I had a really hard time last week praying. It felt awful ,as though God were a billion miles away and heaven was closed. I imagined a hundred reasons; God had finally lost patience with me, I was loosing it, I was in deepest sin and so on. But when I woke up yesterday morning I was singing cheerful and God was perched like a little bird singing in my heart. The difference ? Well the difference was that I had gotten a good nights sleep for once , whereas all last week I had slept very little. Doing one night shift had thrown me off wack and I had not recovered. There is a story , a lovely story of a nun who came in, in great distress to St Teresa of Avila thinking she was in the Dark Night of the Soul. St Teresa brought her into the convent kitchen , cooked her a big steak , with all the trimmings and served it to the woeful sister with some fine wine. and lo and behold the tearful nun was as good a new.
I mention this because in all the Catholic books on prayer I have ever read these has very seldom mentioned the body or its partners, those wild , wild horses, the emotions. Authors, often seeming to assume that we are little angels while still on Earth, talking only of the spirit and forgetting the rest. Or (in the older books) were the body is mentioned it is only as the enemy.
My brother George died 8 years ago. He died sober. He stopped drinking when he was 19. He continued to work as publican and hotelier until he died aged 50 from cancer. He spent much of his life helping others deal with drink and drug problems. 1500 people attended his funeral. He shared many little pearls of wisdom with me. He once told me that an alcoholic relapse was more likely when hungry, angry, lonely and tired. HALT. I came to see that this could apply to many times of spiritual crisis when we are in danger of making rash decisions. In my student days one of the subjects we covered was psychosomatic medicine. This was the study of how the emotions affect the body and how the body affects the emotions and the recognized medical conditions associated with these relationships. When we become agitated we become uptight. The shoulders rise and wrap around the ears, the head drops, the hands form fists, the tummy tightens, the muscles harden etc etc. Circulation, nutrition and drainage of our tissues is compromised. Oxygen to the tissues including the brain decreases. Chronic pain becomes depression. We lose it. St Teresa was right, no psychoanalysis was needed, just love and comfort , sometimes in the form of a good warm meal. The solution is often simple. The only prayer needed was the grace before meals. Cheers Padraig.
I just finished reading a lovely book called These Beautiful Bones: An Everyday Theology of the Body, by Emily Stimpson. It offers lots of insights into how JPII's Theology of the Body applies to so many aspects of our lives beyond just our sexuality: our work, the way we eat, the way we dress, our manners... an interesting read!
The 3 day pilgrimage to Lough Derg was a real eye opener for me. For anyone who doesn't know the pilgrimage involves: -a fast beginning a midnight before you travel to the island. There is one permitted 'meal' each day but this consists of dry toast or oatcakes & black tea or coffee. -an overnight vigil where you have to stay completely awake from 10 pm on day 1 to 10 pm day 2. -a series of prayer exercises around the basilica and 'beds' which are actually stone ruins of monastic cells. -the 3 days on the island you are in your bare feet. -on the 3rd day you travel home and can have fizzy drink e.g. cola etc. During the day you do the prayers as an individual but overnight the pilgrims say them together and kneel and walk as a group. By the time it gets to the overnight vigil your knees are really sore from kneeling at the 'beds' during the day. The overnight prayers are done in the basilica, and in front of the altar is a padded kneeling area. So what happens is that when people are walking in front of the padded area they walk really slowly so that when they get the part of the prayer where you kneel they'll have something soft to kneel on, but when people are out in the body of the basilica they walk about twice as fast in the hope that they'll make it around to the padding again rather than kneeling on the wooden floor. That second day where you haven't slept for more than 24 hours, and only had one 'meal' in more than 36 hours, and been on your bare feet going through the series of prayer beds... it is tough. Having a spiritual thought is almost impossible but you keep putting your body through the motions. So anyone fancy the pilgrimage this year? - it finishes in mid-August. I hope to go again please God.
I agree, wow! When one is deprived of sleep, food I can't imagine the mental state. How beautiful to offer it willingly. I fear one day of not having the choice to do it freely but being forced and then I pray for the strength to stay strong spiritually. You will surely be better prepared! God Bless!
I will have a think. I don't know if I have the courage. I kind of fell into a Parish Pilgrimage for a one day ,several years ago and was amazed how much I got out of it. I would have to screw up my courage for a three day one.
When I was young I used to read the lives of the saints, especially the Irish ones and their deep asceticism and penance had a deep impression on me. I recall trying to imitate them by sleeping on the floor on many occasions. Which didn't last too long. I even recall on one occasion as a child buying a length of chain and tying it round me with a padlock. But chains kind of look obvious through a a t short so.... The same thing with fasting, a long history of failures., up to pretty recently. Disasters actually. The body winning a 100 to one against the poor old Spirit. Coupled with that I had not a high opinion of my body anyway, I always remember writhing when the football teams were picked I was always left writhing and picked last. ..and sports days were a nightmare.
