A Silent Weakness Found in the SIlence

The processing continues in the aftermath of my silent directed retreat. There are many layers and levels to things I thought, felt, and experienced, but the major result of my experience is this: my relationship with God independent of my life and world (including my friends, their actions, my actions, other people, etc.) is pretty weak, and I struggle to find and feel God's love for me.

This sounds bleak, but it really isn't. My spirituality is dynamic and always growing, so it is good for me to find and embrace a weakness in it. In everyday life, I have grown greatly in placing God actively in myself, my actions, other people, their actions, and the world around me. So God is active in my life, and I feel and acknowledge Him. I also am close to God in prayer, especially as I continue to learn to listen in prayer rather than just talk/worry before God.

However, the shortcoming rests in not connecting to God on a straight, uninterrupted line. When it comes to solitary, silent prayer with God, I struggle to quiet my shortcomings, flaws, and weaknesses as well as the mind-centered parts of it like theological reflections and analysis of my life and relationships. Ultimately, I must be able to feel God's love for the inherent, fundamental being that I am. This is crucial because as I build my personal ministry and love in action on loving generously, instantaneously, and unconditionally, that all needs to be founded on the unconditional love of God, which is the perfect model and inspiration.

I tried accessing this through Scripture like Isaiah 43 (the words behind You Are Mine) and other Scriptural ideas like being made in God's image. The point where I came closest to God and His love was through Hosea 11: "I was like those who lift infants (or in my case, a grown person) to their cheeks; I bent down to them and fed them". That fit the image of God I felt in my heart of the Father as Consoler. I came closest to a genuine feeling in my heart of God's love, independent of my life and world, through this image and the inherent feeling of God comforting me as if by holding me in His arms (it wasn't like a levitation or vision but rather an inner realization and feeling).

Fast forward (that was Saturday night) to Monday night and daily mass. As I knelt before the Lord and the Liturgy of the Eucharist and moved through the mass, I was in this mindset of finding and feeling God's love. After mass and feeling my usual "I believe God is there and believe in the Body of Christ, especially as in the people since Christ has no body now but ours but did not feel it in my heart", I realized that this newly-recognized void within me was a key part of my struggle for intimacy with the Eucharist.

Now I have a better sense of what was missing and how I can grow in it so as to grow closer to the Eucharist and God's love. An increased faith in the Real Presence of the Eucharist and the way it nourishes, renews, and commissions me would be an excellent grounding to growing as a minister and man of Christ.