- I am a convert and am struggling with the idea of praying to Mary, can you help? - Part III

Q: Father John, I am a convert to the Catholic faith, and I still have difficulties with Mary. Don’t get me wrong – I believe all the dogma and doctrine fully, but when it comes to praying to Mary, I don’t seem to get it. What role is she supposed to have in my pursuit of holiness and spiritual growth?

A: She has the role of helping you cling more closely to her Son, Jesus Christ – that’s what first examined, the theological underpinning of Marian devotion. And she exercises that role in three ways, as we have seen: by her presence, her example, and her intercession. Now we are ready to drill down to the practical level. What can we do, concretely, to live this Marian devotion fruitfully, to allow our mother in the order of grace to nurture, guide, and protect our spiritual growth? Here we arrive, finally, to the most obvious and familiar aspect, Marian devotions. Marian devotions are the many different ways that individual Catholics can engage in a healthy Marian devotion.

The distinction between devotion and devotions is crucial. Catholics are not superstitious. We do not engage in ritual or pious practices as if they were magical formulae. Our devotions give form to our devotion, just as a birthday cake gives form to our appreciation of a loved one’s existence. Without the sincere appreciation, the cake would have no meaning. If we engage in specific Marian devotions without plugging into the deeper theological source that gives them meaning, these practices can become distractions or even temptations that actually hinder our spiritual growth.

Having given that warning, we are ready to mention some common Marian devotions that, when lived rightly, allow the Blessed Virgin to fulfill her role in our pursuit of holiness.

Categories of Marian Devotions

The numerous Marian devotions that have arisen and flourished in the Church can be grouped into several categories. The most common and obvious category are the prayers. Praying to Mary (not worshipping her as if she were a goddess, but acknowledging her presence, admiring her example, and asking for her intercession) is the most direct and common form of Marian devotion. And among the prayers, the Rosary holds first place. Almost every pope since 1900 has written an encyclical letter encouraging Catholics to make use of this devotion. The Memorare, the Sub tuum presiduum, the Angelus, and the Regina Caeli are other favorite Marian prayers. We could write an entire post on each one, examining its meaning and its history. Many lesser known Marian prayers exist as well, especially novenas and individual prayers composed by saints and popes. These are vocal prayers (except the Rosary, which is a combination of vocal and mental prayer), and we pray them well in the same way that we pray all vocal prayers well.

Another category of Marian devotions consists of Marian shrines. By making a visit or a pilgrimage to a Church-approved shrine, we can give our Marian devotion a turbo boost. Shrines are sometimes linked to Marian apparitions (e.g., Our Lady of Fatima, Our Lady of Lourdes) or artistic/miraculous images of Mary (e.g. Our Lady of Czestochowa, Our Lady of Chiquinquira, Our Lady of Guadalupe). The history of these events, places, and images offer eloquent (and sometimes downright awe-inspiring) testimonies of Mary’s active role in leading her spiritual children closer to the Lord. Every year, they inspire and renew the hearts and minds of millions of visitors and pilgrims.

On a day-to-day level, Catholics have long used household images to channel their Marian devotion. Reproductions of famous and powerful religious paintings and statues adorn living rooms, bedrooms, laundry rooms, dashboards, lockers, workshops, barber shops, restaurants, yards, road-side chapels, screen-savers, cell phone wallpaper, street corners, hospitals, prisons, and even casinos throughout the world. The mere fact of such ubiquity illustrates, to some extent, the powerful and inescapable role of the Blessed Virgin Mary in the life of Christ’s Church. Most parish churches will also have a prominent Marian image, either close to the sanctuary or in a side chapel. Glancing at these images, or even spending a few moments now and again contemplating them or praying to Mary in front of them (this is often called “making a visit to the Blessed Virgin Mary”), allows Mary’s spiritual motherhood to work in our lives.

Getting Personal

For someone who has not developed a favorite form of Marian devotion, this variety of devotions may seem overwhelming. Don’t worry! None of us is called to engage in all of these devotions, though all of us are called to develop Marian devotion. The key is to find one or two devotions that help you live the devotion fruitfully. If you are at level zero, I would recommend starting to pray the Rosary, one decade every day (this Rosary booklet may be of assistance). If you are looking to deepen your devotion, you may want to arrange a mini-pilgrimage to a local Marian shrine for your family, for a group of families, or maybe even for yourself. An annual Marian pilgrimage, especially during the month of May (a month in which, traditionally, Catholics give special attention to Marian devotion), is an effective way to weave Catholic traditions into the fabric of family life.

I hope these series of posts have helped answer your question and put your mind at ease about the role Mary is meant to have in our great adventure of following Christ and building his Church. But if it hasn’t, don’t worry; there’s no rush. By seeking Christ in and through his Catholic Church, you will eventually come to know, love, and feel very comfortable with the Mother of our Lord.

Yours in Christ, Father John Bartunek, LC

- I am a convert and am struggling with the idea of praying to Mary, can you help? - Part II

Q: Father John, I am a convert to the Catholic faith, and I still have difficulties with Mary. Don’t get me wrong – I believe all the dogma and doctrine fully, but when it comes to praying to Mary, I don’t seem to get it. What role is she supposed to have in my pursuit of holiness and spiritual growth?

A: God in his wisdom has given us a mother in the order of grace, Mary. He didn’t have to do it that way, but he chose to, and in the last post we examined, briefly, why. The liturgical feasts that honor Mary, the Mother of God, throughout the year provide us with opportunities to read, reflect, and meditate on this aspect of God’s plan of salvation. We shouldn’t expect those efforts to lead us to a complete and exhaustive understanding of Mariology (the study of Mary’s role in Redemption), but deeper insights into the role and ecclesial action of our Lord’s Mother will, surely, lead us closer to the Lord himself, and that’s our goal.

Having looked briefly at the doctrinal foundation of Marian devotion, we are now prepared to give a more direct answer to your question about what that devotion is supposed to look like in practice. Mary draws us closer to Christ in three ways, the three ways that all saints draw us closer to Christ, though as Queen of all the saints (and because of her special privileges, e.g., the Immaculate Conception), Mary’s draw is objectively more powerful than theirs: 1) through her presence; 2) through her intercession; 3) through her example. We’ll take a separate post to look at each one.

The Source of Mary’s Greatness

The presence of the Blessed Virgin in our lives, the knowledge faith gives us that she watches over us spiritually as natural mothers watch over their children naturally, gives us a constant reminder of the most important principle of Christian living: the primacy of grace. Mary’s greatness, unlike goddesses from pagan myths, doesn’t come from her own excellence. It comes from the privileged excellence that she received from God. The Archangel Gabriel greeted her by calling her “full of grace.” It was God’s special action in her life, his grace, that preserved her from sin and prepared her to become the New Eve. She cooperated with this grace; she was docile to what God asked of her; she allowed God’s grace to penetrate and rule her life. Yet, that grace, that action of God in her life, was the real protagonist of her greatness.

Mary is the first one to remind us Jesus’ sobering admonition: “I am the vine, you are the branches… Cut off from me you can do nothing” (John 15:5).

The same grace that was at work in the Blessed Virgin Mary has been at work in all the saints, and it is at work in us. When we were baptized, we received an infusion of that same grace. Every time we pray or receive any of the other sacraments, that same grace – the active presence of God working in our souls supernaturally, from within – continues to warm and transform into our hearts and minds, as sunlight transforms a cold, shadowy cave.

The Power of Mary’s Presence

When we turn to the Blessed Virgin Mary, therefore, her presence reminds us of the primacy and power of God’s grace, and gives a supernatural boost to our faith, hope, and confidence in God. If God’s grace performed such wonders in her, it can do the same in us. This boost of confidence is especially effective because when we turn to Mary we turn to her as our Mother. In relation to a mother, a child is always a child. In relation to Mary, we are always spiritual children. And so, her presence keeps alive in us the childlike spirit that we need in order to be docile to God’s will. It reminds us, in short, that we are not self-sufficient.

