It was the Sunday after my Consecration and the week had been a hard one Oh and blisters that hurt like all get out, ouchers! (whole nother storyline there). It all stemmed from a sentence heard out of context during a spiritual reading after lunch where the line "Jesus can't be on the psychotropic ward". In context the statement was benign and was meant as caring for another that was in a weak state in the book, but it triggered a long meditation within me that lasted for many days. My mind wandered over to how Jesus was definitely on the psych wards, and how he was at his weakest and most vulnerable there in our brothers and sisters. How the extreme loneliness and emotional pain was all united with Jesus' agony from the garden and his 3 years of ministry.
Searching on the backwards, yearning on the white walled halls like Jesus looking for that one person who hears His word. Who loves Him for Him, who will lovingly listen as He speaks... that aching desire for the one who will love Him for who He is. Darkened wards filled with the abandoned by those who do not wish to make that leap of faith and hope to stand by the person lost within the whitewall wards. Abandonment, rejection, time stands still within the psychwards. The patients tending to be more aware then most normal people of the misery and pain of the human condition because they have the time and emotional sensitivity to witness it more fully, and have experienced the world's cruelty due their conditions that drove them to the psychwards. And no one will stay awake with them that is not paid to stay with them. Loneliness so profound and deep a knife scrapping bone would be more merciful to one locked within the echoing walls. Yes, Christ cries on the psychotropic wards, His heart aching for the people there and the rare mercies shown by the loving few.
This meditation would not leave my heart or mind and instead grew as I begged Mary to never let me abandon our Lord in His darkest hour of the Garden, to please in some tiny way let me show Him I love Him, I wish to somehow ease His suffering as He took on our sins that dark, cold night alone as His closest friends slept as He prayed, to never let me ever stray or abandon Him again. So I guess my prayer was answered as for the next week I felt a level of abandonment, loneliness, sadness and rejection like I hadn't felt before. Different tho from those dark days of depression I suffered in the past- that was the part that at first puzzled me for the suffering was there but the despair was not for I knew that Jesus and Mary were there with me even if I could not actually "feel" them. None of this derived from the people around me who were as always loving and kind and warm and who saw something was going on inside me.
What a grace for instead of allowing these feelings to get me down I was allowed to unite them and understand more organically the isolation and sorrow our Lord felt. During this time my prayers were much deeper and stronger as only suffering can bring about in us fickle humans usually. Looking at the people around me I could feel more easily the emotions they held just below the surface and it became almost painful to meet another's eyes for either their emotions would come into me and I felt that a violation of acceptable trust among people in community living. Or there are some who I just could not meet their eyes for I knew they would probably know that something was going on in me and how would I explain it when everything was so raw feeling, yet unlike anything I had felt before? Even at such a quiet place filled with so many loving people with a common goal of loving God as much and as best as possible the feelings were too much to bear, I wondered how am I going to manage if this keeps up when I leave blessed ground and focused, loving people? LOL, never fear our Lord is way ahead of silly thoughts running through my tiny head!
Consolation, reprieve call it what ya will, but thanks to God and the wonderful people around me there were beautiful islands of relief through laughter or quiet gentleness. The guys would make me laugh, even during Mass where one Mass it was all I could do to not laugh out loud. My body decided it was tired and in too much pain and lack of sleep which brought out my slightly bitchy side, gulp, hey I am human. LOL! So I got some change up in work assignments, which helped make things easier to bear. The biggest was during Mass especially right after Communion and having Jesus there close and tender, how to tell this without seeming crazy or something? It all came to an end after the Mass when I heard a blunt statement "Will you die for me?"
"Will you die for me?"
Now that is something that one does not hear interiorly at Mass too often, well not me anyway.
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