Week One

I begin my course is Theological Studies next week…meaning a lot of reading for me to do. I have to re-evaluate some time management issues. At least I will have a few days next week to get myself on a more liveable schedule, I won’t be able to go to Mass as often as I have done this summer. I am also seeking direction with a Jesuit Priest, I am not sure if it will be fruitfull but I am going to see him for a few sessions and see how it works out. He loaned me a book called, “When the Well Runs Dry” and for the small amount of time I had to read it – I really like it. After speaking with him, I realize that just because I feel like I am walking in a desert; it doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s a bad thing. Jesus often retreated to the desert for days and days to pray and fast. The Jesuit said that the spiritual desert is where God purifies our souls, often providing us with an oasis here and there. In retrospect, I agree with that statement, this past few months have been like that for me, really dry but then at the most unsuspecting moments a glimmer of consolation and peace. On a happier note, my first spiritual director is visiting Newfoundland and I am excited to see him again, I am hoping for a really nice chat and to catch up. I came across this on The Deacon’s Bench and I meant to paste it here. It is about a woman’s decision to devote her life to God and it has resonated in me ever since. Enjoy.

I come to the door of the house, carrying my jar of ointment, still wondering what possessed me to come. As I bribe the doorkeeper — who knows me — to let me in, I wonder what He will do when I touch His feet. If He should kick at me, it is only what I deserve, but if He does before I can anoint Him, what then? What then? No answer comes. And now I am already inside, burning under the hostile gaze of everyone in the room. Oh, God, it is a regular dinner party! They all know, they all accuse, they all wonder how I gained entrance. Even the maidservants stare.But there He is, and he is not looking at me. He is attentive to a conversation which He has just begun with someone on the opposite side of the table — almost as though He is deliberately distracting attention from me — and others are joining in now, too. The oppressive, silent accusation is lifted, and I make my way to Him. As I remove His sandals, he doesn’t flinch, and I begin to weep. He is letting me touch Him! He is letting me touch Him without fuss or ceremony; I didn’t even have to ask! As my tears fall on His ankle accidentally, I realize how dirty these feet are. Whatever water I can, I use; my tears shall cleanse Him even as they cleanse my heart from so much worry, so much shame. All my memories of sin, I pour out of my eyes; all my wishes to begin again as a new woman, become tears to wash away the dust on these precious feet. But what shall I use to dry them? Even my clothes are tainted by my past life — I cannot dirty these feet anew by using defiled veil or dress. But my hair is mine; God-given from before I fell away from him. Pulling back my veil, I loosen its combs and let its coils tumble down. Gently, I dry away my tears and try to calm the tremors in my stomach and hands. How can He be allowing this? He still has not even looked at me!
Finally I reach for my jar. Though this ointment cost me nearly all my ill-gotten fortune, it now pales in the face of what this wandering prophet has given me. I no longer desire any vestige of my sinfulness, any remnant of this life, and I break the neck of the jar on the stone floor, emptying its entire contents on the feet before me. The noise and smell which soon overpowers the room immediately bring attention back on me, and I hide my scarlet face by bending and kissing once more His now-pungent feet.
Then I hear his voice and feel a gently hand on my head. “Simon, I have something to say.”