In this sense, Mary’s presence is especially important for us modern American Catholics. The American way of life, marked more and more by secularism and consumerism, is turning self-sufficiency into a real idol. Much more than previous generations do we need to reminded that we are spiritual children, that without God’s grace we can do nothing. At the risk of making this post exceedingly long, here is a quotation from a speech Pope Benedict XVI gave to the bishops of the United States during his visit in the spring of 2008. Notice how much he emphasizes the importance of depending on God – the primacy of grace:

“It is easy to be entranced by the almost unlimited possibilities that science and technology place before us; it is easy to make the mistake of thinking we can obtain by our own efforts the fulfillment of our deepest needs. This is an illusion. Without God, who alone bestows upon us what we by ourselves cannot attain, our lives are ultimately empty. People need to be constantly reminded to cultivate a relationship with him who came that we might have life in abundance.”

Mary’s presence keeps us humble, confident in God, and full of childlike docility and energy. In the next post we will look at the power of Mary’s intercession.

Yours in Christ, Father John Bartunek, LC

- Does the Holy Spirit work with those outside of the Church?

Q: I thought I understood, more or less, how the Holy Spirit works in our lives. But in a recent faith sharing group, a question came up that made me wonder. Someone asked if the Holy Spirit would or would not be with un-baptized persons if they ask Holy Spirit to dwell in them or to give them fortitude in a difficult situation. This came up while we were discussing how God's grace can touch the lives of those who have never even heard of Jesus. I was hoping you could shed some light on this for me.

A: I am glad you asked this question. It reminds us that the vast treasure of theological reflection that our Church has accumulated through the centuries isn’t just irrelevant abstraction. It has grown up organically, in order to help us understand better and better how God works, so that we can cooperate with him more and more effectively.

In the first place, remember that God is not limited to working through the sacraments. Therefore, he can make saints without them if he so pleases; he can pour his grace into souls however and whenever he sees fit. At the same time, however, he himself established the sacraments as the normal, ordinary way to communicate his grace. For us to belittle them or treat them as optional, therefore, is presumptuous. He established them because in his wisdom he knows that human nature always experiences and expresses spiritual realities through material realities. And so, something real changes in our souls at baptism: God comes to dwell in us, adopts us, and actually alters (elevates) our souls at a deep, ontological level. In other words, it is not indifferent whether or not someone gets baptized.

“Types” of Baptism

The Church has long pointed out, however, that this grace of baptism can come in three ways: through the validly administered sacrament of baptism; through baptism by blood; and baptism of desire.

• Baptism of blood refers to the martyrdom of someone who dies for the Christian faith before actually receiving the sacrament of baptism. In this case, the effects of martyrdom include some of the effects of baptism: the complete remission of sin and the privilege of immediate entrance into heaven. This concept of baptism of blood came into focus during the first centuries of the Church’s existence. During the many waves of Roman persecution, men and women who were still only catechumens (receiving instruction in the faith and preparing for baptism), and pagans who suddenly converted to the faith (for example, upon seeing the heroic courage of a martyr) were often executed along with baptized Christians.

• Baptism of desire is a bit different, a bit more mysterious. It too is the equivalent of sacramental baptism, and therefore sufficient for obtaining the state of grace and the promise of salvation. Yet the circumstances by which it comes to pass or known only to God. Here’s how the Second Vatican Council explained it: "Those who through no fault of their own, do not know the Gospel of Christ or His Church, but who nevertheless seek God with a sincere heart, and, moved by grace, try in their actions to do His will as they know it through the dictate of their conscience – those too may achieve eternal salvation" (Constitution on the Church, I, 16).

As you can see, we simply cannot fathom all the wonderful ways in which God works in the souls of us sinners. God's action is so rich!

The “Types” of Grace

As regards your specific question, about someone who is not baptized asking for help from the Holy Spirit, it may be useful to recall the different types of grace.

• There is sanctifying grace (the state of being in friendship with Christ, of being an adopted child of God, of having been redeemed from original sin). This is introduced into our lives at baptism, and it is increased, or deepened, through prayer, fidelity to God's will, and the other sacraments.

• There is also sacramental grace, a specific strengthening or benefit unique to each sacrament. For example, the sacramental grace of confession is the forgiveness of personal sins and the strengthening of our will towards future fidelity. The sacramental grace of marriage is the marriage bond which helps both spouses grow in communion with God through living their communion with each other, etc.

• Then there is what is commonly referred to as actual grace. This is a boost of supernatural help that comes to assist us in a specific situation. When we talk about "graces," this is usually what we mean – a light from the Holy Spirit, an added dose of patience when I really needed it... These actual graces are distinct from sanctifying grace. So, when non-baptized persons, who probably don’t have sanctifying grace, ask for help from the Holy Spirit, they are asking for this kind of grace, actual grace. And God is always ready to give actual graces, even when we don't ask, to draw us closer to him.

These distinctions may seem persnickety. But let’s not lose sight of the forest for the trees. Reflecting on the many ways in which God reaches out to us and stays involved in our lives reminds of the most important thing: that he is our Father, passionately interested in the smallest details of our little, limited world.

Yours in Christ, Father John Bartunek, LC

- Understanding and overcoming scrupulosity - Part II

Q: Father John, I seem to be struggling with scrupulosity. However, when I read St. Teresa of Avila and St. John of the Cross, they exhort that any small sin or attachment can keep us from union with God. How do I know if I am scrupulous or just sensitive to sin? How do I avoid taking sin too lightly? If I am scrupulous, how do I overcome it?

A: The word “scrupulous” comes from a Latin word meaning “pebble.” Like a scale that registers the weight of even the tiniest pebble, the scrupulous conscience is thrown into doubts about its love for God and fidelity to God’s will by tiny faults or questions that, objectively, should not disturb its peace. Scrupulous people feel intense anxiety after confession: “Did I confess everything? Did I confess sincerely? Did I explain everything sufficiently?” They also often feel debilitating anxiety about whether or not they are truly in the state of grace, and whether they should receive communion (when we sincerely doubt whether we are in the state of grace, we should make as sincere an act of contrition as we can, and then receive holy Communion). As we explained in the last post, this condition of over-sensitivity can cause great interior suffering.

Whether scruples arise from a combination of personality and circumstance, or whether they are more developed and a true trial allowed by God and sent by the devil, the direct remedy is the same. It consists of practicing the virtue of obedience. This is simpler for those in the religious life than in the lay life. Nevertheless, the principle is the same. Scrupulosity is like a temporary darkening of the conscience; one’s interior compass has gone haywire and you can’t tell what direction you are going in. The only way out is to let oneself be guided by an objective party, a confessor or a spiritual director who knows how to listen, is experienced in the spiritual life and in guiding others, and whom you can trust solidly. If you don’t have a regular confessor or spiritual director, but you find yourself suffering from scruples, that should be a good motivation to ask God to help you find one, then go looking.

The Task of Obedience
When you explain the situation to your director, explain fully why you think you suffering from scruples. The director will listen to the description of your situation, ask some questions, and restate what you have said in such a way that they show they have understood clearly. They may either confirm your suspicion that this is indeed a case of scruples, or they may offer another explanation – a misunderstanding about the difference between venial and mortal sin, a misunderstanding about the nature of a particular sin, another psychological factor… In either case, the key step for you is to obey. Trust that God will use your director to guide you, as he has used directors to guide all the saints. Your director will probably give you some very specific and firm points of work and instruct you to report on them. For instance, as regards the sacrament of reconciliation, he may instruct you to confess specifically only your mortal sins, and to confess all your venial sins together, as a group. He may instruct you to absolutely discard any doubts about whether you have sinned, practically ordering you to admit as sin only those actions where you have absolute, mathematical certitude. He may instruct you, even without giving reasons (scruples can blind our capacity to reason clearly), never to confess again past sins that you have already confessed. He may even tell you that if you do not trust him enough to obey, he will help you find another spiritual director whom you can trust. These kinds of instructions may be hard for you to fulfill, but fulfill them you must, if you want to make your way though the dark valley of scrupulosity and emerge back into the interior peace of a healthy, balanced conscience.

