Divine Mercy- What Does It Even Mean?

Today is Divine Mercy Sunday. "Mercy" is a difficult concept for me to wrap my head around. I imagine others have some of the same issues I do with the word, "mercy." It's just feels unfamiliar and odd to even say. 

I spent several years following a philosophy that people should not feel guilt or fear. In order to have "personal power," you would fight these feelings and the beliefs that produce them as the enemy. Any form of judgment of self or others was to be avoided, and guilt and fear feelings were usually considered to be the feelings of a victim. An empowered person would avoid those experiences at all costs. So, if there was no need for guilt or fear, there could be no need for mercy. Pleading for mercy would even seem to many as evidence that religion was harmful.

I think at the time I followed this spiritual path, it felt like what I needed. I needed to fight self-criticism. I needed to fight self hatred. You see, I grew up with a mother who honestly did not love me. She wanted to. But, for whatever reason, she couldn't. Even as a baby, she avoided caring for me when she could, leaving that to my father and a nanny. My earliest memories were of her pushing me away, shutting doors so she could be alone, and of her telling me I was a bother. 

As I grew older, her criticism was intense and harsh, but being rejected by your own mother to begin with is enough to wound, even if she doesn't speak to you at all. So, of course I would do anything to flee from that pain, including following a spiritual path that insisted that people never do anything wrong, and that to criticize or judge them at all goes against unconditional love. I had to have a break from the constant psychological onslaught in my head. It remained a constant battle, despite six years of making fighting it my main focus.

In other words, all of that effort did no good. It was, as the expression goes, a "band-aid for a bullet wound." I learned how to ignore self-criticism through the spiritual path I was following, but all of the energy I drew from ignoring it went into the service of myself. That's what "personal empowerment" is. I did very well. A book I wrote and self-published sold over 20,000 copies. I bought a new Audi. I looked and felt successful, and I credited it to my teachers. Crediting them was helpful to their careers because that helped them gain more students and thus more income. 

At one point, the bottom fell out of all that. The teacher I had thought was the next thing to God and who I had sworn to follow to eternity said he couldn't be my teacher any longer. And so, I became lost. Before then, I had created an altar to myself, focused on myself as a goddess and did incantations to produce "prosperity and abundance" in my life. That worked. I had spent hours staring in a mirror trying to "love myself perfectly" because that is what he told me to do. But, towards the end, without his support, I saw a demon in myself in the mirror. I began to dream of demons and eventually, I had the crushing realization that I had betrayed the God I knew so well as a child.

Of course, I'd known it all along, but I pushed those thoughts aside. I believed that they were parasitic, sucking the "personal power" I was trying to attain. There's no real excuse for what I did, wounded or not. I knew deep down that to try to be God (or a goddess) was the opposite of my Christian faith. It took ending that relationship with my teacher to wake up and face the decision I made and when I did, I could not forgive myself for it.

Following that time in 2006, I ceased to care about anything. I was diagnosed as agoraphobic. I did not want to leave my home. I found out I had some neurological problems and shouldn't be driving. I was also diagnosed as autistic for the first time. I kept myself occupied with computer games to shut out the pain. I believe for six or seven years, I also blamed myself for "failure" in life because of that very reason- that I didn't care about myself or my life, so I had ceased to accomplish anything, like building my career or having a family. I wasn't suicidal at that time, but I also didn't do more than just "exist." I went on disability. I was flat and felt nothing, day in and day out, for years. Often, I actually thought of myself as being like the "walking dead." And truthfully, I was. Once I stopped fighting guilt, it swallowed me whole, only worse than before. 

Three years ago, I started an RCIA program and two years ago, I became Catholic. I started to put God first more and more. I swore to consecrate my life and every breath and every heartbeat of it to Him and I have not wavered in my dedication to that aim. I know I'm doing the right thing, with absolutely no doubt, even though I am doing the opposite of what I was taught for years through my previous "spiritual path." In the process, I've been rebuilding a better life, based on Christ as the foundation. The "real me" has started to emerge, a new creation in Him. I am a person I never knew before and I am living in increasing peace and joy.

Learning who I am now leads back to the concept of "mercy." What does it mean to me? At first, I thought it was thinking God was a harshly and unfairly judgmental person and so you had to plead for mercy so He didn't crush you like a bug. But, that is not what mercy is. That would just be how I felt as a child. So, then I thought maybe mercy was realizing that because we're sick and wounded, we can't help but do the things we do, so we shouldn't judge or criticize ourselves for it at all. But, that's not what mercy is. That's what my past spiritual teachers thought, but it was not that.

