Entrustment to Mary = Not Being Fooled

The other night I was putting the Little One to bed when he started to work his way into an anxiety attack. It started off simply as a stall to going to bed, but then he remembered past days of scary dreams and convinced himself that he was going to have a scary dream that night and he couldn’t stop crying and whining about it. He was obviously overtired, but the emotions he was going through were real to him. I know this because I suffer anxiety and so I knew a simple “get a hold of yourself” wasn’t going to be effective!

The Little One’s trouble with anxiety began after he had some bad dreams. First it was fire in his bedroom, then it was bears in the back yard and other animals – all wanting to eat him. The dreams must have been very intense because they sparked such vivid thoughts in the day time that he hated to be in his own room for fear of a real fire. When he awoke from his dreams, he would beg me to lay with him, hold him and say prayers with him. He started to pray differently. He now begs Jesus and Mary every night to protect him from scary dreams and thoughts, and when he wakes up in the morning he is grateful that the prayers are answered. This trial of faith has produced many fruits in his relationship with Divine Love and Mercy to the point I am convinced this was a gift – a gift for deeper faith.

By the grace of God, I was in a very good place the other night when the Little One was too tired to go to sleep. My husband came into the room, concerned the whole episode was going to push me into a bad place, but I assured him I was okay. I was really in the grace of the moment. I had been praying, and started to pray aloud the Psalms that help the Little One when he is most afraid “The LORD is my shepherd; there is nothing I lack…I will fear no evil, for you are with me;” (Ps 23:1, 4).  His response to my praying was to intensify his whining and crying. Why weren’t the prayers working that night? Could it be because he wasn’t living in the moment? Could he be focusing on feelings from the past only to be afraid of the future which is out of his control? Where was his confidence in Jesus and Mary to answer his night time prayer not to have scary dreams?

Wow. These questions were very eye-opening for me with my own anxieties. The very next day I found out my friend with cancer had made a turn for the worse. I started to remember the grief I had really experienced when my father died. Instead of staying in the current moment and wondering what my friend might need, I remembered how terrible I felt in the past, and projected this onto the future – this process put me in a stupor and anxiety pursued! Before it went too far, however, Blessed Mother helped me to remember my Little One’s struggle from the night before. Was I, too, creating undue stress? Was I focusing on my feelings from the past to the point I was more afraid of the future that is out of my control? Since I hadn’t immediately turned to prayer, I could see that the fear I had was more imagined than a real threat. Where was my confidence in Jesus and Mary to carry me, to carry my friend which I pray for incessantly? Immediately, I entrusted my thoughts to Blessed Mother to be immersed in Divine Mercy and Love. That day MOM kept me from being fooled into spending a lot of tears on an illusion--tears before their proper time.

“Anxieties that nag you about the past or the future are also trials of faith. God expects that you will offer Him all of these anxieties so that you can entrust yourself more fully to Him and totally abandon yourself to Him.” (Tadeusz Dajczer, The Gift of Faith, 3rd. ed. (Ft. Collins, CO: IAMF, 2012), p. 129)

Entrustment to Mary = The Fruit of Imperfection

As much as I was trying hard not to let it happen, anxiety started creeping into my Christmas break as January got closer and closer. I knew January was going to be a busy month work-wise and kid-wise. I was fighting hard not to lose the joy of Christmas, but as usual, when “I” fight something “I” eventually lose!

To battle the obvious scenarios I had in my over-analyzing brain, I started praying. I prayed every day that I wouldn’t let January get me down, that I wouldn’t experience anxiety and late nights and stress. It seemed that as soon as I left the church, I would be talking to someone and hear myself saying how stressed I was. Ah, ye of little faith! Each time I admitted to my anxiety, I was made aware of my lack of trust. I didn’t believe my prayers would or could be answered by my All-powerful God. I went to confession on just this point.

