It is expected, during Lent, to offer pains and sacrifices to God, "mortify the flesh," give alms, eschew extravagances, and offer up one's time to extra prayers and religious observances. People 60 and over have fewer requirements during Lent in the Catholic Church, probably because we have enough illnesses, aches and pains from just being old! I know I do. But still, I love Lent for some reason. I think it is because it gives me some encouragement to put more energy into my spiritual practices.
This year, I am meditating on The Book of Job because my life, in the last 20 years, looks a lot like his: one crappy circumstance after another. Chronic daily pain, mobility challenges, blindness, the death of my father, being written out of my father's will AFTER he got Alzheimer's, betrayal and theft by the one close relative I had left, the death of my only child, dropping into a poverty-level socio-economic strata, and losing friends as a result of all the above.
First, I lost nearly all of my support structure, and then I started getting attacked by various people. I became the object of harrassment by belligerant, angry apartment management. Church ladies started gossipping about me, spreading unkind criticism. Neighbors started spreading lies about me. Hindu friends dropped me when I became Catholic. Parish friends dropped me when I refused to support Trump, forcing me to change parishes. And temporary friends, flitted in and then right back out again when it was found how very useless I am.
I relate to Job because the more devoted I become to God, and the more assiduous I am in practicing my spiritual disciplines, the longer and more calamitous my litany of tribulations becomes! The moment I add a new religious prayer to my daily routine, without fail, something miserable happens in my life - and it isn't usually something temporary, either! When I become more reliable in my practice of a promised meditation or prayer, BAM! I am rewarded with some new woe. When I do a kindness for someone and deliberately avoid telling anyone else about it, WHAP! Some new financial circumstance arises to create chaos with my already unsteady bank balance.
My litany of woe has been noticed by the small circle of loving friends that remain, and they are wondering what is up with that? One situation after another befalls me. Is God punishing me for something? But, like Job, I don't have an answer for them because, while I don't pretend to be God's MOST reliable devotee, I do my best to avoid evil, do good, obey Him and love Him. Ever since baptism, I have increasingly repented and repaired. I just do not see a correlation between all the good I do and that dark litany of mishaps.
But it's a good question, isn't it?
AT FIRST, I considered the situation in strictly worldly terms, rather than a spiritual test, because I have experienced a considerable amount of society's enmity in the form of discrimination and contempt against the poor, the elderly and the disabled, which is something that is an entirely new phenomenon for me, since I spent the first half of my adult life in much better circumstances.
I've talked with many disabled and poor old ladies who have also grown used to being treated like pariahs at home, at church, at the grocery store; it's all the same. We meet irritation and disdain, wherever we go, cripping along on our canes or walkers - sometimes zipping past on our battery-powered mobility scooters! The bullies who abuse us will only restrain themselves from rudeness if the disabled old lady has a companion to witness the treatment - something that is rarely available for those of us who are independent and/or without family.
I tell better-situated folk that I am not alone in this and that, especially in the case of single women who have to make their way in the world entirely alone, this condition is quite common, but since they have not experienced it themselves or seen it in the lives of their other well-married and well-housed friends, they have a hard time understanding how this could be true - and who could blame them? I'm the only one in their circle who suffers like this!
Society, in general, does not care about this trend. There is a lot of gossip about the poor: unflattering hearsay that serves to defend the actions of the bullies. Insults about the poor abound. Social media is full of it. Fabrications about poor people pretending to be disabled float like discarded shopping lists on waves of blather. Cliches that accuse the poor of widespread drug and alcohol abuse flourish, completely ignoring the aspect of inherited illness that causes much of whatever such illnesses exist. All these accusations are free of proof or detail.
I will admit, however, that I have recently discovered that, at least in the town where I live, there are at least a dozen people who have responded to my advertisements for a caregiver who freely tell me that I have to pay them cash because they are living on disbility. My reply, of course, is to tell them that since they are already breaking the law, I do not feel comfortable having them in my home - but that does not go over very well because, you see, they feel entitled to cheat the system. I blame this on the widespread disbelief of God, Heaven and Hell. Some of these people might tell you that they believe in God, but they think he is going to make an exception in their case - or some such nonsense. They also do not believe in the Devil. I tell them, "that's ok, Satan believes in you."
I do wonder if the unfair wages and other systems that oppress the poor are enough to give God pause when contemplating the final judgment. Perhaps He will be blaming the rich folk who create these systems.
Many "Christians" think the poor must prove they are legitimately poor and have no character defects in order to qualify for the mercy of Christ. (Even though I became disabled due to inherited diseases, I've heard people claim I inherited them because I am fat, when it is actually the fat that is caused by the disease!)
I got pretty tired of seeing those memes on Facebook complaining about people paying for groceries with "food stamps" while at the same time wearing nice clothes and carrying a cell phone.
Forget the fact that the person making this complaint has no idea where any of that stuff comes from. For all they know, someone gave it to them, or the cell phone is a government phone they got for free, or the "nice" clothes are from the thrift store where women who shop good brands donate their old clothes every season. Who knows?
I don't see those complaining memes any more. Ever since a particularly critical set of Facebook friends "unfriended" me. Probably a good thing.
