MATL - Desolation and Discernment

Prompt: Reflect on your spiritual life. What particular prayer practices, disciplines, charitable works are you regularly involved in? What else contributes to your personal spirituality?

I attended a silent Montserrat retreat for the first time in January, and it rocked my spiritual world. For the first time since I was a young adult, I found myself equipped with completely novel tools designed to guide my spirituality and a new vocabulary to express my feelings.   In this particular case, I realized that 'silence' for me is actually sacred music, and the last five years of my life were a time of desolation. I knew that on an emotional level, but it manifested as being angry and lonely, blaming the emotion as a natural consequence of my circumstances.  What cannot be cured must be endured. Montserrat offered eight steps of the Spiritual Exercises, of which the reflection and discernment have been most helpful.

 I still listen to and sing liturgical music, which I find comforting, and it helps me set my mind towards prayer. I miss participating as a liturgist in Mass, but so far I have struggled with finding a parish where I feel 'at home.'  A single woman in her thirties is an odd-woman out at many of the local parishes- I'm too old for the 'youth' crowd at St. Al's, and I'm too young for Sacred Heart, and I'm lacking the requisite familial accouterments to fit in at the other choices up on the ‘Hill. This is an excuse, and I know it to be- but it remains a spiritual challenge for me.  The Ministry department at Gonzaga has worked diligently to welcome and embrace me and help me find a home. I'm so grateful to Michelle and Fr. Alan for their help, and to Cindy, for her everlasting patience with my questions.

I mentioned ministering with youth and young adults in my introduction.  Although this idea is very scary for me, I am beginning to suspect that part of the reason I was called to Gonzaga is to continue that ministry in some way. I've spent time volunteering with UMin, which is currently my only overtly charitable work. I shall decline to explore some of the family charity I've engaged in for the past five years at this time.

 Knowledge, learning, and the encouragement to actively engage with the world in order to grow and understand are essential to my emotional and spiritual well-being. I did not realize how mind-hungry I was for knowledge "for its own sake" until I enrolled in classes again. I enjoy debate and research, and I thrive on the rabbit holes that come from reading new materials and ideas. I get lost in discovering the answer to questions. It would have been simple to enroll in the Org/Leadership program here- just "check the box" as it were, for the sake of a degree on my wall. I am thankful that life nudged me to take the risk of a more robust and intellectual degree path, and I am so blessed with the luxury to engage in education purely to satisfy my own curiosity. I think this must be another kind of spirituality…the spirituality of the intellect.