Pain

Sufferings of The Simple Catholic

/ chicoinematt / 1 Comment

Editor’s Note: Post originally published on January 20, 2018.

To be honest, I did not think I have the strength to even write about anything today. I thought exerting any real mental exercises and strain today would lead to my incapacitation. What am I talking about? Am I being overly dramatic? Perhaps, I probably am not in a good frame of mind at this point of the week. Let me at least try to explain my situation and I can let you be the judge of that.

Over the course of the past week, I’ve experienced the funeral of my grandfather and persistent fevers and severe flu-like symptoms from everyone in my family including: my three young children.  I’m nearly exhausted the amount of PTO I’m able to utilize for this month―and possibly the next month. Both my wife and I are sleep deprived. I’m definitely past the point of exhaustion and almost crossed the line of delirium.

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I’ve really struggled in my spiritual life the last week. Frankly, my relationship with God has been fractured and virtually nonexistent. Sure, I could point to several valid (but are they truly!) reasons for why I have not relied on God during my time of turmoil. Some of you may be quick to forgive me—others maybe not. Ultimately, I need to ask Our Father in Heaven for forgiveness.

Suffering Bears Fruit

Doubt, despair, hopelessness, destitution, weakness in faith, and spiritual sloth have been the fruits of my suffering. Jesus Christ clearly teaches in Luke 6:43-45,

43“A good tree does not bear rotten fruit, nor does a rotten tree bear good fruit.44For every tree is known by its own fruit. For people do not pick figs from thornbushes, nor do they gather grapes from brambles.45A good person out of the store of goodness in his heart produces good, but an evil person out of a store of evil produces evil; for from the fullness of the heart the mouth speaks.

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My reactions to the suffering I encountered this week are an indictment on my spiritual resolve. The one benefit to my failings in my spiritual life is that one thing is clear – I’m at a crossroads. I can either choose the path of sanctity through redemptive suffering or I let wallowing in self-pity dominate my attitude and view suffering as purposeless.

When Suffering Redeems

The central event of human history is the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. His redemptive suffering ties together the fabric of reality. Every person is given a choice: to accept the cross gracefully or flee from it. Sometimes people choose the cross during a significant watershed moment in their life – like Saint Paul’s conversion. Most people have to choose the cross of Jesus Christ daily. This choice is the most important choice in our life. This choice determines whether we are a saint, a child of God, or sycophant of the world.

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Saint Mother Teresa of Calcutta once said,

“Suffering will come, trouble will come – that’s part of life; a sign that you are alive. If you have no suffering and no trouble, the devil is taking it easy. You are in his hand.”

I need to be continually reminded that suffering is part and parcel of living. Only by joyfully taking up my struggles and uniting them to the redemptive suffering of Jesus’ suffering, death, and Resurrection will I truly find moments of peace during the storms of life!

Hope-Slider

Dear Lord,
Help me [us all] to remember in these troubled times
The cross you carried for my sake,
So that I may better carry mine
And to help others do the same,
As I offer up (my sufferings) to you
For the conversion of sinners
For the forgiveness of sins
In reparation for sins
And for the salvation of souls. Amen

Related Links

How Pressure and Suffering Makes You Beautiful and Stronger

How Suffering is Purposeful

Hope through Suffering

Catholicism and Suffering

Thank you for sharing!

When I Had an Encounter with Divine Reality

/ chicoinematt

Editor’s Note: Post originally published on January 13, 2019.

The legendary Italian artist Michelangelo once purported, “The true work of art is but a shadow of the divine perfection.” I once traveled overseas on a college trip around Europe. One of the stops our tour group was in Rome. Seeing Michelangelo’s masterpiece in the Sistine Chapel certainly allowed me to encounter the mysterious and awesome presence of God.  My sublime experience in Rome lasted only a few minutes and occurred over a decade ago. I am extremely grateful to have seen with my own eyes one of the greatest and most beautiful works of art in all of human history.

