Lockdown blues early 2021

I think all Catholics at one time or another face a crisis of faith, some leave the faith, others find their faith is strengthened. Whatever the outcome it is a hard time and a painful one for that person, trying to find their way through their dilemma. The lockdown over the last year has certainly had its impact on me and how my faith is being challenged.

Sometimes it is difficult to decide if it is a crisis of faith, or if it is more to do with feeling that your faith is being attacked, not necessarily from the outside secular world, but internally, from within yourself.

This is a common occurrence for the devout Catholic, sometimes because simply put, we do not feel worthy of Christ.

To describe my own dilemma and I would not call it a crisis of faith, but a struggle to incorporate Christ within my life, especially during a difficult time for everyone in this world.

No one (or very few people at least) have an easy life, rich or poor we all have our problems. For those like me the problem can stem from a feeling of never being good enough, always failing to reach expectations, never quite attaining the level of expertise, goodness, kindness, devotion etc., etc. Now whilst we often joke about Catholic guilt, it is not always funny, some of us have lived with ‘Catholic’ guilt all our lives, even when we were not Catholics in some cases. So is it guilt or is it that we set such high attainment levels we are always setting ourselves up to fail.

Guilty as charged. I have done this all my life and at nearly 70 I am still doing it.

Nor can I, like many other people, blame my parents for this, they did not set high attainments for me, they believed I should find my own level and did not put pressure on me. Though this could be as much part of the problem. Feeling that maybe they did not care enough to want me to succeed. Again, it comes back on me. I never have and never will blame someone else for my own shortcomings. At the end of the day whatever I am, whatever I have done, whatever I become, it is down to me, no one else.

So how to get to grips with the feeling that I am constantly and consistently failing Christ.

As in so many other instances, it is in the little things, I fail to do my rosary every day, I fail to thank God for the day when I go to bed, I fail the thank God for the day when I get up. You’ve got it, I fail. Now sometimes I can put my sensible head on and realise that life sometimes overwhelms me and I am struggling, not only to maintain my own life but that of others around me. As a full time carer for an elderly disabled father (96 with CMT) and a severely disabled husband (massive stroke 16 years ago, Aphasic, Dyspraxia, AF, Diabetes, heart failure, vascular dementia) I have my hands full. No one tells you just how hard it is to watch someone deteriorate and to die, but I chose to look after them and I would not change the choice I made. However, it does mean that my life does not exactly belong to me, I have to incorporate others into my everyday life, every day 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. Whilst it is not beyond me, sometimes it feels like it is. I feel trapped. I feel I cannot do anything else. It is not true of course, I have a supportive family and friends, but then how we feel is not always how it is. It is not hard physical work, it is demanding and it does limit what I can do.

So, you ask yourself, what is she whining about, how does this impact on her faith. Well simple, as a Catholic convert, I have not grown up with the faith, I am still learning and still getting to know what is expected of me. I might also add, I’m really, really, good at making excuses why I cannot do something. Where I feel I should be going to confession, though sometimes I’m not so sure what I have to confess, I do not go because it is not easy to get to church at a convenient time for me. Really!

You see what I mean, I am good at excuses.

Is that a sin?

Should I be confessing this?

So much is still a bit of an enigma to me. I have so much to learn.

To say I felt the loss of the Mass during the first lockdown, is possibly the understatement of the century. I was bereft. I do not have that excuse this time. However, something odd happens and I lose my concentration during mass, this happens a lot, weird and sometimes uncomfortable and unpleasant thoughts besiege me, they pop into my head for no reason whatsoever. Is this me, or is this something else. The way I have dealt with it so far, is to read my missal, sometimes losing complete track of what is going on in the mass. It keeps my brain occupied and therefore nothing untoward can creep in. Is this good or bad?

I have to admit, I have suffered from depression most of my life, but have for the most part, dealt with it without requiring medication. I am now wondering if the depression is rearing its ugly head because of my faith. The change in what I do and how I do it. The change in what I read, so it is having an impact on the way I control my depression. (I often read to get me through, but have generally read, light, crime fiction, I now read almost only religious books). Does the change have an impact or not. I do not know. I am struggling to ensure that Christ is first in my life. I do not feel I am giving him priority. Yet again, I am failing. But what about the people I care for, should not they be my first consideration. Am I failing them.

You see where I am coming from.

Lockdown has exacerbated something which might in normal circumstances just be a bit difficult. The loss of the mass, the lack of social interaction, being under house arrest, (which is essentially what lockdown is) is very life limiting and the brain or at least my brain is struggling. The Christian faith is under attack from all quarters, which most of us are feeling, but you feel very much out on a limb with lockdown, unable to talk about it with fellow Christians, unable to get a perspective on it. I am a traditional Catholic, I attend Latin Mass, I love the Latin Mass, I do not see me as the important part of the Mass, I find other Masses lose the focus on God and seem to put it on the individual and I do not like that. But whilst I am a traditionalist, I have a modern, secular brain (years of training of course), I have a logical mind and I understand the supernatural (and before you ask, I am not talking about ghosts). I have always understood deep down, the supernatural, the Trinity has never been a problem, the Eucharist is very simple. For me, it is the bits other people seem to find easy, it is the prayer, it is the devotionals, it is the everyday I find hard.

As we come to the end of this lockdown I need to get back on track, I need to gain focus, I want to put Christ first in all parts of my life, I need understand how to do this. My poor aging brain needs to get to grips with being a Catholic, somehow I feel to do this I have to get a new perspective on how I live my life, or maybe it is an old perspective, maybe I need to go backwards, how did I live my life when I was not a Catholic what has changed. Perhaps I need to understand and get that perspective in order first, because Catholic or not, I have always been a Christian, it just took me many years to find somewhere I belonged to practice my faith.