The very nature of the cure, firm and faith-guided obedience to a trustworthy confessor or spiritual director, shows why God at times permits his children (us) to suffer this painful trial: it is an excellent workout for the virtue of humility, and it is a sure way to purify us from hidden attachments.

In our day and age, a lax and lazy conscience is more often met than a scrupulous one. In either case, however, the first sign that we are deviating from the true path of moral and spiritual growth is usually inner turbulence. Our God is a God of peace, and his peace goes deep. When we lose it, that may be because we are trying to paddle through the shallow muskeg of an apparent shortcut.

Yours in Christ, Father John Bartunek

- Understanding and overcoming scrupulosity - Part I

Q: Father John, I seem to be struggling with scrupulosity. However, when I read St. Teresa of Avila and St. John of the Cross, they exhort that any small sin or attachment can keep us from union with God. How do I know if I am scrupulous or just sensitive to sin? How do I avoid taking sin too lightly? If I am scrupulous, how do I overcome it?

A: First thing: if you are sincerely concerned about not taking sin too lightly, you can rest assured that you are not taking sin too lightly. If, on the other hand, you find yourself convinced that you really don’t sin and don’t ever need to go to confession, then you are probably taking sin too lightly. All the saints were keenly aware that they were sinners and made good use of the sacrament of confession. Now on to the heart of your question.

Scrupulosity is oversensitivity to faults. It consists in seeing sin where there is no sin, which causes us to become emotionally tense and spiritually tied up in knots. It paralyzes the will, fills the mind with turbulence, and can cause intense interior suffering. Since it comes in different forms and from different sources (and since the word itself is slippery), there is no single solution. We’ll tackle this one in two parts. First we’ll look at the types and causes of scrupulosity, then we’ll examine the practical question of what to do about it.

Sin Matters

Sin is disobedience to God’s express will. It is a rebellion against God, a breaking of the eternal law. As such, it offends God (just as teenagers who insult their parents offend their parents). As a result, it disrupts, weakens, or ruptures our friendship with God. And since friendship with God is the whole purpose of our existence, sin is our arch-enemy, the source of all unhappiness and tragedy.

Today’s culture tends to minimize and belittle sin. What matters to a hedonistic, relativistic consumer society is comfort and personal autonomy. Where does sin fit into an ethos like that? There is no eternal law to break, no universal moral order against which to rebel, no Father to offend. This poisonous ethos has a powerful ally inside each one of us: our fallen human nature. We have an enemy within. We tend towards self-centeredness (to which any parent of a two-year-old will eloquently attest). This is why most spiritual directors would agree that a scrupulous conscience is less common than its co-conspirator, a lax conscience.

The essential evil of sin explains why St Teresa and St John of the Cross so fervently exhort us to mercilessly excise every sinful habit and tame every wild tendency. We must give no quarter to sin and make no compromise with temptation – just ask Eve. Sometimes the term scrupulous or scruples is used by folks who have made a pact with certain personal sins in order to criticize other folks who have refused to make treaties with the devil. Their conscience is bothering them, and the presence of people more upright than themselves exacerbates the bother, so they use the label “scrupulous” as a shield.

Personality-Based Scrupulosity

Scrupulosity understood properly, however, is an authentic spiritual difficulty. It comes most often in two forms. The first is related to certain personalities. Whether by temperament, upbringing, or a combination, some people have a strong tendency towards perfectionism. When they begin taking seriously the adventure of holiness, this tendency can help, usually by energizing their efforts and giving them staying power in the face of difficulties. But the same tendency can tangle things up. God works patiently; perfectionist tend to be impatient. This impatience can take the guise of paralyzing discouragement or even desperation in the face of one’s imperfections. Keenly aware of their shortcomings, these personalities often equate holiness with impeccability – they can start straining out gnats while they still need to stop swallowing camels.

An interior flash of self-centered anger or impatience, for example, is rightly recognized as a fault – it flows from the selfish tendencies in the soul, tendencies which are un-Christlike and need to be purified. But God is less interested in the selfish flash itself than in how we react to such things. As soon as we recognize it, we should reign it in, like a dog that wants to run out of its leash. Exerting our faith and willpower to keep that selfish flesh from turning into self-righteous judgments, wounding words, or spiteful actions – that’s what should concern us. If we think we have already sinned just because the flash flashed, we are being scrupulous. Our sinful tendencies are not sins; they can be the source of sins, if we let them. But if, with God’s grace, we fight against them, the powers of our soul will gradually be trained to react less violently and less selfishly. In that way, we grow in virtue.

Turmoil and Temptation

The second form of scrupulosity comes from the devil in the form of a temptation. In this spiritual attack, the person who is sincerely seeking holiness and has made progress towards it is suddenly confronted with doubts about what God’s will really is for them. If sin can be understood as rebellious disobedience to God’s will, holiness is its contrary: loving obedience to God’s will. But what if you start seeing God’s will everywhere? What if you start thinking that choosing which outfit to wear has as much moral and spiritual weight as obeying the commandment against murder? Well, you think to yourself, what I wear does matter to God – he wants me to reflect his dignity, but he also wants me to avoid ostentation and provocation. So what is his will for me? Which outfit should I wear?... These kind of doubts can also come in even more subtle forms. We experience a flash of interior anger; we govern it as Christ would have us; all is well. But then, we start wondering why the flash happened in the first place. Did I encourage it without realizing it? Did I allow a selfish thought to take root in my mind, and the thought bore the fruit of that flash? Am I doing something to displease God that I don’t even realize?... And we find ourselves in a labyrinth of doubts and “what ifs” and “maybes” that really torture the soul and won’t leave it in peace. It is a trial, and it can be severe, that many saints have undergone.

Sometimes this second kind of scrupulosity can also derive from psychological conditions that are clinically treatable, chemical imbalances or wounds from trauma. It is not always easy to tell the difference. Usually it takes looking at other factors and behavior patterns in a person’s life, not just the scrupulosity itself.

Those are the common manifestations of scrupulosity, or over-sensitivity to faults. More could be said about each one, but that’s enough to lay the groundwork for the next post, which will examine some tactics for dealing with scrupulosity in practice.

Yours in Christ, Father John Bartunek, LC

- How do I deal with isolation and loneliness - particularly in my spiritual life?

Q: St. Teresa, I am committed to developing my prayer life and life of virtue but I am feeling isolated, lonely, and I am struggling. What should I do?

A: A great evil it is for a soul to be alone in the midst of so many dangers. It seems to me that if I should have had someone to talk with (through my spiritual struggles) it would have helped me...

For this reason, I would counsel those who practice prayer to seek, at least at the beginning, friendship and association with other persons that have the same interest. This is something most important even though the association may be only to help one another with prayers. The more of these prayers there are, the greater the gain. Since friends are sought out for conversations and human attachments, even though these latter may not be good, so as to relax and better enjoy telling about vain pleasures, I don’t know why it is not more common that persons beginning truly to love and to serve God talk with some others about their joys and trials, which all who practice prayer undergo. For if the friendship they desire to have with His Majesty is authentic, there is no reason to fear vainglory. And when these persons overcome vainglory in its first stirrings, they come away with merit. I believe that they who discuss these joys and trials for the sake of friendship with God will benefit themselves and those who hear them, and they will come away instructed; even without understanding how, they will have instructed their friends.

Since this spiritual friendship is so extremely important for souls not yet fortified in virtue – since they have so many opponents and friends to incite them to evil – I don’t know how to urge it enough. It seems to me the devil has used the following artifice as something very important to him: those who truly want to love and to please God are as hidden as other unrighteous persons are incited to make their evil known so evil becomes so customary it seems socially justified; and the offenses committed against God in this matter are published.