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Fast-forward ten years and a lot has changed in my life: I am married with four children, and in the workforce. While life brought me many struggles since that moment in Italy, my Catholic faith is stronger and more real because of those trials. Throughout much of 2018 I wrote frequently about my wife and I’s struggle with despair, loneliness, and sadness at the loss of our unborn children. Losing a child, you never could hold takes an indescribable toll on a person’s mental, emotional, physical, and spiritual well-being.

A Christmas Miracle Child

This Christmas season our family was blessed with the healthy birth of our daughter. From the onset of the pregnancy complications developed. God interceded and saved our daughter from being miscarried. He accomplished it through the power of prayer and healing graces of the Sacrament of the Anointing of the Sick. Our parish priest administered this sacrament to my wife. In my post, Containing Joy—Rainbow Baby After Miscarriage Maelstroms – The Simple Catholic, I talk about the struggle be joyous throughout the pregnancy. Hope always permeated our thoughts, but we tempered our joy just in case our daughter did not make it to term.

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God’s Peace in the Pain

After my wife’s contractions got frequent enough for the delivery doctor and nurses to arrive, a calming presence overcame me as I gazed into my wife’s eyes between her painful contractions. An otherworldly peace entered that delivery room. Joy, peace, and confidence radiated from my wife’s eyes in the moments before our daughter was born.

Skeptics may doubt Divine Providence had anything to do with our experience in the delivery room. All I can speak of is my experience and that was an encounter with a reality, call it what you will, whose origin is not of this earthly existence. Long anticipation of seeing, hearing, and holding our daughter seemed to have time at a standstill those short minutes before the arrival of Avila.

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Bishop Robert Barron once stated, “Begin with the beautiful, which leads you to the good, which leads you to the truth.” Our joy-filled yet anxious laden pregnancy delivery began with the beautiful―the news of the conception of our daughter. That beautiful news led to the good. Good through the form of good friends, family, and priests praying for us on this 9-month journey.

Finally, the good of fellowship and prayer led my wife and I to the truth― this reality is not the sole mode of existence. The God who is above humanity’s total and complete comprehension decided to reveal himself in the material world. God became man in the person of Jesus Christ on Christmas Day in Bethlehem, and I had the privilege of encountering the peace of the Holy Spirit that early morn in the hospital room before and during the birth of my daughter!

“The true work of art is but a shadow of the divine perfection.”

 

Thank you for sharing!

How Pressure and Suffering Makes You Beautiful and Stronger

/ chicoinematt / 1 Comment

Editor’s Note: This post was originally published on November 30, 2020.

🚫 Demands without the grace of time & patience makes success almost impossible.

This year has been bat**** (no pun intended) crazy from millisecond number one.

Mind blowing stuff right?!

I never juggled while getting chased by a rabid platypus but I think I still have time to check that off my not-bucket list. 😉

Your plans probably didn’t work out (unless you’re currently on contingency plan 215— this means you probably beat life and unlocked bonus levels).

😔 Mine haven’t worked out not in the slightest.

Frustration brews daily.

What new challenge will slam us now?

2020 meme

While this meme was from 2020 it still applies to 2021.

I’m writing this post with the four minutes of free time I have to get this message out— suffering doesn’t make you a failure.

No, suffering means you’re a human. A freaking normal, beautiful human being.

Crises bring out the worst in people.

But pressure and stress over a long time can transform ugliness into beauty.

Thankfully, you have have time.

💎 Time to achieve your dreams (it not be how you planned or expected but God’s plan usually surprises people)

Are you coal or a diamond or something in between?

God making diamonds out of us

💎 How have the pressures of 2021 transitioned you from coal into a diamond?

#writing #personaldevelopment #2021 #life

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How God Continues to Bring Joy (Out of a Sorrowful Miscarriage) on All Souls Day

/ chicoinematt / 2 Comments

Below is a letter I wrote to my unborn son Jeremiah who left this life on All Soul’s Day 2014.