What initially brought me to consider the idea that there is a spiritual reason for my litany of calamities is that, while there are many poor folk who share the unfortunate triumvirate of poverty, seniority and disability - not all of them share the number and intensity of vexations as I have experienced.
There ARE exceptions - so what is going on here, exactly?
You may remember that, in the Book of Job, Satan claims that Job is only devoutly loyal to God because God is giving him nothing but largesse. He alleges that, if The Lord were to stop showering Job with good fortune, Job would immediately turn against Him.
The Lord, knowing Job's love and allegience to Him, allows Satan to torment Job, who ultimately proves Satan is wrong. Throughout the loss of family, farm, health and everything else worth something in worldly terms, Job continues to love God, praise Him, obey Him, and believe in His goodness.
At the end of the story, the Lord does not replenish Job's storehouses, bring his livestock or his family back to life, or repay Job in any way for his loyalty. In order for Job to love the Lord, he does not have to be paid for it. It is not a shopkeepers religion where the devotee expects benefits in repayment for devotion. He loves God for the sake of God alone.
God had confidence in Job's love for Him.
The idea that God may have confidence in my love for Him and that He knows that I will Love him with my whole being regardless of whether or not I have a litany of woe - THAT makes me very happy. It really does.
There is another aspect of the story of Job that I found helpful. Just as in Job, where Satan is behind the torment of the devotee of the Lord, it occurs to me that the people who abuse me are likewise under the influence of Satan.
Satan is the source of evil - not God.
In fact, the more sincerely I follow my spiritual disciplines, prayers and devotions, the more attacks I get from the anti-Catholics, the fake religious, and the like.
I need not look for a reason why various friends, neighbors and actuaintances take advantage of my kindness (and anything else they can get their hands on), then shun me and spread gossip about me so they can hide their thievery. Fellow co-religionists who snub me without explanation, the ones who left me because I would not support their political candidate, and the ones who made disparaging comments about the poor while claiming to be a follower of Christ are those whose absence I need to celebrate instead of mourn. They were doing harm in the background, while I was trusting them.
"Not everyone who says to me, 'Lord, Lord' will enter
the kingdom of Heaven, but only the one who does the
will of my Father in heaven."
Matthew 7:21
Every prayer I say, every abstinence, every religious observance I offer to God is a slap in the face of Satan, and he will revile me for it. Through the hands of his peons, he will try to take my heart from God, just as he tried to do with Job.
In the end, if The Lord is the only well-wisher I have left, then so be it. If He chooses to let me remain in a state of poverty and disability, so be it. The litany of tribulations can grow longer and longer. It will be what it will be.
It also occurs to me that Satan has reason to be particularly furious that I am not on HIS side in the war between good and evil. He had every reason to believe that I would be "his" from the time I was born, because I was born into an amoral, Catholic-hating natal family. Both Mother and Father were unscrupulous, selfish, and depraved people.
A family of saints.
BUT in my genealogical research, I discovered that I am actually descended from quite a fair number of saints and also I am cousins to an even larger number! The holiness of that family line was broken at my grandparents' generation. They left the Catholic faith behind, and ever since I discovered it, I realized that I can help bring the family back to Holy Mother Church by offering all my pains and sufferings for reparation of my sins and the sins of the world. I must pray to my sainted ancestors and ask for their prayers for the rest of the family, and also pray for the family that left The Church.
This is actually in line with a vow I made when I became Catholic.
When I became Catholic, I privately vowed to offer myself up in hopes of re-uniting the Catholic Church with the Orthodox, so that The Church could breathe through both lungs again - East and West. Bringing my family line back under that canopy seems like a harmonious idea.
While I do not pretend to be thrilled with an ever-growing Litany of hardship and headaches, I can hold onto the thrilling thought that God trusts me as He trusted Job. What could be better?
I would love it if things would return to the smooth path of earlier years - when I had enough money to live comfortably and enough health to do all the practical things. I really miss riding horses. It would be delightful to go shopping and wander between the book store and the cafe. I wish I had done a bit more world travel before I became disabled and could no longer manage it. I would gladly accustom myself to a much shorter litany of longsufferingness. In short: I'm not a masochist! But I accept the role that The Lord has laid on me, and I will do the best I can with whatever reserves of energy I am allowed.
So why am I writing this?
Well, I'm a writer and I can't help myself. But mostly I hope to encourage other folks whose lives are a bit in the ditch and they have begun to wonder what it all means. I am here to tell you that it does not necessarily mean something negative about YOU. I would like you to consider a wider point of view. Jesus loves the poor and downtrodden, you know. It's all over the Bible - so if the world has you looking down your nose at yourself, I suggest you change your perspective and adopt an elevated view. Look at your situation through the loving lens that Jesus uses.
I pray that my numerous sainted ancestors and other relatives intercede on behalf of us all; that they pray at the foot of Our Lord's throne and ask for the re-unification of the Orthodox and Catholic Churches, for the healing of my family line and its return to Holy Mother Church, for the reduction of my litany of sorrows and burdens, and for the intentions of my handful of readers.
God bless us all!
Silver Rose
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