…There is so much sluggishness in matters having to do with the service of God that it is necessary for those who serve Him to become shields for one another that they might advance. For it is considered good to walk in the vanities and pleasures of the world, and those who don’t are unnoticed. If any begin to give themselves to God, there are so many to criticize them that they need to seek companionship to defend themselves until they are so strong that it is no longer a burden for them to suffer this criticism. And if they don’t seek this companionship, they will find themselves in much difficulty.

…And it is a kind of humility not to trust oneself but to believe that through those with whom one converses with God will help and increase charity while it is being shared. And there area a thousand graces I would not dare speak of if I did not have powerful experience of the benefit that comes from this sharing.

It is true that I am the weakest and most wicked of all human beings. But I believe they will not be lost who, humbling themselves, even though they be strong, do not believe by themselves but believe this one who has experience. Of myself I know and say that if the Lord had not revealed this to me and given me the means by which I could ordinarily talk with persons who practiced prayer, I, falling and rising would have ended by throwing myself straight into hell. For in falling I had many friends to help me; but in rising I found myself so alone that I am now amazed I did not remain ever fallen. And I praise the mercy of God for it was He alone who gave me His hand. May he be blessed forever and ever. Amen

St. Teresa of Avila

(Adapted from Life, Ch 7, pg 92-94, The Collected Works of St. Teresa of Avila, Volume One, ICS Publications, Washington D.C. 1987)

- I am struggling with the violent content of psalms – can you provide me with insight on how you deal with this?

Q: Lately I have started praying the Psalms, even using some of the Liturgy of the Hours. Every once in awhile, I run across sections that throw me for a loop. I mean, there are phrases like “Destroy them in your anger, destroy them till they are no more” (Psalm 59:13) and “Repay them as their deeds deserve, as befits their treacherous actions; as befits their handiwork repay them, let their deserts fall back on themselves” (Psalm 28:4). It’s hard for me to pray these prayers, when I think of what Jesus said, “Love your enemies...” I know priests pray the Psalms all the time in the breviary. How do you deal with all these condemning, violent references?

A: This is a great question, and I can’t promise to give a complete or completely satisfying answer. The Bible is God’s Word, his own revelation. We have to remember that it contains much more than we can fathom. It would be naïve (at best) to think that we can fully understand the eternal Lord. St. John Chrysostom likened the Bible to a gushing spring on a mountainside. It never stops flowing with clear, cool, and refreshing water, but when we go to drink, we can’t possible take it all in. We drink a minuscule amount, just enough to slake our thirst for a while. Then we go back, but that fountain keeps gushing. So let’s try to take a cup full by reflecting on your question.

Making the Case

First, let me up your ante. The phrases you quote are tough, but we can find even tougher ones. In Psalm 140 (verses 8-11) the psalmist prays to the Lord on behalf of his enemies as follows:

Lord, do not grant the wicked their wishes, do not let their plots succeed. Do not let my attackers prevail, but let them be overwhelmed by their own malice. May red-hot embers rain down on them, may they be flung into the mire once and for all. May the slanderer find no rest anywhere, may evil hunt down violent men implacably.

In Psalm 109 (verse 8-11), the psalmist prays for God to treat his enemy like this:

May his life be cut short, someone else take over his office, his children be orphaned, his wife be widowed. May his children wander perpetually, beggars, driven from the ruins of their house, a creditor seize all his goods, and strangers make off with his earnings.

Psalm 110:6 gives praise to God in a way rather alarming to our modern sensibilities: “He judges nations, heaping up corpses, he breaks heads over the whole wide world.”

I include these quotations just to reiterate your point: this violence is not an aberration or exception in the Book of Psalms; it is present throughout, so wondering how to deal with it is a legitimate concern. And since you asked me specifically how I deal with it, that’s what I’ll tell you. I deal with it in two ways.

Real Prayer

First, passages like these can remind us that God knows how to deal with real people and their real struggles. Obviously, the author of this Psalm was writing from his heart. He makes a sincere plea that God intervene in his troubles, getting rid of their source. The psalmist is approaching God with total confidence. The psalmist is aware of his status as a child of God, a member of God’s chosen people. The psalmist is convinced that God really cares about things that matter to him personally, and that God has the capacity to intervene and make a difference. How it must have thrilled God’s heart to hear a prayer uttered with such vibrant, honest, and earthy faith! It was not the prayer of an angel, but the prayer of a man, a human being who is trying to live his God-given mission with gusto, and is faced with powerful enemies and thorny obstacles. Is that how we pray? Is that our attitude towards God?

We tend to overlook the brilliant quality of these prayers. Our attention immediately goes to the vengeful emotions and the violent emotions and desires that Jesus taught us to purify. But the psalmist lived before the fullness of revelation in Christ. There was nothing in Old Testament theology that forbade vengeance and violence against one’s enemies. The people of Israel understood only that God had chosen them to be a nation set apart, that he had promised to protect them and make them prosper, if they obeyed his commandments. Other peoples, pagan nations who didn’t know the Lord and worshipped idols, were not on the same level as themselves. Their enemies, from their perspective, were God’s enemies. God had as yet revealed neither Christ’s universal love and limitless mercy, nor mankind’s universal brotherhood in the Church. God was patiently and wisely priming history of the Incarnation when the psalmist was writing.

Emotional Power

Second, although Jesus taught us to purify vengeful, angry emotions and violent desires, the Church assures us that he never meant to eliminate them. They are part of being human. In the face of evil and unjust opposition, virtuous Christians need the help of strong emotions in order to do the right thing. The man who feels no anger at injustice may be falling into spiritual sloth. The purification of these inevitable human experiences involves directing them towards their true object: sin and the devil. The real enemy of our souls, the real enemy of the Church, is sin. And the devil is the shepherd of sin. The vehement expressions and sentiments of the psalmist are healthy when directed against sin and the devil. We should hate sin, in all its forms, though we must strive to love sinners and work energetically for their redemption. In other words, the violent images in the Psalm are an inspired way for us to understand how anti-sin we really should be.

Encountering violence in the Psalms, then, gives us a chance to learn how to be honest and passionate in our prayer, and it also turns our irascible tendencies into vital allies in our fight for truth, justice, and holiness.

Your is Christ, Father John Bartunek, LC

- What does it mean to have a "personal relationship" with Christ?

Q: Father John, what does it mean to have a "personal relationship with Christ?" I pray regularly (rosary, Liturgy of the Hours, etc) and go to mass regularly, however, I don't know that "personal relationship" would describe my understanding and experience of God. Am I missing something?

A: Maybe, but maybe not. Let’s start answering your question with a question: When you “pray and go to Mass regularly,” why do you do it? Take a moment to answer that question for yourself before you continue reading… Why do you carve time out of your busy schedule to pray and worship God the Father through Jesus Christ in union with the Holy Spirit? Most likely, your personal answer fits into one of the following three generic answers.

Falling into Routine

First, we can pray and worship out of routine. It’s like punching our spiritual time-clock. We have always gone to Mass and always prayed, ever since we were kids, and we feel a kind of comfortable inertia in continuing to do so. We have a vague sense that one ought to do such things, and we have a vague sense that if I fail to do them we will feel guilty for some reason, and we don’t want to add an uncomfortable guilty feeling to our already over-stressed emotional world. So we keep going through the motions of being a Catholic. Just as it would strike an American citizen as somehow incongruent not to celebrate the Fourth of July, it strikes a cultural Catholic as somehow incongruent not to engage in some basic spiritual practices. If you “say your prayers” just because doing so has become part of your internal comfort zone, you may have fallen into what theologians call spiritual routine.