But, there was something else Blessed Mother wanted me to see about myself. It wasn’t only my lack of trust, it was the more deeply hidden truth that I want to be perfect. I was praying not to be stressed – but why? What was my goal? Was I seeking God’s glory in my prayers? No, I was seeking a way to mask my weakness. It was so subtle, but my prayers were actually using the “spirituality” against itself. I was “admitting to my weakness” (anxiety, lack of trust, self-centeredness…) but not so that God’s mercy could embrace me. No. My goal was to be relieved of my weakness so that I wouldn’t be humiliated by it. I was begging to climb the road of perfection!

The road I am on, through communion of life with Christ through Mary, is NOT the road to perfection. It is the road to childlike trust and humility. I am specifically on this road because I am imperfect; I am a sinner; I am full of pride! I tried on my own for years to conquer my weak tendencies and I failed. Then, the words from Scripture touched me very deeply:  “Behold, your mother.”  My heart was opened toward this new way for me – a way in which Blessed Mother picks me up and carries me toward her Son.

It should have been no surprise to me that I was manipulating my prayers, because I still am imperfect. I still am a sinner. I am still full of pride. My surprise confirms this! But, the surprise exposes once again my BLESSED WEAKNESS that is my ticket to the Arms of Mary. This reminder is the fruit of my entrustment. When I start to climb the hills toward perfection, it is absolute grace that knocks me down and reminds me who I really am. Thank you Blessed Mother for rescuing me – all praise and honor be to my Lord, Jesus Christ!

Just as she did in the case of St. Juan Diego, the Blessed Mother places you too on her back and carries you through your life as someone defeated by your own pride. While carrying you on her back, she unceasingly adores her Son, Jesus Christ, your Savior who constantly blesses both her and you whom she carries as her beloved child. You should not forget why you are being carried: you lost the fight; you could not manage on your own. Without her you would have never advanced from the point of defeat.  (S.C. Biela, The Two Pillars, [Ft.Collins, CO: IAMF, 2006], 37.)

Toward Gratitude: The List that Never Ends....

With it being Thanksgiving, which for some turns into Black Friday, which for some turns into hectic travel, which for some turns into anxiety and fear of falling behind, we decided to give you a quote from one of S.C. Biela's most beautiful books The Two Pillars.  This book guides the reader toward contrition and gratitude. There is still time for us to stop and remember that we are utterly and completely immersed in LOVE!

“It is necessary to open our eyes and our hearts widely, to look at our lives as far back as we can remember – to childhood – and try to see how much good, love, care, and forgiveness is in everything that the Loving Presence gives us. The gift contains the interior call to respond to it. The gift demands gratitude.

What if we overheard a prayer lifted up to the Blessed Mother by a young American student who calls herself tiny (crumb)? This prayer is so simple, yet simultaneously astonishing, in the way it shows how she perceives God’s gifts in the areas of life where God’s bestowals are corroded by routine and, therefore, normally illegible for us. Perhaps our lack of discretion will be forgiven us if, because of it, we begin to discover bestowals whose dimensions can reach the size of a continent – a continent of bestowals.

Dearest Mommy,

Thank You for everything:

For sitting with me on the subway as we returned from school.

For brushing my teeth with me.

For cleaning with me.

For giving me the grace of loneliness, so that I can better understand how You love me so much.

For my entire past and for everything that has led me to this moment of grace, thanks to which I constantly remember about Your loving presence.

For allowing my pride and my illusions to crush me to the point of depression, such that now I can understand and desire Your love and truth.

For Your constant friendship, even when I still didn’t know where You were.

For the fact that I do not have to try to achieve anything in the eyes of this world.

I thank You for the fact that I am constantly rejected by others, so that only You can be the Queen of my heart.

For laughing with me when I stumble and fall on this way because of my weaknesses.

For crying with me when I helplessly tried to understand, instead of simply entrusting myself to Your love.

I thank You, Mommy, that I am not tall and that I cannot see a lot of things because of this.

For all of the girls in the dormitory who look at me and giggle because I do not drink or sleep with boys.

For gathering up all of the graces that I receive and for safeguarding them with Your care so that they are not wasted.

