fashion me according to your heart," or any other words love spontaneously produces. But they must take care that their minds do not wander or return to creatures. The mind must be kept fixed on God alone, so that seeing itself so moved and led by the will, it will be obliged to remain with God. This practice of the presence of God, somewhat difficult in the beginning, secretly accomplishes marvelous effects in the soul, draws abundant graces from the Lord, and when practiced faithfully, imperceptibly leads it to this simple awareness, to this loving view of God present everywhere, which is the holiest, the surest, the easiest, and the most efficacious form of prayer."
- Br. Lawrence of the Resurrection


I take hope from this. I have been feeling so confused lately. I blame part of it on the wretched weather we have here in Ohio. It's not hard to get depressed when you never see the sun. But more than that, I'm sad because I keep trying and striving for holiness and I keep failing.

Two things have happened in the last few days to discourage me, and one thing that surpasses all of those to encourage me.

First the discouragement:

1) while out with some friends on Friday night a friend of mine (who is not a believer) after drinking, told me that people thing I'm a gossip and that they are scared to tell me things b/c they're afraid I will judge them.
This saddens me beyond belief, and I have wracked my brains to try and evaluate if I have been gossiping (one of my greatest sins of the past) and I don't think I have been. I was also saddened that people feel that they can't approach me b/c I'm too religious. I know I came on strong at first but I don't want to deny who I am. I prayed that God would show me what to do. I pray that He will teach me to be a beacon of love in this world, that although they may think I'm too religious, when they need the truth and are ready to seek the truth they will come to me.

2) talking with a professor of mine (who IS a believer) she informed me that she was talking with a classmate of mine and encouraged her to spend time with me (since we are both "non traditional" students) and that classmate informed her something to the extent of "Oh, no. I can't. She's always trying to convert me to be Catholic or something..."

this also made me sad...I've only had a few conversations with this person, and admittedly all of them have been pretty intense but she started most of them. So I got home and took it to Jesus, and He soothed my soul. So what if people think I'm trying to convert them, I know that most of that is just how she perceives what I say and not necessarily WHAT I say. I will not apologize for who I am or for what I believe.

The encouragement:
I was in adoration on Saturday and Jesus spoke to my heart. He told me it's okay if I feel like a failure. That he fell three times on the way to crucifixion so that we would know that he understands what it's like to fail and to fall and to feel like a complete failure. That what matters is that we get back up again and keep trying. I had the most wonderful time praying the sorrowful mysteries and I again felt the Lord loving me....encouraging me to continue to love Him and especially to love Him for all those who don't love Him.

So as we prepare for lent, I'm getting back up off the ground again. Recognizing my wretched weakness and pride. Fearing that I am disappointing the one I love more than life itself. I pray that this lent I can continue to draw closer to Him and to love Him with all that I have. I know that God alone is enough and that if I have Him all will be well. Please pray for me as I do for all of you.