When I was in eighth grade I remember sleeping over at a friend’s house. As we went down to the basement to go to bed, his parents were sitting on the couch watching television, the wife cuddling against the husband, who had his arm around her. They looked like a happy couple. Two months later they were divorced. I asked me friend how they could be so happy together, and then get divorced. My friend told me that they just kept up appearances for the kids’ sake, but there was no love in it. That’s falling into routine.

Fright School

Second, we can pray and worship out of fear. This can be akin to superstition. We have the idea in our heads that if we stop going to Mass, praying the Rosary, or making our morning offering, God will become angry, punish us, make our lives miserable, and maybe even send us to Hell. In this case, our spiritual commitments (prayer and worship) are like paying taxes to a tyrant, or being extorted by a strong-man: if we pay our dues, the Boss won’t bother us.

In ancient pagan religions, proper worship depended on following formulae perfectly. A priest had to offer an elaborate ceremony with perfect execution, or the god would not be pleased and it would go to waste. If during the ceremony the priest sneezed, for example, he would have to start all over again. In this religious vision, people are not children of a loving Father, but slaves of angry, fickle, and aloof deities.

Connected by Conviction

Third, we can pray and worship out of conviction. The word “conviction” comes from the same word that gives us “convinced.” Religious conviction is an internal state of assurance with regard to religious truth. The primary reason a convinced Christian prays and worships is because they sincerely believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God, our Lord and Savior, Creator and Redeemer, and that he deserves our praise and we need his grace. If our spiritual life flows from conviction, then the actual activity we engage in during our times of prayer is conscious: we pay attention to the meaning of the words, we search the Scriptures for wisdom and guidance, we lift our hearts to God in thanksgiving and adoration, and we strive to conform how we live to what we discover in prayer – to what God wants for us (God’s will). In this case, our faith actually connects our mind and heart to God during our prayer. We are not just going through motions, and we are just paying our dues; we are actually encountering the God who speaks to his beloved children through the revelation of Jesus Christ.

The Bible Reminds Us

Praying and worshipping mainly out of conviction (as opposed to routine or fear), is what it means to have a “personal relationship with Christ.” On the one hand, we know that he knows us and is interested in our life (“I no longer call you slaves… I have called you friends… It was not you who chose me, but I who chose you and appointed you to go out and bear fruit…” (John 15: 15-16). Or, as St Paul put it, “I live by faith in the Son of God who has loved me and given himself up for me” (Galatians 2:20). And on the other hand, we put forth our own effort to follow his example and teaching, as a way to stay close to him, accept his invitation to become a disciple, and participate in his great project of building up the Church for the glory of God and the salvation of souls: “If you love me, you will keep my commandments…” (Jon 14:15). Christianity is about knowing, loving, and following a person, Jesus Christ. The essence of our religion is a personal relationship of faith, hope, and love.

The Pope Hits the Nail on the Head

As Pope Benedict XVI put it in his inaugural homily: “The Church as a whole and all her Pastors, like Christ, must set out to lead people out of the desert, towards the place of life, towards friendship with the Son of God, towards the One who gives us life, and life in abundance… There is nothing more beautiful than to be surprised by the Gospel, by the encounter with Christ. There is nothing more beautiful than to know Him and to speak to others of our friendship with Him… If we let Christ into our lives, we lose nothing, nothing, absolutely nothing of what makes life free, beautiful and great. No! Only in this friendship are the doors of life opened wide. Only in this friendship is the great potential of human existence truly revealed. Only in this friendship do we experience beauty and liberation” (Pope Benedict XVI, 24 April 2005).

Of course, we are all on our way to spiritual perfection, and so sometimes we fall into routine – at least, on the surface of our minds we can fall into routine; our conviction still exists, but it’s submerged under distraction or anxiety. That prayer is still valuable, and still pleasing to God – the remote motivation is right on target. But the more we can keep our convictions fresh, strong, and vibrant, the better. Likewise, I may find myself crawling out of bed on Sunday to get ready for Mass just because I know that missing Mass is a mortal sin, and I really don’t want to go to Hell. Some Christian faith and conviction is still present even in that slavish motivation. God can work with that. Yet, the more we understand what Mass really is, the more we will see obeying the precept to attend Mass as a joy, a relief, a mysterious encounter with eternity, and an opportunity to please God and build up his Kingdom. When we pray and worship out of conviction, we connect better with Christ, and his grace has more room to work in our souls.

Having a “personal relationship with Christ” doesn’t mean regularly having visions of him sitting on the easy chair in the living room or hearing him give us directions while we’re looking for the right exit off the Interstate. Rather, it simply means gradually learning to live our Christianity more and more from heart to Heart.

Yours in Christ, Father John Bartunek, LC

How do I get rid of my "inner ugliness?"

Q: Fr John, I have been struggling with some interior trials with forgiveness, resentment and jealousy. I call this "inner ugliness." I have been praying fervently, going to confession, and receiving excellent spiritual direction. I have been willing myself to be charitable even when I am not feeling it. So here is my question. What am I missing, why do I still feel "inner ugly"? How do I let go of all of this?

A: OK, brace yourself for this really blunt answer: You still feel "inner ugly" because you still are "inner ugly" - at least partially. Let's be blunt again: It's obvious from your question that you feel frustration at the stubborn persistence of some of your faults, in spite of your efforts to extricate them. Where does that frustration come from? Does it come from God? Is God frustrated with you because you aren't perfect yet? Is he up in heaven tapping his watch and raising his eyebrows? Not a chance. Let me tell you, as a Catholic priest, that he is OVERJOYED with the fact that you have followed his nudges and made your way through the wilderness of our secular society onto the one path of holiness. Yes, you are on the path of holiness; you are on the "steep road" and passing through the "narrow gate" (Matthew 7:13) that lead to salvation, wisdom, Christian joy, everlasting fruitfulness, and eternal beauty. He has been trying to convince you to get onto that path for a while, most likely. Now you are there, and you are traveling it, and you are following the road signs (prayer, confession, spiritual direction... Heck, you're in the fast lane!), and he is delighted!

So, if your frustration doesn't come from God, where does it come from? I am sure you have already guessed it: your pride. You want God to go at your pace, but God is not always going to go at your pace. He knows better; he is going to go at his pace, and we (all of us) need to learn to follow that pace. If not, we will never grow in humility, the bedrock of all holiness and true happiness.

Baking School

Imagine: You are teaching your teenage daughter how to make an angel-food cake. First you make one together, and she really just watches and assists you a tiny bit. So then she gets really excited about it, and she wants to do one all by herself. She is so excited that she tells you, "Mom, you go running or something; I want to do this myself." So you go running. And you come back to find her huddled over a rather floppy, lopsided, misshapen, and gooey culinary mutant. She is either crying or fuming. She is an impatient girl and wants to do everything perfectly right away, but the reality is that some things can't be rushed. If she were a bit humbler and more patient, she either wouldn't have tried to do it all on her own so soon, or she would have had more of a sense of humor over her delicious dessert disaster.

Transitioning the Garden

Here's another analogy. Think of your soul as a large garden. You haven't always been attentive to taking care of the whole garden. In fact, there were parts you didn't even know you had, sections with amazing potential. So now the Lord has shown you the potential of your garden, and together with him you have rolled up your sleeves and gotten to work to make your garden into what it should be. There are various phases to this work. First, you have to repair the broken fences, cracked fountains, and disheveled walkways. Then you have to extract the weeds that have been growing freely for a while (maybe for a long while), so that the good plants (the ones already there and the ones you want to plant) have room to grow. Then you have to dig up the soil, aerate it, water it, fertilize it. Then you have to keep tending the good plants (protecting them from rabbits, deer, birds, etc.), repair things that get broken during storms, keep weeding, etc.

That's the process. It's long and hard, but it's what matters most, because the flowers and fruits that come from our spiritual gardening are the ones that matter most: "love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, faithfulness, self-control" (Galatians 5:22). That's the opposite of the "inner ugly" that you are striving for.