For preserving me from so many sins because You know that without You I am capable of doing the most heinous and evil things.

For everything, Mommy, I am grateful.

For the abyss of my spiritual misery and for the abyss of Your love that fills it.

For the tininess of my entire being and for Your greatness.

For being my only home and refuge.

For our communion of hearts.      

For simplicity.

For silence, but also, for noise.

For the ocean of mercy that is outpoured over the earth.

For taking me and carrying me in Your arms anew, even after I wound You and Your Son.

For loving me so much that You desire my sanctification.

For showing me that, on our path of life, everything is and always will be grace.

Mommy, I thank You that this list will never end…

Your beloved, little

tiny”   

(S.C. Biela, The Two Pillars, [Ft.Collins, CO: IAMF, 2006], 71-73. Used with permission.)

Entrustment to Mary = Freedom from the Madwoman

The Lord said to her in reply, “Martha [Control Freak], Martha [Control Freak], you are anxious and worried about many things.  There is need of only one thing…

(Luke 10:41-42)

How fitting that this Sunday’s Gospel speaks so directly to my heart.  This past week has been ridden with anxiety, so much so that I have not slept for 3 nights straight.  However, this tossing and turning and insomnia are the result of trials of my imagination.  Imagined and magnified fears!  My mind has been spinning out of control!  My son has been away at camp for the first time and I fear abuse.  Friends come to visit and I worry about what to cook and how to plan the days and how to find time to clean everything with little ones underfoot, and then after their visit I end up fearing exposure to stomach flu and lice! 

By God’s grace, I was sharing my out-of-control fears with a relative, and she was able to direct me to an excerpt from a book entitled Jesus as Friend by Salvatore Canals, based on the teachings of St. Josemaria Escriva:

But the imagination is a madwoman – la loca de la casa, Saint Teresa called her, with her usual wit – and yet how often we choose her, more or less consciously, as our adviser in the most delicate problems of our soul.  Those imaginary crosses that torment us and exhaust us:  they are tricks our imagination plays on us….We are afraid of things or of dangers that at present do not exist, and we don’t know if they will every happen; but in our imagination we see them as present, and this makes them appear even more terrible….[but] because these dangers that you imagine possible are not actual dangers and because this fear you have has not been verified, then clearly you do not have the grace of God necessary to overcome them….If your fears were verified….then you would have divine grace; with that grace and your response to it you would win out and have peace. (Salvatore Canals, Jesus as Friend, (New Rochelle, NY:  Scepter Publishers, 2002), 60, 62.)

Because these fears were not crosses sent by the Lord, I do not seem to have the associated graces He promises me to carry them.  I have wasted my energy and fed my soul with distrust in God’s plan for me.  I have not been begging Blessed Mama to bring me back to the simplicity and trust of a child.  The result?  Fatigue.  Anxiety.  Crankiness.  Sugar addiction.  Acne breakout.

As I reflect on my misery further, I turn to The Gift of Faith by Fr. Tadeusz Dajczer.  Here I find hope on a grander scale: 

Through faith, we are incorporated into Redemption, which includes not only our sin but everything that pertains to it…Jesus, dying on the Cross, redeemed us from fear and from the feeling of being threatened, just as He redeemed us from sin….Grace flows continuously from the Cross so that we may be saved from sin as well as from fear…..How are you to fight this fear that surrounds you? If you fight it directly, it will end in a fiasco.  There is only one unfailing way:  open yourself up to the redeeming action of Christ through faith like that of an evangelical child. …You should say to yourself:  There is no threat since He has redeemed me and has freed me from everything.  I need only to accept this.  (Tadeusz Dajzcer, The Gift of Faith, 3^rd. ed. (Ft. Collins, CO:  IAMF, 2012), 60.

Jesus says, “There is need of only one thing.”(Luke 10: 42)  I need communion with Him. Blessed Mother, please carry me to the feet of your Son.  Like Martha’s sister Mary, please help me to choose the better part.