Stay in the Fight

Simon Peter said to them, “I am going fishing.” They said to him, “We will go with you.” They went out and got into the boat, but that night they caught nothing. John 21:3

Years ago, I had a scene play out in my mind while in prayer. I was in the old chapel at my parish and I was battling it out with a demon. It was an epic battle and I was being tossed and flung about. Finally, the demon lifted me in the air and slammed me on the ground. I lay as if dead on the ground exhausted and beaten. The demon reached into my chest and ripped out my heart. As he held it in the air in victory, my heart began to beat. I was not dead. The demon disintegrated into ash as I breathed life again.

It left an impression on me, though I didn’t know at the time why I had this vision. But these past few years have been a battle. There were times I didn’t think I would survive. Through stress, injury, sickness, church confusion, and grief, I battled and I battled. The demon relentlessly attacked my thoughts.

After mom died, I felt as if I was that person lying dead on the ground in the chapel. Empty and spent.

The demon pounced with temptation to go back to my old life. The life that I knew before I knew the goodness of God. He flung fiery darts of suggestion, “what does it all really matter, God doesn’t really want life to be this hard does He?” Suddenly temptations that had been easy to say no to became hard. “Things didn’t turn out the way you expected, woman, you should go fill yourself with comfort and ease.” In other words, the devil, in an effort to get me out of the battle essentially tempted me with goin’ fishing.

But the thing is, I was taught to know better. The devil is a liar. When he does speak truth, it is twisted and perverted. I actually do believe that God doesn’t want things to be hard. But God doesn’t settle, he wants perfection in charity. It seems so hard because we are so far away from perfect charity. I have realized in myself; I still have a desire to be seen. That desire is an open door for temptation to speak into my life and tempt me with days of old when all seemed easier. But it wasn’t easier, it was hard in a different way and it without the knowledge of the boundless love of God. So, it was fitting that I realized all this on the Nativity of John the Baptist. The one to whom, all those years ago, I turned to for intercession. What does John say?

He must increase, but I must decrease. John 3:30

There are only two Saints whose birthdays we celebrate as their feast, rather than the feast being at their death; they are the Blessed Virgin Mary and John the Baptist. The two who tradition tells us were born without sin. Mary, who was Immaculately conceived, and John who was washed from original sin when he leapt in the womb of his mother at the visitation of Mary with Jesus in her womb.

John didn’t desire to be seen himself. It’s why he could point the way to Christ and not worry if his followers left him or even if they thanked him.

A few years ago, I went on a retreat at Bethany house. The retreat was run by Sister Mary Rachel, OP. She spoke of an image she had in prayer. In the image there was a fountain of living water. She had a bucket, and she would fill it from the fountain and then go and serve others and the bucket would empty. Exhausted and tired she would have to fill the bucket up again. The Lord made her to understand that his desire was not for his people to fill and empty buckets, but instead that they should be standing in the fountain and never run dry. John the Baptist was in the fountain. His life of ascesis had kept him in the Divine Will. Like a well that would never run dry, John didn’t worry about the things most of us worry about. Jesus was walking his Apostles and disciples to that place too. It is the place of total detachment, where there’s no desire to be seen by people, no fear of anything but God, and where there’s never a good reason to not be at peace. And Pentecost poured out.

In the days of old we called this conforming to God’s will. Now we call it surrender. Perhaps Saints of old understood better the work that it would take to conform their will to the will of God and they didn’t fight the work. We, on the other hand, have been so trained in feelings rather than facts, individualism, comfort and wealth, that the battle seems to be one of surrender after having tried everything else we know of in our power and finally surrendering to God. We are a hardheaded and hard-hearted type.

It is hard for us to imagine this because our technological age has us used to comfort and quick results. We are impulsive and want what we want now. God does not operate at warp speed. This is good news for us as long as we stay in the battle, he will do the work of perfection. For me, remembering how Ignatius says in times of desolation to do more, and knowing that “doing more” is not a checklist of achievement. I can, as an act of my will, reject temptation and choose to love God more even in the smallest of ways. I expounded in my last post as to how that led me to more Rosary devotion.

I can, with God’s grace, choose Him in the exhaustion and struggle. That is what keeps my heart beating in unison with His. And I have the utmost hope that the church will experience a new Pentecost. But there will be struggle and hard times before we get there.

I do believe that the church will experience another shut down, as it did during COVID. Rome may try to shut down Latin Mass, but I think heaven will allow all Mass to be shut down again, and we will be left to see how many of us will look like we’re laying dead on a chapel floor defeated, only to see our hearts beat again and the fountain of living water pour out. We must desire that this be so, and we must not let fear overwhelm us into paralysis.

Which brings me to the next thing I wanted to tell you about, which I have written about before. I have felt the Lord tell me that our worship when churches shut down should consist of praying the Rosary and the adoration of the Holy Face. I do NOT believe we should be watching TV’s for worship. I have been reading a book called, Unveiling the 6th Station of the Cross, by Mary Jane Zuzolo. I have been blown away by this book. It is the essence of what my writing has been about for all these years has been about. I will leave you with just a segment of the opening of the book and I hope that you will take to heart that God does not leave us orphaned and he has a plan. There is no reason to not be at peace.

Offering the merits and love, veiled in the Wounded Countenance of Christ, is thus an offering of God to God, by man, mirroring the Consecration at Mass, in which Christ (represented by the Priest) presents himself as a perfect offering to be made to the Heavenly Father. In the devotion, (as distinct from a Sacrament), as an extension of the work of Redemption, "a new Work for atonement of new crimes", man utilizes the merits and love of Christ, as offered to the Father, the head for the members, thereby combining the power of God with the cooperation of man in drawing mercy for sinners.  Unveiling the 6th Station of the Cross by Mary Jane Zuzolo