So, what is mercy if it is neither of these two things? I prayed for it for the past two years with absolutely no clue what I was praying for, honestly. But, it's actually something in the middle, between these two extremes. God's mercy is about admitting when we sin against God but also accepting His compassion for us in our human condition. It has taken me a long time to reach this place of "balance" within myself. During Lent, it all started to "click" more and more.

The Divine Mercy Chaplet is important because I think most people in the world today don't know they need mercy, or they have been taught to fight those desires, or they don't believe deep down that God is merciful and loving. It's not just me who struggles with these issues, although I did have "all the above." And so each year, including the year I became Catholic, I've prayed the Divine Mercy novena. There is medicine in repentance but the healing of our soul is not complete without acceptance of His mercy. Only through praying for mercy for others did I begin to realize what it means for myself.

For more information:

http://thedivinemercy.org/news/story.php?NID=2985

No matter how you hurt, God is not a drug.

Lately, I've had a lot going on in my head. For those who remember, in my last blog post, I was stressed and overwhelmed. I have good news for you that I've been resolving things. When I first published that post, I wanted to take it down. It seemed too personal. Yet, when I received comments on Reddit that people really related to what I was going through and that it helped them, it was worth it.

I thought I was doing too much, pushing too hard. I even thought I was on the verge of hypomania. I saw my psychiatrist yesterday and he said I'm doing better than he's ever seen me. He said the last thing I need to do is worry about how I'm doing. But, growth hurts sometimes. It's tough.

Last week, I wrote about trying to learn how to stop myself from driving myself crazy. The odd message I felt God wanted to give me is that I didn't need to stop His love. What I felt Him say confused me. It made no sense and wasn't the answer I was looking for. But, now, I understand. Let God out, let Him run free through my body and soul. Give God unbridled access to living through me. Then, I don't have to worry about stopping. I just need to let Him start and not stop HIM.

This doesn't mean I don't take breaks, rest, meditate, pray, know when I've gone too far and quit activity. It means exactly that I DO need to do all those things. I need to do those things because if I don't, I put limits on God and what He can do. Just like He told us, His yoke is easy and His burden is light.

I'm an intense person, no doubt about it. I have the wide feeling range of a bipolar, the laser like focus of an autistic and sometimes, anxiety attacks on top of it all. So, I can relate to just about anybody who is a little crazy.

I remember years ago, when I worked as a mental heath case manager, I had a client who called me up and said, in a terrified, gasping voice, “Laura, I NEED you, I need you, come here.” I asked her why and she just cried and repeated, “I need you.” So, since I made home visits, I drove way out to her trailer in the Appalachian mountains. When I opened the door, there was my client, with a shotgun pointed at her mother. I won't say much further except to say that all survived, she went to jail and I quit my job.

Sometimes, I have felt that way myself. Now, I don't mean I've felt like I would point a gun at anybody, but I've felt that desperate, terrified need. So many times, I pray to God in that voice, “I need you! I need you!” I will often flash back to that client when I feel that, thinking, “Wow. The pain!” Anyone with anxiety disorder can relate, I am sure. It isn't even logical.

I used to approach communion like that quite a lot. I wanted to be fed with God's comfort and love. I would return to my pew and sometimes cry with joy. Jesus became a drug. So, my spiritual director asked me, “What kind of way is that to treat anyone you love? Next time when you receive communion, pray that the sacrament will give you the strength to serve Him.”

Wow. That was around nine months ago that we had that conversation and I have always said those words in prayer before communion and after. It's made a huge difference in my life. I've learned things this year about the great sacrifice Jesus made for us. He gave us everything. My job is to learn to give everything back, to learn to give as He did.

I've had thoughts spinning around in my head this week about how Jesus told St. Peter that if he loved Him, he would feed his sheep. In other words, if St. Peter loved Him, he would show mature love and give until it hurt.

Over the past nine months, I've learned more every day about how to grow in maturity and love. The secret to my happiness is to push forward instead of sliding into anxiety verging on despair. For instance, instead of crying, “Jesus! Jesus! Jesus!” as if in panic from the bottom of a well, awaiting rescue, I've learned something that feels really novel and unique to a former Protestant.

