I am not sure why I am posting this. My father grew up in poverty and has done very well materially. I grew up in privilege compared to the rest of the world. I have experienced all of life's pleasures. Roman senators would envy me. I have seen its horrific pains. I live in luxury. I am tired. My soul is weary. I pray every day to Our Lay for succor. I think it is in vain as my sins are so great. I love her. I am so tired of this world. I talk to you all and my friends on phone. I feel so alone where I am. No one understands. I can have every drug. It is all an illusion. I am so tired.

Reminds me of something a nun told me a long time ago.

"A baby is born into this world with his hands clenched, wanting everything the world offers, while a man is dying with his hands wide open wanting nothing of this world."

I am not an old man. I am only 30.

I am weak. Man is weak. How can we hope for salvation with so much failure and sin?

I feel like i live in a madhouse. I am sane and the rest are nuts.

I do not know what is true anymore. I have no compass.

 

It's that time of year in your field of work.

XXXOOO

God's will, Andy. You know that. God has a lot of things for all of us to do. Maybe yours is to just raise your family. Maybe to comfort someone who is down from time to time. Maybe you will bring others into the Church. You have a unique perspective on many things. Maybe this perspective will allow you to reach out to somebody in some way that no one else can. Maybe you will create something, maybe start a company, maybe write a book, maybe a website, that will bring others to God. Or maybe you're just supposed to grow further as a Catholic. You're a humble man; I know you don't believe that you have advanced spiritually as far as you can. Maybe God wants you to go straight into Heaven when you die. No purgatory. Maybe for some reason He wants you to advance in holiness to the top rung of the ladder, like St. John of the Cross or St. Teresa of Avila.

Maybe next Friday He needs you to pull a baby out of a car wreck, just before the car explodes in a great ball of gaseous flame. That baby grows up to be the Pope who restores Tradition. Or maybe that baby grows up to be the mother of a big Catholic family. I surely don't know. Neither do you, obviously. But if we believe God is all powerful and all knowing, then God knows, and He has a plan and a purpose for you. One thing for sure is that God values patience and perserverance. I think God is quite capable of making us or letting us suffer, if it's for our own spiritual good.

Sometimes I feel the same way, Andy. It's called ennui, a sense of deep-seated boredom with everything. I think to myself that I have achieved everything I need to already, so why don't I just leave this Valley of Tears now and save myself a lot of grief? Then I think about my mom, my daughter, my students, maybe even some people I haven't met yet. They'll miss me. They might even need me. So it's not my time to go. In the meantime, there are still people to meet, places to go, things to do, etc. If there weren't, God would take me off the board right now. The fact that I'm still here proves that God isn't done with me yet.

Read the Heliotropium, Andy, if you haven't already. If you have, read it again. And read the Psalms. Pray the Divine Office, or at least as much of it as you can, every day. Things will look up.