Almost a Pity-Party

Ever had one of those days when it seems God is deaf, everyone you love either can’t hear your pain or cancels expected visits, the world news is one horror after the other?

I’ve had such a day – but it is a minor bit of weariness compared to what our brothers and sisters are still enduring in the aftermath of Katrina, the possible onslaught of Rita, the sufferings of our brothers and sisters in Iraq and the innumerable abandoned, elderly, homeless, and so many others truly suffer.

There is a danger when certain disappointments or other tribulations afflict us of falling into the darkness of a pity-party or worse.

I suspect somehow we Christians, when we hear Him inviting us to take up our cross and follow Him, secretly expect we will be spared the emotional, spiritual, physical hardships and sufferings constitutive of the cross because we are being so ‘nice’ to follow Him in the first place!

Frankly this evening while preparing to celebrate Holy Mass the thought of a pity-party was momentarily inviting – but hearing the news about the continued suffering in the Southern States and what appears to be coming next – well lines from a psalm came to my heart. Through them I was graced to pull away from self-pity and embrace my own wee pain and turn to pray for others who suffer.

From Psalm 69, prayed not for myself primarily, but for all those who suffer, especially in the South:    Save me, God, for the waters have reached my neck. I have sunk into the mire of the deep, where I have gone down to the watery depths….I am weary with crying out…..I am afflicted and in pain; let Your saving help protect me, O God,….you who seek God, take heart! For the Lord hears the poor….