Loneliness: a short-cut to God

Sr. Dorcee, belovedLeave a comment

From Madonna House’s Restoration about something we all experience.

Loneliness: A Short-cut to God

by Fr. Émile Brière.

In 1997, I was giving a retreat to staff worker Alma Coffman. The first question she asked was: “Now that you are 80 years old, what do you wish you had known or practiced at age 53, which is what I am now?”

My answer: First: to accept loneliness and rejection as the quickest ways to God. Second: not to seek to be consoled by people, but to console them.

Why is loneliness so difficult to accept? Why does rejection cause so much pain and anger? Because both are a kind of death. In loneliness you enter a certain darkness where there are no clear guidelines by which to find your way and no companion with which to share this suffering. We all need love in our lives or else we perish.

But there comes a time when no one can touch or fill that empty spot at the core of our being. Why not? Because that place is reserved for God. He is waiting for us there. But we get frantic and rush around trying to distract ourselves as best we can with food or drink or sex or work or games or videos or the internet. None of these things work.

The problem only grows, and the anxiety gradually becomes unbearable until we can even have a breakdown.

What to do in moments of loneliness? First and foremost, realize that loneliness is a good thing. God is calling you to himself. You are made for him. You are made for a very intimate relationship with him. Often it takes place through our loneliness and rejection.

Pray for a spiritual director and get one if at all possible who will support you but not take the place of God for you, one who will direct you to God.

And pray to Our Lady. Tell her exactly the state you are in and ask her to help you to trust the ways of God which are not our ways.

This is how the saints became saints. There is no other way. Go to the Lord Jesus Christ and beg him to console you and in so doing you will console him, because he is lonely too.

Then you will no longer be lonely or feel rejected since you are in the company of the great Lover, the great Healer, the great Consoler, who treats you as his beloved, as his friend.

I knew all that when I was 53. I wrote about it in a book entitled For Uncomplicated Christians or The Power of Love.

But I didn’t really know it. I had to go through a series of difficult experiences to be taught this supreme and supremely important lesson of the spiritual life: God alone.

Seek God alone and all the rest will be added to you. Seek God alone, and you will be able to touch the hearts of many and to bring them the tenderness and gentleness of God and of Our Lady.

Your heart emptied of its desires, save one, will grow larger, opening up to the immense gifts that God wants to pour into it before you die, so that you can be transformed into a more loving person, passing on God’s love to others and ready to meet him who loves you infinitely and whom you love with all your heart.

The saints knew loneliness and rejection. They were, each one of them, at times misunderstood, rejected, lonely, condemned, persecuted, even by their closest friends, relatives, community. Many came close to despair as did St. Therese, the Little Flower and Blessed Brother André. The saints prayed for faith, hope, and love and more faith, more hope, more love, and more trust, and through their suffering, came closer to God.

We can too.

If you see a man with one eye

Sr. Dorcee, beloved1 Comment

Good advice.

Christians . . . should strive in all things and ought not to pass judgment of any kind on anyone, neither on the prostitute nor on sinners nor on disorderly persons.  But they should look upon all persons with a single mind and a pure eye, so that it may be for such a person almost a natural and fixed attitude never to despise or judge or abhor anyone or to divide people according to categories.  If you see a man with one eye, do not make any judgment in your heart, but regard him as though he were whole.  If someone has a maimed hand, see him not as maimed.  See the crippled as straight, the paralytic as healthy.  For this is purity of heart, that, when you see the sinners and the weak, you have compassion and show mercy toward them.  (Pseudo Macarius)

And I would add: “If you see yourself with one eye, do not make any judgment in your heart . . . and so on.”

Go ahead and cry

Sr. Dorcee, beloved1 Comment

“People have said, ‘Don’t cry’ to other people for years and years, and all it has ever meant is, ‘I’m too uncomfortable when you show your feelings.  Don’t cry.’  I’d rather have them say, ‘Go ahead and cry.  I’m here to be with you.'”  (Mister Rogers)

A joy safe

Sr. Dorcee, belovedLeave a comment

I keep a number of encouraging and important personal papers in the zipper pouch of my bible cover. They are easily accessible for me to pull out and look at whenever I wish.  But here’s a great idea, too.

“I find that joy can be overwhelmed.  Just as a migraine can ruin a picnic, painful happenings can eclipse joy.  In a hard time recently, I remembered a friend’s grandmother showing me her ‘joy safe,’ a wooden box in which she kept things that connected her with joy and reminded her of God’s presence.  I started my own box last week with two things: a button from the uniform my father wore when he came safely home from war and a note from a grandchild who had been kept back in third grade: ‘Grandma! I got all A’s. I’m gonna make it.'” (Patricia Livingston)

What would you put in your joy safe to help you remember God’s presence in your life?

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Locked from the Inside

Sr. Dorcee, belovedLeave a comment

barnstormingblog's avatarBarnstorming

“Jesus moves among men and women–even if it means passing through doors locked from within”
Fr. William M. Joensen

Many of us frequently–or continually–bolt the doors of our hearts from within, yet we long for Christ to come to us.  We can have great hope . . . for He is the One who can enter “through doors locked from within.”
~Sr. Dorcee Clarey “Witnesses to Hope”

19 On the evening of that first day of the week, when the disciples were together, with the doors locked for fear of the Jewish leaders, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you!” 20 After he said this, he showed them his hands and side. The disciples were overjoyed when they saw the Lord.
John 20: 19-20

We’re bolted in alright, to ensure we’re safe from confronting our greatest fears and our most fervent longing.

But there is no lock or latch…

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