On my 30-mile drive home from church last night, I passed through The Real Florida. There isn’t much left of it, but what there is, is beautiful. Here’s a photo of one of my sunsets (below).
God is so good, but he allows us all to have trials and struggles, you know? Once, I seriously believed, I didn’t have to worry about Satan because I knew I was filled with the Holy Spirit. Mealy-brained me thought that “once you were filled with the Holy Spirit” you didn’t have to worry about Satan anymore because the Paraclete is our protector. Then, I met (Sue). Remember her from my previous blog? Well, she brought him up one day, and filled my head with fears and questions. She said she was “reading a book about him” because she wanted to know what to look for, etc., etc.
It wasn’t long before I began to have issues with Satan myself. Interestingly, when I spoke to my long-time spiritual advisor, he said, Susan, why are you talking about Satan? Do you ever hear me talk about Satan? I said, no. But, it didn’t dispel my concerns. And, I continued to think about him. You see, in the Catholic religion, there are two kinds of sin — mortal and venial. And, I ambled along aimlessly for years, in what they call a “dry period” of spirituality, not knowing or caring about learning of sin. I just took it for granted that I knew all my faults, and I didn’t see many.
That was then.
This is now…
Ask yourself, how many Catholics commit mortal sins? I asked this to one of my confessors this morning. He didn’t didn’t give me a definitive answer. Instead, he told me a beautiful story about St. Paul, the man who wrote much of the New Testament. “Paul once asked God, ‘why are you giving me this thorn in my flesh? I’ve prayed three times for you to remove it?’ And the Lord answered, ‘My grace is enough.'” The priest said his interpretation (and that of many others) is about forgiveness. God always forgives. It didn’t immediately register in my brain, maybe because I was distressed. And, the priest knew I was distressed because I was crying. It broke my heart to go to confession this morning, because I had just gone yesterday.
My penance was to say a decade of the rosary, and to pray for people who have been long away from confession. So, I did. I was happy for this penance. I went to a pew and knelt down to pray. And, the tears kept rolling on down. I almost couldn’t stop, which is rare for me. Was I regretful? I hope so. Was I also sad for my life’s circumstance at the moment? Probably. But, that’s another story, still being played out.
For another day, another time, another place. Let’s just say it’s not presently the halcyon of what was.