Yesterday, the priest from the Charismatic Center called. It was sometime in the afternoon.

I was attempting to go to confession, but completely missed the line. This parish had a tendency to be limiting with the Sacrament of Reconciliation. An unofficial cut-off time was established, due to the limit of the number of seats present to be in line for confession.

I barely missed the phone call. And despite attempts to call them back, I opted to listen to the voicemail.

Father acknowledged my call to be part of deliverance ministry and mentioned that there was no one in need of assistance at this time. Except... I was to pray for Lisa, someone along the pipeline he called it, who was in need of prayer.

Today, I have decided to create this as my Spiritual Journal. 

I aspire to write every day, editing my selections at night (for grammar, of course) 

and posting the little nuances at sporadic times throughout the week.

It's something that I've been feeling the call to do. Write & write & write.

But about what? 

I think I know the answer.

Roar

The demons of anger like to hang around me. They've seen my ferocious temper, exploding on impact.

But as quickly as the flame was ignited, it's extinguished.

Smokeless. No evidence.

They like to poke at me when I'm in a mood. Trying to taunt me to instigate. Encouraging me to quietly seeth on top of an issue that, while I feel bothers me for ever, only lasts a few minutes.

Today was one of those days.

And instead of rushing into battle today, I've decided to share what bothers me that causes these things to react so gleefully at my demise. Choosing instead to encourage a teaching moment, instead of creating a scene.

I'm on birth control and it's saving my life.

So you can imagine my ire when I read some conservative Catholics baseless comments on hormone treatment. How, I can unfortunately relate, it's misfortune of being connected to one of the greatest controversies of disputing the Gift of Life.

I sit here in the midst of the irony, hoping that when I reveal my greatest secret, it doesn't lash out back at me.

In September of 2013, I was in the hospital for a ruptured ovarian cyst. At a little under 100lbs, I lost two pints of blood and suffered pain for a few months after. Of which the only comparison I had in my head was that to giving birth.

I was diagnosed with Chronic Iron-Deficient Anemia and tentative Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome.

It forced me to look back on the painful menstrual cycles that had me nearly bedridden for three days, nausea, headaches, body aches, and some form of (real) PMS. Explosive anger from me only happens around that time. God must have had a sense of humor when He gave me this disorder. I'm quite a passive person.

At the New Years before, I nearly fainted in the Philippines. Pain erupted in my abdomen and lasted for 2 days. The only identical pain I had to was had happened in the September of 2013.

To add insult to the injury, I recalled moments in my adolescence when I went to my mother and requested for 2 things:
- Psychiatric Treatment for my Unnatural Anger.
- Medical Treatment for Dysmenorrhea.

I was obviously denied.

So I was given birth control to prevent ovulation, which is exactly how cysts form.

The irony of it all.

I pray for peace in my heart to counter this anger, patience when my body doesn't allow me to be patient. As it's my choice to react holistically or in anger.

Then I remember what a priest told me: birth control is just hormone therapy. The only reason why there's such controversy is its misuse of the major side effect. The Lord has given you this burden to bear for a reason, use it to teach others. But don't think down on it too much, it's meant to uplift you. Not bring you down.

Mama Mary, pray for us.

Senior-itis Causing a Scene

For the first time (in forever) I felt demons inside the school.

It started as a low pressure, which increased during the day. I believe it was a feeling of apathy. And laziness.

I can only come to the conclusion that, while the school is already holy ground being a former convent and all, these are the things that the students bring in. They bring their burdens from home, work, and drama that can't be fixed.

And these demons poke and keep the wounds fresh, in the form of their grades and work ethic. An unfortunate mindset carried out onto the arguably stronger sex.

Remember to ask for the intercession of our Blessed Mother. 

Pray a Hail Mary. Ask her to provide with a means of strength, as our strength is not our own, and a way to overcome as women of Christ.

Not Desperate Enough

Earlier this week, I had another dream. An isolation dream.

Forces kept physically separating me from the rest of my group. While I can't tell you exactly what was going on in my dream, I know that the idea was to create a sense of despair.

Loneliness. Segregation. Detachment.

They've been attempting to do that lately. While I'm slowly figuring out what's going on, I've also been fighting back in the only way I know how: pray unceasingly.

And the other day, a revelation of the Church came to me while I was driving to work.

I met some friends of mine for a crawfish boil (Texas for the win, y'all.) a few weeks ago. One of them I haven't seen in a while had recently turned her life around to serve the Lord. Not Catholic, but part of the Mystical Body of Christ.

We briefly talked about churches which turned into an invitation to join the next Awakening retreat, a Catholic based retreat that's open to everyone. While originally a way to increase campus ministry, it's integrated into our Archdiocese to serve the diversity and the Greater City area. My friend's response to the invitation?

No thanks. I'll feel like I'm cheating on my church.

Of which my response was,

Cheating on your church? I'm Catholic, there's no such thing as cheating if it's all of God.
I'll go to yours, if you go to mine.

And it stuck with me for a while. This whole concept of isolation exists in our society, religious or not. A way to separate and distinguish our individuality.

But I feel it's become a way to create this barrier. It's us versus them. And it shouldn't be that way.

God revealed to us at Pentecost a way to evangelize and follow Him. He separated us in the only way He knew to spread His word more effectively: through our language, our speech, our testimonies.Written word serves as an aid to our humanity, but could be translated and interpreted wrongly. Speech, or conversation as Socrates put it, helps convey the truth more so than any other form.

And the Lord has divided us for a reason. Having loved us so much and knowing us so thoroughly, was able to distinguish that He needed to break down the concepts of His love into little bits and pieces, denominations if you will, for us to better understand Him. And even better, requiring us to search for Him through more than one path before finding Him in the one that suits us best.

So for someone who is ignorant enough to state, to me, that they are "cheating" on their denomination, does not quite understand the Lord in His glory. And while I am not holy enough to make such defined presumptions based on the words of other people, I completely understand my need to look for God in other places outside of Catholicism.

Obviously, not through the occult. But by finding Him in other aspects of my life that aren't centered around religion, but guided because of my faith in Him.

And it's completely okay.

11/25/2013

Hello, world.