Right now, you are working hard, sweating, and doing all the right things. But you are discovering that the weeds had deeper roots than you thought. You are discovering that the broken fences are taking much longer to mend that you anticipated. You are finding out that the soil is extremely dry and alkaline in certain areas and needs a lot of deep digging. You like the look of the new plants, but they are still so little, while some of the older, ugly weeds are still big. So you see the fresh inner beauty, but you also see the stubborn inner ugly, maybe even more clearly (more realistically) than before.

Letting God Be God

God can speed up the process whenever he wants (and in some aspects, he probably already has, whether or not you realize it). But when he doesn't, he has his reasons. We can only make a decent effort to do our part (what more could he expect from us?). God's part is up to him. If he is going at a pace that makes us uncomfortable, we need to trust his wisdom. The worst thing to do would be to let your frustration get the better of you and give up. The best thing to do, being the little and beloved daughter of God that you are, is to wipe the sweat from your brow, smile, and keeping following his lead: "But as for the seed that fell on rich soil, they are the ones who, when they have heard the word, embrace it with a generous and good heart, and bear fruit through perseverance" (Luke 8:15). He has guided you faithfully so far, and he won't lead you astray now. And remember, the frustration doesn't come from him - he is DELIGHTED with you!

Yours in Christ, Father John Bartunek, LC

Dryness in Prayer - Part III - God's Part in the Struggle

Q: Father John, I have been praying (mental prayer) for a long time. But lately I seem to be experiencing dryness in my prayer - I just don't seem to get as much out of it as I used to. Is this the "dark night of the soul"? If not, what's going on, and what should I do?

Lack of consolation in prayer (also known as dryness) may be a result of un-confessed and un-repented sin, or it may come from sloppiness or laziness in our effort to pray. But if we are making a reasonable effort to do our part, and yet we still don't experience (or stop experiencing) consolation, it's probably God's fault, not ours.

God is not a vending machine; he doesn't have to reveal himself to us in a tangible way every time we try to press his buttons. This is one of the big differences between Christianity and many other religions. In pagan religions, for example, the gods were obliged to respond to worshippers in a certain way, if the worshipper performed a specific ritual, likewise in Satan worship. But Christ isn't like that. We can't control him. He can hold us back from feeling his presence in our souls, even when we are sincerely and conscientiously doing our part.

Why? Why would he allow us to experience dryness in prayer? Because he wants our love for him to mature. At times, we can become subtly attached to our experience of God in prayer - to the consolations that we feel as we gaze upon his beauty or taste his goodness. Subconsciously, we can begin to seek those consolations even more than their source. We begin to value the gifts of God more than the God who gives them, like the little child who enjoys Uncle Ernie's company because Uncle Ernie always gives out candy. Candy is a good sign of Uncle Ernie's goodness and love for a child, but getting to know Uncle Ernie better and developing a more mature relationship with him means learning to go beyond the gum-drops.

When God withholds consolations, he is purifying us of this subtle attachment to our feelings, so that our faith can grow and mature. To become mature Christians, we must learn more and more to "walk by faith, not by sight" (2 Corinthians 5:7). In this context of spiritual growth, dryness in prayer is an opportunity to truly adore God himself, regardless of personal preferences and satisfactions. The mature love is the love that "lays down its life for the beloved" (John 15:13), not the love that "has no root deep down and does not last, should some trial come..." (Mark 4:17). Dryness is an invitation to give ourselves to God, putting aside our desire to get things from him.

Doing Our Part Amid Dryness

When God sends us this kind of purification, our reaction should be like a patient on an operating table. We must not try to avoid the often painful dryness, nor panic in the midst of it. Rather, we should persevere in our good efforts, trusting that the wise doctor of our souls is hard at work in ways that we cannot see or feel, healing us of spiritual cancers that we may not even know we have. (St Ignatius of Loyola used to advise keeping to the exact minute of the time reserved to meditation whether we experience immense consolation or immense desolation.) This is what spiritual writers call "passive purification." Active purification is when we consciously deny our natural inclinations in order to follow Christ more closely (see our blog posts on mortification). Passive purification is when God puts us into the fire in order to burn away impurities that are beyond our reach. The result is marvelous: purified silver is more fully itself after being put through the fire; we become more fully what God made us to be after he purifies us. But the process is often painful.

When this dryness occurs for long periods of time on the level of emotions or imagination, it is sometimes referred as the "dark night of the senses." The "dark night" is an image that St. John of the Cross used to sum up the whole phenomenon of dryness and passive purification. When this dryness occurs for long periods of time on the level of intellect and will (see part I of these posts on dryness in prayer for an explanation of these different faculties), it is sometimes referred to as the "dark night of the soul," since these two faculties are the superior, spiritual faculties of the human soul.

St. John of the Cross went into great detail about the signs by which authentic dark nights can be distinguished from dryness that comes from other sources. In summary, they are as follows: 1) we find no consolation in the things of God, but neither do we find any in the things of the world; 2) we find ourselves still attending very carefully to our prayer commitments, and our anxiety comes because we fear we are not serving him well; 3) we find ourselves unable (at least for unusually long periods of time) to make reflections and considerations when we go to mental prayer, as if our minds were somehow paralyzed. In these three areas, however, it is difficult for us to diagnose ourselves; it's like trying to look at our backs in a mirror.

Two Tangents

Two more observations are needed before leaving this topic. First, those who are taking their spiritual lives seriously and striving to grow in prayer can sometimes be distracted by trying to figure out exactly where they are in the various stages of spiritual growth. It's as if they think that having the perfect label will make their efforts more fruitful and helpful. This can be a pitfall. Because we are all individuals, and God leads us through unique paths of spiritual growth, it is not always easy to fit our real experience perfectly into the abstract categories that theology has to use to reflect systematically on these issues. We can become obsessed with finding the right label, instead of staying focused on loving God through prayer and action in obedience to his will. It is helpful to understand more and more the principles in the spiritual life, because then we can understand ourselves better as we begin to identify how those principles are at work in our experience. Yet, spiritual naval-gazing is unhelpful. This is one reason why spiritual direction is such a useful tool. It helps keeps us objective and balanced in our efforts to discern how God is acting in our lives.

Second, those Christians who are living out their vocation to holiness as lay men and women often receive their purification in ways other than the "dark nights" of the senses and the soul. The suffering and the struggles for fidelity to Christ that come with the vocation to marriage can be acute. The suffering and struggles that come in one's effort to build Christ's Kingdom through work, community, and professional activities can also be acute. God can use those struggles and that suffering to perform his purification-operations. He is not limited to using dryness in prayer. This is one more reason why we should be wary of spiritual naval-gazing. The key to spiritual growth is accepting, embracing, and fulfilling God's will moment by moment, not anticipating how God will work in us and then forcing him to follow our expectations. We must let the Doctor do his work, without demanding that he first teach us the whole science of medicine.

Yours in Christ, Father John Bartunek, LC

Dryness in Prayer - Part II - Our Part in the Struggle

Q: Father John, I have been praying (mental prayer) for a long time.  But lately I seem to be experiencing dryness in my prayer - I just don’t seem to get as much out of it as I used to.  Is this the “dark night of the soul”?  If not, what’s going on, and what should I do?

Part II

Dryness in prayer is the contrary of consolation (the sense of satisfaction that God gives our emotions, imagination, intellect and will when we encounter his truth, goodness, and beauty).  Dryness is the absence or lessening of those consolations, either every once in awhile, or for long periods of time.  And the Catechism identifies dryness as one of the key obstacles in prayer.  But we won’t be able to understand how to deal with the obstacle unless we understand, at least a little bit, what causes it.

Dryness in prayer surfaces for one of two reasons: because of us, or because of God.  Let’s start with the first reason.