Read the letter here: A Letter to Jeremiah

We picked the name Jeremiah because of the comfort the prophet found in God despite his suffering and it matched the rhyme pattern of our older kids (Noah and Amelia).

I just discovered something that HAS to be from God.

As I was looking up the New American Bible translation of the Bible verse below I realized the header above the First Chapter of Jeremiah reads:

“Oracles in the Days of Josiah”

Why is this significant???

Because in 2015 sometime in June I was continuing to battle depression and told my wife, “I just want something good to happen in my life”(in hindsight I know God already surrounded me with Jenny and my older two kids but despair limits our vision).

We found out a couple days later she was pregnant and we disagreed on names (she wanted Isaiah while I preferred Elijah).

Somewhere/somehow I was nudged toward the name Josiah.

Josiah my rainbow baby 🌈 who brings us joy wearing his carwash brush costume. 🙂

Two things I didn’t know about the name when I discovered it:

❤️ Name literally means “healer”

❤️ Josiah was referenced a few verses before one of the passages that gave me comfort in the wake of losing Jeremiah (again I only learned this five minutes ago from writing this post)

🤯🤯🤯🤯🤯

I thought the miracle of Jeremiah and Josiah was already amazingly connected but God keeps adding to the mystery of this memorial of suffering for my family.

It is both sorrowful and joyful.

God truly does work everything for the good (because He loves you)!

Please pray for the repose of Jeremiah’s soul and all other unborn babies who died before mother’s and fathers could hold them.

“Before I formed you in the womb I knew you.”
—Jeremiah 1:5

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Why I Don’t Worry about Uncertainty Anymore

/ chicoinematt
God will take care of you
Why don’t I worry about the uncertainty caused by the political strife, rhetoric, and fear-mongering (on both sides)?
Past suffering taught me God will never abandon me
In late 2014, I got a call from my wife to leave work. She was 10 weeks pregnant and in an ultrasound appointment. Her history of miscarriages and early signs pointed to another one in the process.
I was able to hear Jeremiah’s heartbeat that day. It was the first (and only) time I heard it. Four hours later, Jeremiah died.
We kept the remains for a few days in order to get tests to determine what happened.
It was discovered my wife contracted a virus at school. I forgot the name but it’s dangerous for the unborn.
Despair crippled my wife immediately.
It bit me like a slow-acting poison. The dangerous effects didn’t come to fruition until several months later.
I felt dead inside. An empty shell of myself. Joyless.

Persist in Prayer

I continued to pray and attend the sacraments during my despair but I rarely felt God’s presence.
Yet, I persisted on. Faith in the unseen God. Faith despite utter lack of consolation.
In the summer of 2015, I told my wife, “I want something good to happen in my life.” Obviously, in hindsight I realize God surrounded me with family and friends. But at the time I still felt alone.
Josiah was born the following year. We had to increase progesterone shots in my wife’s back to sustain the pregnancy. She is the strongest person I know.
After picking his name we learned Josiah literally translates to mean “healer”.
God sends you help not when you want but when you NEED it.
He sent my son as a healing force for me and my family. 2020 caused me to be frustrated at the hypocrisy in the Catholic Church— especially when some Catholics told others not to fear the novel virus but fearing political uncertainty or vice versa.
God will not abandon you
In the Old Testament, God provided for the famine with seven years of plenty along with the leadership of Joseph. In the New Testament, we see similar events of God providing, the feeding of the 5000 or something as small as Jesus healing Peter’s mother-in-law.
If God did that in the past (and for me in my past) why won’t God continue to provide and care for those who trust in His Providence today and tomorrow?

Related Links

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A Letter to Lucia

/ chicoinematt / 1 Comment

Editor’s Note: Below is a letter I wrote to my unborn daughter Lucia Faustina who we buried on 12/19/2017.