I've learned how to offer Him up. I can lift up my arms to God and hold Him high and say to God, “Behold, your son. Jesus! Jesus! Jesus! There is nothing worthwhile I can offer you except for this.” Jesus died because we had nothing at all to offer God without Him. If I don't offer Him up, I still have nothing. To give Jesus to God, as the gift Jesus wants to be, is amazing. We do it every time in the mass. We do it every time we pray the Divine Mercy Chaplet.

Jesus is the only worthy gift to give to God, but if we seek to merge our lives with His, we will grow in holiness and love. How do we merge with Him? Give like Him. Give like he does, and that means all we have and all we are. Yet, I have to remember that when I'm keeping myself insanely busy, trying to justify myself and prove myself, impress people and get approval, I'm not making any room for Him to live in me. Everything I do is absolutely worthless without Him. Remembering this is a constant challenge for me.

There is so much pain in our world, so much tortured misery. We have extreme violence erupting all over our planet and we have since the day we left Eden. We cry out to Jesus, “We need you,” and then we make ourselves crazy with activity to try to kill the pain, when really, we need to learn to serve Him. Only then can we have peace.

Stress and the Compulsive Carmelite

I've been away from this blog for a while because of several changes in my life. The most important was the decline in my father's health. My father, who suffers from Parkinson's Disease, intermittent dementia and heart problems, has been in the hospital all week and is going into a nursing home tomorrow, which will hopefully be temporary. Hopefully, his condition can be rehabilitated back to his previous level. My week has been rife with anxiety over my father's condition and with family problems causing great stress in general. My relationship with my father has always been the most important relationship in my life. I'm a Daddy's girl. I adore him. Even the thought of his suffering at all stabs me in the heart.

Also, a very good thing happened over the past week. I was able to receive my grant funding in order to further my efforts in publishing and also to produce e-books and apps. At first, I was ecstatic, but then the glow dissolved into the realization that I need to follow my business plan carefully and make meeting my goals happen. New world, new business, new frontier, with expectations. I felt a bit intimidated and anxious, although still confident, overall.

Any student who has taken Psychology 101 knows that significant life events, both good and bad, can be equally stressful. Stress has more to do with life changes in general than with our experience of whether we like them or not. And, changes are a bit harder for people on the autism spectrum. I've had to make a lot of changes to my routines, schedules, and conceptualization of things. Through all this time, I've been told I am handling it all really, really well.

Why? Well, it's not because of coping skills. It's not because I'm doing anything new really. Something natural is happening. Yes, really. I'm truly grateful. For about a couple of months before I first became Catholic, I started praying the Liturgy of the Hours two and three times a day. At the time I started, I was depressed and it WAS a coping skill to pray throughout the day. Now, ten months later, it has become a habit. Shortly after becoming Catholic, I began to seek out novel ways to complicate my life. I tried to do the Sacred Heart Novena nine times a day for nine days. That went so well that after 21 days, I gave up trying to do it at all. I started a checklist of all the various prayer practices I wanted to integrate into my day, and frustrate and berate myself daily and weekly by my inability to reach even 50% of my goals.

At long last, I went to my spiritual director, Father Richard. He explained to me that prayer should be “natural” and “organic.” My first thought was about hippies selling chemical free vegetables. The concept of natural prayer did not compute. Why not? Not trusting myself had a lot to do with it. So, I let go of all but two prayer practices, at Father Richard's request. I started to notice an interesting thing: spontaneous, natural prayer began to happen.

Walking downtown in Eugene presents copius opportunities to pray for people who are homeless and mentally ill. I started to notice praying for them was automatic as soon as I saw them. I started noticing myself automatically praying a lot as I walked around downtown. In a doctor's waiting room, I would become aware I was reciting the Divine Mercy chaplet, just because I was thinking of someone and worrying about their well-being. Prayer just bubbles up from my heart, sometimes at the least likely times.

Secular Carmelites commit to “ponder the law of God day and night.” How does a person make that happen? I think you need to really, really want it to happen. My natural goal is today and every day to glorify God in all I do. I am blessed with unquenching desire for Him. So, I'm learning to trust the rhythms of my heart, allowing myself to pray naturally. Humans were created to praise and serve God, so of course, it should be natural.

So, I have relaxed and I have let go a lot more. I find I'm laughing more. I find I'm frazzled less. I'm naturally praying for Daddy and for the rest of my family around the clock. Instead of worrying, my habit is to pray instead. Am I coping well because prayer is a “coping skill” I am using? I don't really think so. I'm coping well because I am an instrument of prayer God is using. Nothing could be more amazing.