When the Going Gets Tough

When we aren’t making a reasonable effort to do our part in the quest of prayer, dryness happens because of us.  At times in the spiritual life, especially (but not only) at the beginning, God sends frequent and intense consolation to our souls.  It is like a courtship, and he is courting us.  He sends us flowers, gives us candy, takes us out on beautiful dates (in the spiritual sense).  He is trying to convince us of his goodness, wisdom, and power.  He is trying to win us over.  As our relationship deepens, we realize that following God involves not just getting good gifts from him, but giving him the gift of ourselves.  This we do through obeying his commandments and his will, through following his example, growing in virtue, building up the Church, loving our neighbor… All these things, since they are based on our desire to grow in our friendship with the One who is calling us, takes an effort on our part.  We have to freely choose to respond to God’s action in our lives; it’s not automatic (if it were automatic, it wouldn’t be a relationship of love, or friendship). 

As this journey continues, we sometimes grow weary.  We begin to hanker after the “onions of Egypt,” as the Israelites did during their sojourn in the wilderness on their way to the Promised Land.  We long for an easier life, for the pleasures of self-indulgence, for the seductive comforts and passing gratifications that thirty pieces of silver can purchase for us.  Moments like these are crucial for spiritual growth. They give us a chance to mature our love for God, to grow up a little bit more.  But the tug of our fallen nature, egged on by the glitter of popular culture and the twittering of the devil on our interior homepage, is strong.  

Getting Sloppy

One reaction that we can have in these times is to begin simply going through the motions in our prayer life.  On the surface, we are continuing with the same prayer commitments that we have always kept, commitments that have the blessing of our spiritual director.  And yet, we start fulfilling them in a routine way, not making a concerted effort to concentrate on our vocal prayers, for instance, or not carefully following the method of our mental prayer.  We get careless.  We don’t prepare the material for our meditation ahead of time.  We don’t guard our interior silence during the day.  We cut off a couple of minutes now and then from our meditation, or toy with involuntary distractions instead of putting forth the necessary effort to deflect them… Sometimes this diminishing effort is extremely subtle, even subconscious.  Sometimes it is glaringly obvious: we are avoiding looking into God’s eyes because of an un-repented and un-confessed sin (dishonesty, infidelity, impurity, disordered ambition, willful consent to self-righteous anger or envy…).  Whether subtle or flagrant, slacking off in our reasonable efforts to pay attention to God when we pray will often inhibit us from hearing his voice.  Not always, because God can make himself heard even when we’re not listening, but almost always.

Sidestepping Along

When our inbox is overly cluttered, we lose motivation to roll up our sleeves and get to work, so we procrastinate or look for busy-work to distract ourselves.  This inhibits us from experiencing the satisfaction that comes from a job well done, from meeting goals and following objective priorities.  Likewise in the spiritual life.  When we hit a steep section of the road as we’re following Christ, we can stray off to the side, take a rest, or even go looking for a shortcut, though we know very well that our Lord is standing on the upgrade beckoning us forward.  Until we get back on track, we won’t be able to experience the consolation God has for us, because we won’t be meeting God (the source of consolation) where he is waiting to meet us.

Think of a gymnast who reaches a plateau in her training.  Her coach knows that she needs to maintain the same effort that she was putting out while she was making visible, rapid progress.  But she starts getting discouraged, precisely because her progress isn’t so rapid and visible at the moment.  If she trusts her coach and perseveres, soon she will be beyond the plateau, achieving higher levels of excellence and experiencing the satisfaction that goes with it.  The coach can encourage her, but in the end she has to decide if she will keep putting forth the effort, doing her part.

The First Question

So this is the first question we need to ask ourselves if we are experiencing dryness in prayer:  Am I still doing my part?  Or has some un-confessed sin or subtle self-pity - or just plain laziness (be humble) - drained my efforts?  To find an objective answer to that question, it is often helpful to go over our prayer commitments with our spiritual director, to describe how we are praying the Rosary, the Mass, the meditation, the morning offering…  It can also be useful to go over the basic guidelines of prayer again, e.g. reading The Fundamentals of Christian Meditation from the first section of The Better Part. (For your convenience, I have included a checklist below that can help remind you of what doing your part in the daily meditation entails.)

If you discover that, indeed, you have been slacking off a bit.  Don’t be afraid!  Bring it up in confession, and then make some small adjustments to your commitments that will help motivate you to get back in the swing.  For example, change the book you are using to help you meditate, or the place of your morning prayer, or the time of day, or buy yourself a new Rosary…  A fresh start can be sparked without these kinds of external tricks, but they can sometimes help.  

If, on the other hand, after a calm and objective self-evaluation, you are convinced that you are still making a reasonable effort to do your part, then the dryness you are experiencing probably isn’t because of you, it’s probably because of God.  Next time, we will talk about why God sometimes withholds his consolations.  (By the way, I keep saying “reasonable effort” because that’s all God asks of us.  Some people tend to think that if their effort isn’t perfect in every way, it isn’t reasonable. That’s not true.  God knows we are not angels.)

…[from "The Better Part: A Christ-Centered Resource for Personal Prayer"]… On any given day, then, measuring whether your meditation went well or badly is not so easy.  Your meditation may have been quite pleasing to God and full of grace for your soul even when it was unpleasant and difficult from a strictly emotional perspective.  An athlete may have a great practice session even though it was painful and frustrating - likewise with a daily meditation.

The best we can do is to give some indicators below.  The most important thing, though, is simply to keep striving to pray better.  Speak about your prayer life in spiritual direction and confession, and trust that if you are sincerely doing all your best, the Holy Spirit will do the rest.

My meditation went badly when I…

• Didn’t plan ahead regarding what material I would use, when and where I would meditate, turn off my cell phone, etc.
• Simply gave in to the many distractions that vied for my attention
• Let myself fall asleep
• Skipped over the first step, Concentrate, or did it sloppily - how can my prayer go well if I am not keenly aware of God’s presence?
• Didn’t humbly ask God to help me and to give me whatever graces I need to continue growing in my spiritual life
• Spent the whole time reading, thinking or daydreaming, and didn’t stop to ask what God was saying to me and to respond from my heart
• Tried to stir up fuzzy feelings and intense emotions instead of conversing heart-to-heart on the level of faith
• Didn’t renew my commitment to Christ and his Kingdom at the end of the meditation
• Shortened the time I had committed to without a really important reason

My meditation went well when I…

• Actually fulfilled the commitment I have made to spend a certain amount of time in meditation every day
• Faithfully followed the methodology in spite of tiredness, distractions, dryness, or any other difficulty, or if it was impossible to follow the four-step method, I did my best to give praise to God in whatever way I could throughout my meditation time
• Stayed with the points of consideration that struck me most as long as I found material there for reflection and conversation
• Was seeking only to know and love Christ better, so as to be able to follow him better
• Made sure to speak to Christ from my heart about whatever I was meditating on (or whatever was most on my heart), even when it was hard to find the words
• Was completely honest in my conversation - I didn’t say things to God just out of routine or because I wanted to impress him with my eloquence; I told him what was really in my heart
• Made a sincere effort to listen to what God was saying to me throughout the time of prayer, seeking applications for my own life, circumstances, needs, and challenges
• Finished the meditation more firmly convinced of God’s goodness and more firmly committed to doing my best to follow him faithfully

Yours in Christ, Father John Bartunek, LC

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- How do I deal with psychological issues surfaced in spiritual direction?

Q: Dear Father John, when a major issue (in this case, abuse) that surfaces with the help of my spiritual director bleeds over from the psychological realm into the spiritual, how (and when) do I get away from it in my spiritual direction so I can get to the spiritual issues of prayer, discernment, etc.?

A: It is difficult to answer this question, because the timing involved in any healing process like the kind you mention isn’t fixed. It depends on factors that are highly personal and often impossible to identify fully. Nevertheless, the question is an excellent one, so I will try to share some thoughts, hoping that you find them helpful.