Where then did the Spirituality of penance arise in the Church and what place has the body in our prayer /spirituality if we do not want to go to war with it? Well of course when we go to the New Testament right away we see Jesus going out into the Desert to Fast for Forty Days, clearly not just a fast but a real penance too. Notice how the devil shows up at once...putting us on notice who we might expect to come calling when we walk the same path. Matthew 4:1-11 Jesus Is Tested in the Wilderness 4 Then Jesus was led by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. 2 After fasting forty days and forty nights, he was hungry. 3 The tempter came to him and said, “If you are the Son of God, tell these stones to become bread.” 4 Jesus answered, “It is written: ‘Man shall not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.’” 5 Then the devil took him to the holy city and had him stand on the highest point of the temple. 6 “If you are the Son of God,” he said, “throw yourself down. For it is written: “‘He will command his angels concerning you, and they will lift you up in their hands, so that you will not strike your foot against a stone.’” 7 Jesus answered him, “It is also written: ‘Do not put the Lord your God to the test.’” 8 Again, the devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their splendor. 9 “All this I will give you,” he said, “if you will bow down and worship me.” 10 Jesus said to him, “Away from me, Satan! For it is written: ‘Worship the Lord your God, and serve him only.’” 11 Then the devil left him, and angels came and attended him.
The 3 days in Lough Derg are humbling more than anything else. I found it impossible to stay awake, but I did find it possible to sleep as i knelt unsupported on the wooden floor, i found it possible to sleep as i walked, and i kept finding myself in strange positions draped over pews with a bit of dribble at the corner of my mouth!
I found especially great graces in Confession there. I suppose that is what you would expect. I admire people that can do this. I must admit I have never done an all night prayer vigil. Anyway I will be getting into these kinds of things later on. Some people they are good for, I am not too sure for myself.
I have not been on the mog site for around 2 months untill today and I find that there is so much information and wonderful new threads as well as older threads that I have not read before that I find I can spend the best part of a day reading and catching up. This thread is very interesting and informative as well as a few other threads that I have devoured today. I believe our bodies are a very important part of our spiritual life/journey. The body entity of man requires different elements than the spiritual entity of man to remain healthy. But the health of the body is secondary to the health of the spirit in the overall scheme of eternal life, however our Lord gives us His Body and Blood, soul and divinity in the blessed eucharist to feed our souls and spirit and in the bible we see that the body is important. At the resurrection of the dead we will be united body and soul just as Our Lord and Our Lady are now. There are many things that can be said regarding the work of evil to hurt the body especially with the youth of the world today. When recieveing Our Lord in holy communion, At the Ecce Agnus Dei [“Behold the Lamb of God, behold him who takes away the sins of the world. Blessed are those called to the supper of the Lamb.”] I repeat the response three times with 1] “Lord, I am not worthy that you should enter under my roof, but only say the word and my soul shall be healed.” 2] “Lord, I am not worthy that you should enter under my roof, but only say the word and my body shall be healed.” 3] “Lord, I am not worthy that you should enter under my roof, but only say the word and my mind shall be healed.” I have been lead to do this for many years, as the soul, body and mind all require healing in different areas and yet I know that the body and possibly the mind will eventually fail and I will die. The soul has the first place in life.
The great river of the spirituality of the Early Church was affected by two great forces which pushed it in a certain direction in its infancy. The first was massive and widespread persecution. The Early Christian new that at any moment she might pay the price of her Faith with her life. The sprituality of the Church respended with a cultus of Martyrdom. That the body might die but the Christian would be repaid with Eternal life. So strong did this spiritual force become that some Early Christians actually provoked the secular Pagan Authorities in seeking martyrdomand had to be restrained in doing so by the Church herself. Martyrdom was seen as a highest blessing, the coin by which the soul entered Eternal Life. The body died but the soul entered Eternity wearing the palm of Eternal Life. ( It is fascinating to see modern Jihadists take a simliar path. That those who die in battle in a , 'Holy War' are taken at once to Paradise.}
After the end of the Great Persecution , with the reign of Constantine ,Christians throughout the Emire were robbed of the chance of martyrdom and a second great wave affected Chrch Spriituality as Christians fled to the deserts. Christians such as Anthony the Great and St benedict of Nursia seeking immolation in Monaitcism. In a heavily penitentiall way of life that sought to overcome the body in a way similiar to a living martyrdom. (This spirituality of the East, of the Desert was carried to places like Ireland through monstaeried like that on the French island of Lerrrin....and in fact the Early Celtic Church celebrated the Eastern date of Easter for its first centuries.
http://orthodoxinfo.com/general/celtic.aspx 'A homily in archaic Irish, probably dating from the last quarter of the seventh century, also speaks of martyrdom: Now there are three kinds of martyrdom, which are accounted as a cross to a man, to wit: white martyrdom, green (glas) and red martyrdom. White martyrdom consists in a man's abandoning everything he loves for God's sake, though he suffer fasting or labor thereat. Green martyrdom consists in this, that by means of fasting and labor he frees himself from his evil desires, or suffers toil in penance and repentance. Red martyrdom consists in the endurance of a cross or death for Christs sake, as happened to the Apostles in the persecution of the wicked and in teaching the law of God.20 '
