Silence... it's so rare.

I get lonely and i waste way too much time on so-called "social" media.

The closest reasonable confessors are a couple hours drive away, and they are so busy, of course i'm always a stranger to them and to their "real" parishioners.

We have old, beautiful little churches around here. They are mostly locked and dark, except for twice a month Sunday Mass, which sounds more like a community hall social gathering than the re-presentation of Our Lord's Sacrifice. The original altar is still there, but another one has been plopped in front of it to ad populem the liturgy. The music is mostly 1970's little creations, irreverent stuff that sounds more like publicity jingles than prayers. Homilies often have a couple of “almost” heretic statements in them. Nothing blatant, just... you know. Going along to get along stuff.

Communion in the hands is the rule. Getting on my knees to receive on the tongue feels terrible, like I'm throwing a brick in a pond.

I get gently teased because i insist on wearing a hat in church.

Adoration happens a few times a month, for a couple of hours, smack dab in the middle of a business day since it is presumed that only the retired and the empty nesters are interested in sitting in silence in the  presence of the Blessed Sacrament.

Silence to pray in the presence of Jesus Christ... it's so rare, in novus ordo parishes. The most devout church goers here are deep into charismatic events. Hands in the air noisy affairs, tam tam, even dances, i hear.

Lord have mercy on me.

I get lonely praying in my room on my own, laying my hopes and my tears at the foot of the cross. Sometimes i wish i had friends to sit in the silence of an old church with me... under God's eyes, in His house.

I'd like to stop spending so much time on "alternative media" but... where else can i hear truly catholic voices?

Ah yes... old books written by saints...

Silence to read and think about Jesus Christ… it's so rare, in my malformed novus ordo conscience.

Artificial Intelligence is mysterious, and most people are OK with that.

I wish they could extend the same courtesy to Our Lord Jesus Christ.

"AI, in its most sophisticated form (think deep learning), relies on a decision-making process that is opaque to humans; it often becomes impossible to understand this process and to explain it." (My translation. Original article here: https://theconversation.com/comment-lia-va-transformer-le-systeme-de-sante-109496 )

Around me, the same people who state AI’s opacity for the human mind as an obvious and fully acceptable fact will often deny the very existence of God… because He is mysterious.

They often say things like: “You Catholics, if your “God” is all knowing and all powerful, then why does He allow some children to get cancer? I don't understand this, so your God is only a imaginary friend and i don't believe in that”.

May God have mercy on us all. May the Holy Spirit enlighten our feeble minds with True Intelligence…

Marriage til death do us part.

Even after divorce.

As a (then very) devout catholic, i married my (then adored) catholic husband decades ago.

A few years ago, he surprised me, unilaterally deciding to divorce me for another woman, and leave our adolescent children and me to fend for ourselves.

A landslide.

God pulled me out of the agnostic mud where I had plunged deeper to find relief and companionship. I was drowning. I almost died.

Mother Mary patiently waited as i was slowly coming back to my senses and finally grasped the deeper meaning of chastity.

My conscience gradually emerged from the cesspool of mortal sin i was in, and a few good priests patiently heard my several sobbing confessions as layer upon layer of repentance opened my eyes to the horror of past sins i had not measured before. Contraception was one of them. From med school on, it had been so easy to tell myself that it was the only way to get rid of the intense pains of my periods, so I could survive the regular 24 to 36 hours shifts that were required of the good hospital physician my husband wanted me to be.

There is no "getting over it" when a catholic marriage ends in civil divorce. Every day I am married to a husband who stopped caring long ago, every day I am called to uphold my marriage vows, every day my children suffer the consequences of their fatherless coming of age, every day is bizarre, lonely, yet full of God's grace.

I wish I had friends who would simply hold my hand and sit in in silence with me when the weight of praying daily for a husband who now scares me and who “is living his best life" with serial concubines weights a bit heavily on my lonely, ashamed, married, catholic shoulders.

But no.

"Get over it"

"What do you mean you're married? Didn't you get a divorce?" (The civil divorce does not change the catholic marriage.)

"Can't you get an annulment?" (No. It's called declaration of nullity and my vows were oh-so-valid. As for asking my husband who lied all through the divorce proceedings if his vows were valid… it would be silly to rely on his word. At least the bishop gave me formal permission to not live with my spouse.)

I don't have close catholic friends. Women in good marriages are known to whisper that women like me must have done something wrong to deserve this. Oh, they are right about us abandoned women being flawed. But did we deserve getting discarded like yesterday's trash? I hope not.

I could definitely use a hug from one of these blessed homeschooling mothers whose husbands blog about how their trad wife gets everything right.

I pray more than i ever did before. I pray for my suffering children, especially the one whose life is stuck, the one who is angry at God and who was most dismissed by his father.

Mass is a fountain of grace. However, i sometimes get distracted in my novus ordo parish, as i am made to see priests who knowingly give holy communion to couples in adulterous relationships, couples living together for years without being married... how is that helping them follow Jesus? What is that teaching children and young men about the sanctity of marriage? How is that encouraging me to suffer well for the Glory of Christ?

I suppose the humiliation of being that old bitter weirdo who doesn't “get over it” is a blessing.

May God have mercy on us all

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Public Health vs Bernadette Soubirous

I watched "The Song of Bernadette" yesterday. The 1943 one.

When the mayor reads the bogus law he leverages to fence off the miraculous source and fight the processions, he says: "In the interest of public health..."

It hit me like a ton of bricks.

How long has public health been used to weaponize our fears and pull us away from the Kingdom of God? It was a thing in a 1943 movie?

I hear they did it again in recent years. Our Lady had said to Bernadette: "Drink from the fountain and bathe in it."

A recent pilgrim told me that public health has closed the miraculous baths of Lourdes. Now you only get a little water poured on your hands.

Drinking coffee to avoid kool-aid.

Sitting in a coffee shop with a friend of a friend. Let's call her Norma.

Norma is telling us the story of a younger colleague of hers, who called yesterday to ask for help. She needs to be away from work for a few weeks starting… now. That young mom has to stay at the bedside of her (formerly) healthy 8-year-old son who, out of the blue, had a massive, massive stroke. Two surgeries and the ordeal has not stabilized yet.

I wish it was the first time that, since the lockdowns, I hear in real life such stories of kids getting diseases that are catastrophic even by octogenarians standards. But it isn't.

I listen deeply and say as softly as I can… “Children that young do NOT have strokes. Not out of the blue like that”.

Blank stare. No reaction. She blinks,  reboots, and goes back to describing in detail how she is being so nice to her colleague in these tough times.

It is then that I remember being told a couple years ago by our common friend that Norma had made her own kids get the pokeypoke too.

Of course.

I shut up and express my admiration for her compassionate support of her colleague.

At least the coffee is good enough. I drink four cups of it. Better that than talking. I feel so alone in that crowded café, at that crowded table.

May God have mercy on us all.