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Dear Lucia,

Today, I stood aside a grave of another unborn child. I will never be able to hold you in my arms, or gaze joyfully at your face, or comfort you when you cry. It is not natural for a father to bury his child. This is truly a surreal and somber experience. Hope is the only thing getting me through this day–this week. The virtue of hope will be key to helping me through the next several months as I grapple with the loss of my sweet daughter.

Your name means “light”. Lucia I pray for strength to live out my vocation as a husband and father to your amazing mother and siblings. I guarantee that your brothers and sister would adore you. I am also confident that you are looking over us in communion with Jeremiah, St. Lucy, the Blessed Virgin and all the other saints in Heaven.

Please send our Heavenly Father my supplications for daily pardon and peace. I am reeling from losing you, but I understand that hope can never be lost if I cling to God’s Providence. May the light of God radiate upon your family as you provided light to your mother and I even though it was for what seemed a fleeting moment.

Your siblings and your mother deeply miss you. We hope to be united with your after our pilgrim journey in this life is completed.

With great love and gratitude,

Your father

Saint Lucy Pray for Us

Saint Lucy

Whose beautiful name signifies ‘LIGHT’

by the light of faith which God bestowed upon you

increase and preserve His light in my soul

so that I may avoid evil,

Be zealous in the performance of good works

and abhor nothing so much as the blindness and

the darkness of evil and sin.

Obtain for me, by your intercession with God

Perfect vision for my bodily eyes

and the grace to use them for God’s greater honor and glory

and the salvation of souls.

St. Lucy, virgin and martyr

hear my prayers and obtain my petitions.

Amen.

Thank you for sharing!

A Letter to the Downtrodden and Suffering

/ chicoinematt

Editor’s note: Article originally published on September 7, 2017.

Dear Fellow Souls and Pilgrims on this Earthly Journey,

Hopelessness seems to cover the world. Hurricane Harvey decimated large parts of Houston. South Asia continues to experience chronic flooding. People suffer across the globe in large and small ways. Today, I wish to share my recent episodes of depression, I am not writing to complain about my situation, rather I hope to unite my suffering [albeit quite small in comparison to others] to others in great need. I want to be in communion with my fellow man.

According to Helen Keller,

Character cannot be developed in ease and quiet. Only through experience of trial and suffering can the soul be strengthened, ambition inspired, and success achieved.

I cannot grow as a decent human being without learning from the school of suffering.

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Depression Strikes Often

Depression hit me again the past few weeks. Similar to an ocean, anxiety and sadness move in waves with brief periods of respite before the next deluge of depression comes crashing onto my shore. I feel a sense of hopelessness.

What is going on with my life to trigger these feelings? To be frank, I am not sure. Life appears to be going well: I have an amazing wife, family, good shelter, and a job. I had a recent change in anxiety medicine and changes are occurring rather frequently at work. Still, these concerns should be minor compared to people suffering loss due to the recent natural disasters. Depression shrinks my perspective. I see through narrower glasses.

Perhaps, you are similar to me. If you suffer from depression, whether it is severe or mild I want to unite myself to your suffering. I wish to take up my cross if only it may help widen my scope. Prying open a narrow gaze is painful. However, authentic and natural development involves growing pains.

Share Your Suffering with Others

If you are downtrodden, as I am currently, share your experience. Talk with people you trust. Talk to God—it works. Prayer is effective because it is communication with Him who created the universe. Oftentimes, I need to fall unto my knees and become downtrodden before I am able to gaze upward in prayer. Saint Mother Teresa once said, “Joy is prayer; joy is strength: joy is love; joy is a net of love by which you can catch souls.”

Although, I know my depression may likely come back again, I am aware of a strength to get me through the valley of tears—prayer. Prayer ultimately leads me toward an even-keeled path in my pilgrim journey on earth.

With great love and hope to alleviate your downtrodden soul,

Matthew, The Simple Catholic

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Thank you for sharing!