Leaving God at the Altar

My youngest, Miss Sicky Sickerson 

It's Lent.  This week, my TLM parish was/is holding a 3-day mission, given by a visiting priest, Fr. Joseph Tuscan, OFM.  My husband and I had plans to go, especially yesterday, Tuesday, for my birthday.  We both have missed the first two days and tonight, the final night, will be no different.

Our household is currently battling the stomach bug.  It's been hanging out since Friday, passing through a few of us at a time.  The littler ones are continuing to exhibit some symptoms, though the majority of their suffering seems to have passed.  The hubs and I are feeling mostly better, with still-queasy stomachs and slight weakness from not eating.  

In any case, my dear friend posted on Facebook a couple notes she took from one of the talks from the mission, and I was so blessed to be able to receive the message through her, but also felt frustrated and disappointed that I could not be there in person for the entire experience:  Confession, Mass, then the talks given by Fr. Tuscan.  I had been looking forward to it, and am still feeling the sting of not being able to go because of the sickness in my household.  I feel cheated out of this extra time with the Lord, a special Lenten gift so generously offered by our priests.  

It's always so difficult to really take advantage of all that Lent has to offer in the ever-growing desire to empty out oneself and draw closer to the Lord. Lent is traditionally the liturgical season to put specific focus on this, although it's a crucial practice in your every-day, but especially within a large, busy family, sometimes Lent sneaks up on you. And sometimes your best-laid plans to really make Lent meaningful and fruitful in your spiritual journey actually end up by the wayside, or, in our current case, down the drain. This can happen for so many reasons, including laziness, or a lack of self-discipline and/or diligence.  It's one thing to be in control of it, and to then be disappointed in yourself for not following through, but it's a whole other issue to have those plans be destroyed by something you can't control, like sickness running through your household.

It's frustrating, to say the least.  But it's also humbling.

I recently came across this really insightful quote from St. Francis of Rome, and then came across it again just this morning, and since then it has been a source of great comfort (and humility) to assuage the despair in missing out on the mission, as well as a few other practices within our home we had incorporated for Lent but have been too sick to execute these past few days.  Read: 

"A married woman must often leave God at the altar to find Him in her household care."

This speaks volumes to me as I navigate the remnants of the virus and its aftermath, as well as the disappointment of missing out on my * planned * means of Lenten devotions.  This week of Lent, God has called me away from the altar, away from the "easy" means to love, worship, and draw closer to Him.  He has called me not to a beautiful church with its peace and quiet, not to an organized retreat with Mass and words of wisdom from a beloved priest, not to a respite with my husband from the nitty-gritty of daily life with many children, but to ground zero of a horrible sickness in all of its gory detail, to sleepless nights, to a clingy, fussy baby who wants to constantly nurse.  He has called me to find Him amidst the chaos of a household in distress.  

In this Lenten season, we are called to choose special devotions, sacrifices and offerings in order to empty ourselves out so to be filled with the Holy Spirit, to unite ourselves to Christ on His cross, His passion and death, to truly realize our humble humanity, as well as the magnanimity of Christ's love: His life offered up for us.  Having a particular suffering chosen for us doesn't negate the other, but it can, in its own right, provide a means of grace, as well as a kind of devotion and love to offer up to our King.  I may not have chosen this particular mode of suffering and sacrifice, but I can choose how to utilize it: as either a humble offering, uniting myself to His passion, or as a source of complaint and despair.  

I choose the former.







PS.  A few quick notes, practical and spiritual 😇  : 

Practical: In my desperate search for how to best attack the Noro virus (the most common culprit for the stomach bug), I found that you MUST get a cleaner that specifically says that it will kill Noro. It would be good to maybe keep this stuff on hand from Nov-April when this type of virus is in its prime.  Lesson learned for me.  Fortunately, we've NEVER in our 15 years of parenthood had to deal with this relentless illness, at least not to the extreme we have been, but there's always a first time for everything, right? Incidentally, I am normally a pretty crunchy/naturally-minded person for our household but I felt like this called for the big guns. 

We bought several things: 

(NOTE: these are NOT affiliate links and I didn't necessarily order these products all from Amazon) 

*Purell Multi-Surface
*Lysol Max cover; hubs chose garden after the rain scent which is not too offensive
*Clorox Healthcare w/Hydrogen Peroxide, cleaner and also wipes  
*Germstar Noro hand sanitizer 

I read that you can also use hydrogen peroxide 3% on its own.  To appease my psychological despair over all.the.germs, these killer cleaners seemed like a better suit for us.


Spiritual: (And shameless plug).  Inspired by the notes from Tuesday's talk which my friend had posted, coupled with our sickness experience, I wrote a blog post on The Final Battle blog.  If you need some inspiration about forgiveness in your marriage, I hope you will find it here.

Stripped Bare

Life can be difficult.

[Duh.]

When you're facing something that is difficult, human nature often makes you feel a little afraid.

You look down the long, dark corridor and reach into the space beside you, hoping there is a hand with which to cling.   When it's the corridor of labor, as in to bring a child forth from your body, hopefully that hand is your husband, your midwife, your doula, someone who loves your heart and is trustworthy in the feat of guiding you through.  It makes it easier.  Somehow, you are not so afraid.  When someone is with you, each step forward is much less scary.

