I’m tired, and just about everyone I know is. Tired of the news, tired of masks, tired of people we love and care about being sick, tired of people complaining and being negative.
I have been trying to find a way to spiritualize our communal sense of exhaustion. Perhaps I am naive and unrealistic, but I really believe that taping into our spiritual life is just about the only way we can deal with our weariness.
Recently I read a quote from Dorothy Day, co-founder of the Catholic Worker movement whose cause for canonization has recently been presented to the Vatican. Dorothy wrote “If it were not for Scripture on the one hand and Holy Communion on the other, I could not bear my life, but daily it brings me joy in this sorrow which is part of our human condition, and a real, very real and vital sense of the meaning and the fruitfulness of these sufferings.”
Is it possible that if we intensify our prayer and sense of sacrifice that we may find some comfort and peace in the midst of our weariness? What keeps coming to mind is the words of the wonderful nuns who helped form me; “offer it up for the poor souls in purgatory”. It might very well help us if we turn this tragedy into a prayer and unite it with the sufferings of Jesus our Savior. Instead of giving into the negativity that surrounds us, perhaps we could see it as a call to a deeper relationship with Jesus.
Before we know it, Lent will be here. Everyone looks for something to give up during Lent. Why not give up our negativity, surrender our weariness? Give it to Jesus as a prayer for the poor souls in purgatory and for the poor souls we live with, work with and encounter everyday. Let’s pray for each other, let’s tap more deeply into our beautiful Catholic faith, let’s pray more, forgive more, love more.
Blessings, Father John
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