First off, even from the few sentences you have written, it is abundantly clear to me that the Holy Spirit is very close to you, and that you have learned to hear and follow his promptings (those promptings are usually little more than a good idea that pops onto your internal radar screen). You are discovering, I think, that God is faithful, even when others are not. From God’s perspective, what matters most is that we come to know, love, and follow him more and more closely every day, so that we can enjoy him more fully in heaven forever. Because of his infinite goodness, wisdom, and power, he can make that happen even in the aftermath of evil. As St Augustine said, “For almighty God. . ., because he is supremely good, would never allow any evil whatsoever to exist in his works if he were not so all-powerful and good as to cause good to emerge from evil itself.” But at the same time, as the Catechism reminds us, “Faith gives us the certainty that God would not permit an evil if he did not cause a good to come from that very evil, by ways that we shall fully know only in eternal life” (#324). I sense that you are learning this wisdom, that God is teaching it to you. As you continue to learn it, he will also give you chances and put you into situations where you can help others learn it too (get ready).

Now, onto the question: What will help you keep a balance in your spiritual work as the psycho-emotional healing process continues moving forward? I think the key factor in this period will be your program of life. This is what keeps us objective. It identifies our root sin, and also the concrete virtues that we personally most need to develop in our pursuit of holiness. In other words, it enables and empowers proactive spiritual work. This helps us move away from a primarily reactive or subjective spiritual environment. How can you (your personally, in the here-and-now of your unique life-situation) be more Christ-like in your relationships, in the carrying out of your responsibilities, in your efforts to build the Church? How can you (you personally) live the sacraments more deeply, learn to hear the Holy Spirit better and better in your contemplation and meditation on God’s Word? How can you (you personally) divide and conquer for Christ the territory of your heart... As you identify the areas of virtue where you need to grow, the emotional and psychological issues will begin to re-dimension themselves, and you will see them as obstacles and opportunities in your proactive spiritual effort (though depending on their intensity, you may need to get specific psychological help as well – nothing to be afraid of). And so you will be able to face them as you would face any obstacles and opportunities: in the bright and attractive light of God’s personal (to you specifically) call to holiness, lasting happiness, and Christian fruitfulness. The program of life is a tool that can help you make that happen, though it will take time to transition from reactive to proactive. Be patient. God’s grace will be the driving force.

If you are already using a program of life, go over it again, read over our blog entry on how to use it, and make a point of speaking with your spiritual director about polishing it up and turning it into a more practical and living document. Then use it as the blueprint for your spiritual direction, as well as the themes of your personal prayer. If you’re not using one yet, you have a treat in store! If possible, I would also recommend that you go on a trustworthy Spiritual Exercises retreat (this is usually the best place to get a grip on a really accurate program of life – but don’t wait until you can do that before getting your program of life going). Unfortunately, some silent retreats aren’t as gospel-centered as others. I know that my own order offers weekend Spiritual Exercises for lay people throughout the year, in a few different locations. You may be able to find information about them at www.regnumchristi.org.

I hope this is somewhat helpful, and I promise to remember you in my prayers during adoration tonight. God bless you!

Yours in Christ, Father John Bartunek, LC

- Is spiritual direction rooted in scripture or tradition?

Q: Father John, is the idea of spiritual direction found in scripture? What is the basis for spiritual direction in scripture and/or tradition?

A: Do you remember when St Paul had his encounter with the Lord on the road to Damascus? Taking a look at Paul’s own brief description of that happened will help us answer this question (Acts 22:6-10):

“It happened that I was on that journey and nearly at Damascus when in the middle of the day a bright light from heaven suddenly shone round me. I fell to the ground and heard a voice saying, ‘Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me?’ I answered, ‘Who are you, Lord?’ and he said to me, ‘I am Jesus the Nazarene, whom you are persecuting.’ The people with me saw the light but did not hear the voice which spoke to me. I said, ‘What am I to do, Lord?’ The Lord answered, ‘Get up and go into Damascus, and there you will be told what you have been appointed to do.’”

Paul’s question, “What am I to do, Lord?” is one of the most beautiful prayers in scripture. They are words we can repeat in our hearts all day long, every day, as we travel the journey of faith. But Jesus’ answer is rather puzzling. Jesus tells him to go into the city and wait for someone to come and tell him what to do. Why didn’t Jesus just tell him right then? Why didn’t Jesus give him another vision with a full list of instructions? We know from the rest of the scriptural narrative that God sent a Christian named Ananias to meet Paul, explain the Gospel to him, heal his blindness, and baptize him. Jesus didn't do all the work himself; he freely chose to work through others, to give his guidance through other human beings.

Do you remember the remarkable encounter between the Ethiopian Eunuch and the deacon Philipi in Acts chapter 8? The Eunuch had been on a pilgrimage to Jerusalem, even though he wasn’t Jewish. He was a high-ranking official (chief treasurer, in fact) in Ethiopia’s royal court. His pilgrimage was over and he was on his way back south to his home country. Suddenly Philip was ordered by the Holy Spirit to catch up to the chariot. When he did, he heard the Eunuch reading the Jewish scriptures – some of the prophecies from Isaiah about the Messiah. (Back then written texts didn’t have punctuation or spaces between words, nor capital and lower case letters – everything was just crowded together on the page. So you had to read out loud in order to figure out, by the sound, the breaks between words and sentences. That’s why Philip “heard” the treasurer reading.) Philip asked the man if he understood what he was reading, and the man answered, wisely, “How could I, unless I have someone to guide me?” Why did the Holy Spirit send Philip to help this searching man find what he was looking for? Why didn’t the Holy Spirit just give him the answer directly?

We could go on and on with similar examples, from both the Old and the New Testaments. Joshua was spiritually tutored by Moses, Elisha by Elijah, David by Nathan, Paul by Barnabas, Timothy by Paul, Mark by Peter… God’s normal mode of operation is to guide and enlighten us by a combination of direct and indirect action; he stirs our souls and open our minds and gives us insights, but he helps us make sense out of them through the assistance of our fellow-travelers, especially those he has called and gifted to make that a primary apostolate.

During the fourth century at the beginning of the monastic movement, the institution of spiritual direction became more formalized. Young monks would receive instruction from older and more experienced monks as they pursued their vocation to perfection. This practice spread throughout Christendom quickly and even lay men and women eventually began to receive spiritual guidance from their confessors. In the years after the Protestant Reformation, the Jesuit order helped bring structure to the practice, and took on spiritual direction as one of their major apostolates. Subsequently, both older, and more recently formed orders have done the same. In the Church’s new ecclesial movements, lay men and women are also being trained in the art of spiritual direction, so that it is more common to see laypeople not only receiving, but also giving regular spiritual guidance.

Why does God choose to work in this way, both directly and also indirectly, through human instruments? Certainly we cannot fathom completely all of his reasons, but one of them is clear: God respects the human nature that he has given us. Because of that human nature, we are both material and spiritual beings, simultaneously matter and spirit. If God were to deal with us only through direct spiritual contact, he would be treating us like angels. But we are not angels. And so, to save us, he came up with the incarnation – reaching out to us by becoming one of us. And he invented the Church, a real institution with a hierarchical structure and sacraments that transmit grace, a spiritual reality, through matter, through material elements (messy and noisy matter too – as anyone who has been up close at a baptism can attest to).

This combination of direct and indirect action on God’s part is particularly clear in the case of the mystics. Jesus spoke directly to their souls, in an ongoing way, but they suffered immensely as they tried to discern how to respond to Jesus, until he gave them a specially anointed spiritual director or confessor. The Diary of St Faustina beautifully chronicles this kind of painful and confusing journey. How is it that he speaks to them directly, but they can’t find peace and confidence until he gives them a human guide as well? That’s our nature. God made it, God understands it, and God loves it. Blessed be God.

Yours in Christ, Father John Bartunek, LC