Starving for God and on Diet Pills? Why?

I spent almost my whole life starving for God, although I didn't realize that I was. Imagine that you're ravishingly hungry, but you find a way to turn off your "appetite switch," so that you no longer look for food or eat food. A dieter's dream!

Well, that's not so great when it comes to God. I was truly wasting away inside. 

Years of my life were spent searching for something, but I never quite knew what it is. Yet then, there was the time I stopped searching. I didn't think there was anything out there to find.

There's a way to turn off your natural appetite for God, and that is turning off your "God switch." You see, when you suppress feelings of guilt, fear and weakness, you can become convinced you no longer have a need for God. Your appetite for God is suppressed along with those very natural human feelings.

It's like taking diet pills. And, it works. When you don't believe you need God, your "religion" becomes "personal empowerment" and "manifesting abundance" and feeling good and free to do whatever it is you want.

Most people I know are taking those diet pills. You may be happy, but so are people taking speed so they won't want to eat. I promise you, you're starving.

It was hard to give up spiritual appetite suppressants. Coming to terms not only with my past, but also with the truth of the human state of being sinners, was the hardest thing I ever did. I didn't want to look at it. I didn't want to admit defeat, that following my own will had led me nowhere or into dangerous ground.

Little did I realize, when you take that terrifying leap into repentance, you do really break into pieces, but it doesn't matter. Your fall is cushioned in the greatest peace and the deepest love you've ever known. Your soul is really satisfied. And, the real you may get up off the ground for the first time.

Feast Day of St. Albert of Jerusalem- Today!

Today is an important Carmelite feast day. Today, we celebrate the feast of St. Albert of Jerusalem, lawgiver of Carmel. For those of you who are not Catholic, the Church as a whole celebrates certain feast days, but certain religious orders have feast days of their own, such as the feast of St. Albert.

St. Albert is important to Carmel because he was the one who brought the hermits of Carmel together under one rule, to help them live together in community, during the early 1200's. (I imagine bringing community rules to hermits might be a bit like herding cats!) The Carmelite community respected St. Albert and so requested him to write the rule that would structure the community.  The Rule of St. Albert is still followed today, although modified slightly for nuns, monks, friars and secular communities. The rule is followed in both branches of Carmel- OCDS and O.Carm. Our rule is one of the earliest monastic rules, and it is the shortest.The Rule of St. Albert was considered very strict even at the time he wrote it. The Rule requires rigorous fasting and time in silence.

St. Albert was born in 1149 in Parma, Italy as Albert Avagadro. Her served as Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem from 1204 until his death. In 1214, he had been invited to the Fourth Lateran Council, but was assassinated in Acre on the Feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross by a disgruntled cleric.

Prayer:
Lord God, through Saint Albert of Jerusalem you have give us a Rule of life according to your Gospel to help us attain perfect love.  Through his prayers may we always live in allegiance to Jesus Christ and serve faithful until death him who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit one God, for ever and ever. Amen

Carmelite Tradition and the Exaltation of the Cross Day

Today is the Feast Day of the Exaltation of the Cross. This day is important in Carmelite tradition, because the Rule of St. Albert, which all our constitutions are based on, declared that all Carmelites should fast from this day until Easter. That's right. You didn't read that wrong. Seven months out of the year- fasting. Fasting does not always mean going completely without food. Rather, it means eating less or skipping certain meals. Luckily, Carmelites are no longer required to fast for seven months!

In fact, I'm sure the early Carmelites would not have been able to eat this delicious cake we ate today, made by Terry Ianora. It's chocolate with white icing and a cross made out of chocolate chips. Yummy!

Today was one of the best days I've spent at Carmel Maria Regina Monastery. Our community of Secular Carmelites spends one Saturday a month at the monastery with mass, liturgy of the hours, prayer, meetings and formation classes. Today was nice because of the theme we had of "embracing the cross." For our Lectio Divina time, we meditated on a poem by St. Teresa of Avila called, "Embracing the Cross." The poem was read three times, with time for us to meditate a while and then discuss. Each time, we saw more in it as a group and even on the final reading, I noticed things we hadn't mentioned. It's a very rich and meaningful poem that doesn't really seem that way upon the first reading.

So, we contemplated most of the day what it means to "embrace the cross." I came to understand some things for the first time. When the cross is exalted in our minds and in our hearts, our attention is focused completely on God. In her poem, St. Teresa says, "Be cloistered in Him." In her lifetime, she often said, "The greatest cloister is ourselves." She is talking about going within that secret place deep within us where we can be alone with God. From that still place, chaos in the world and intense stormy emotions can move through the soul and yet the soul is at peace with God. St. Teresa wants us to nurture the sanctity of that place in our hearts. The only way to do that is to exalt the cross and to embrace the cross.

Later in the afternoon, my formation class continued our study on The Spiritual Canticle by St. John of the Cross. I had an immediate affinity for the first 12 stanzas because they were about intense emotions. I intuitively understood those stanzas almost "word for word" as St. John explained them in his commentaries. Stanzas 13-24 thoroughly confused me, so I was glad to have a class to help me understand it better. In these stanzas, the soul moves from a "purification" stage to an "illumination" stage. In the first section, the soul is emotional because the soul has just experienced God but has too much confusion and emotional turmoil to really be still and be with Him. In the second section, the soul progressively learns to move beyond the senses and emotions.

Coincidentally (yeah, right!) this is the same thing I've been most focused on working on in spiritual direction lately. Being still, in quiet, "dispassionate," and at peace is a process St. John describes well. In that place of peace, we find Christ. In that place of deep stillness, we find the Cross, learn to exalt and embrace it in our lives.

I'd say this was a good day :)