In life, it is much the same.  But...sometimes there isn't a hand there.  Sometimes you just have to have faith that though you see no hand to hold, nothing tangible to cling to, you can walk through the corridor and come out on the other side unscathed.  Because even though there is no human hand to hold, Christ is there holding not just your hand, but your whole life.  Every breath. Your feet, your movements, your meager steps, each counted and upheld by the same hands and feet which were pierced through to save.  To save YOU.

Jude, a dear friend of mine, recently told me that my current life-state sounded so much like Lent, she wondered what Lent actually looked like for me.  That was even before Lent began!

I try not to complain but I feel like I have a lot lately.  I am weak.

But in my weakness, Christ's strength is made perfect.

Ya know, every mama gets to that point where enough is enough is enough.  It's one thing after another and in this long labor of raising children and keeping a home, there are bound to be a few moments years of rough patches, where things just keep rolling along, gathering momentum, pulling in anything and everything in its path.... One big gigantic snowball looming and ready to roll over and crush you.

I'm at that point of throwing my hands up and shaking my fist at the sky.  But....BUT last night, I remembered Jude often encouraging me to just surrender.  SURRENDER.  So I did. Palms up, in my kitchen, I surrendered.

The moment was heavy and broken.  Shards of my life weighed me down.  I was attempting to pull out a plastic cup which got lodged in the garbage disposal.  This, after retreating from a battle I didn't even begin with the hot water heater which was leaking all over the laundry room floor, soaking blankets and other random clothes awaiting wash.  That, after spending the last three days cleaning up puke and washing my hands a thousand times because my two boys have been sick with "THE PLAGUE," one currently at the hospital.  And ALL THAT after the last two years of other devastating and difficult things.  Don't get me wrong, I know everyone is battling so much. I know this. I'm not an exception. I'm not saying my issues are bigger or more terrible than those of anyone else.

But even Christ needed help carrying His cross.

So there I am, trying to dislodge this cup which was the proverbial straw for me, and I felt like I might explode. I am in the middle of this dark corridor of life, crying out into a vacuous space, and I hear a voice telling me to just surrender.   I am being stripped bare.  A lodged cup or a busted hot water heater, or even sick kids puking for 3 days is NOT the end of the world.  This I know.  But those little things on top of the larger things that remain a constant, they were just too much at that moment.

Strip me away, Lord.  Strip me away.

So last night, my dear friend Jude lends me some really beautiful words.  Words that soothe; balm to my soul. 

"Try to imagine that you are tending to Our Lord as he makes his way through the narrow streets toward Golgotha. Be Veronica...with every puke sheet you wash, every bottom you wipe, every drink of water you offer...tend to Jesus in His Passion.  Imagine Our Blessed Mother and how her heart was aching to see his open flesh and dripping blood. Imagine how she, too, must have felt that God, Her Father in Heaven was stripping her, like you, to bare bones that first Lent. Imagine how she must have felt that she could not bear one more moment. But, she did. And, so will you. You are a STRONG WOMAN, Rebecca."

Being stripped bare is no joke, people.  And if you are unwilling, it can be all the more painful and messy.  But as I look around my house, disheveled, filled with germs, laundry piling up, broken things to be fixed, and as I look into the deepest darkest corners of my heart, my life, my personality, broken me to be fixed, I see a mess, yes... but it's a beautiful mess.   All this stripping down to bare bones is teaching me something.  Everything.  I have to conform my sufferings to Christ's sufferings and continue down this dark corridor of labor, of life. 

My friend had a few other words for me which gave me pause. Made me think.  Ushered in a new perspective.

“You ARE truly the Cyrenian; helping Jesus to carry His cross. It is good that you surrendered. He WILL provide the grace for you to persevere and because you are willing to accept that grace, you will make it through.”

I am helping Christ carry His cross?

Apparently I am.  And I have no doubt that He is indeed giving me grace.  I have no doubt on that dark day when Jesus was crucified, Simon the Cyrenian was given multitudes of grace.  That his selfless act of helping a broken Christ to literally carry the weight of the world up a mountain was more for his benefit than Jesus'.  Simon himself was being stripped bare, even though he could not know this.  What an amazing gift to a poor sinner to suddenly without notice be given the opportunity to carry Christ's cross!

Life can be difficult, yes.  The sufferings we experience, be they marathon sickness or broken appliances, losing a loved one to cancer or rejection of family, are all meant to gift us with grace.  To draw us to Christ.  To bring us home.  In our weakness of being stripped bare, we are made new and Christ's strength is seen.  Do not run away from suffering.  Stop living your life trying to avoid every single uncomfortable thing.  Pick up that cross and allow yourself the gift of suffering, the weakness and humility, the hardship. There is a point to it.  When the gray skies clear and the heaviness has rolled away, there is light.  A purpose.  A hope.

So step forward into the darkness!  Trudge on!  Labor away! You. can. do. it.  He will give you grace and you WILL make it through.

I promise.