By REY FLORES
Most of us have heard about St. Teresa of Calcutta’s “dark night of the soul” when even this very holy soul began to have her doubts about God and had feelings of abandonment and spiritual darkness.
In no way am I comparing myself to a saint, but after a few hard weeks of daily challenges which tested my faith, I believe that I came pretty close to quitting being Catholic. I told my spiritual adviser that life had become too difficult and that I felt I didn’t have the strength, courage, or desire to remain being Catholic.
He proceeded to tell me about how he and another one of his spiritual sons had once taken a walk around the wooded parish premises, and how the more one walked the unbeaten path, the easier it would become to walk it consequentially.
I also recalled Job in the Bible and all of the calamities he suffered and despite it all, Job remained a faithful son of God. I too must be like Job, but the hardships I feel overwhelmed by are nothing compared to what Job went through, or to the hard work and sacrifice Mother Teresa performed during her lifetime.
How many of you have had a dark night of the soul? How many of you have felt like giving up the battle and simply surrendering to the ways of this world? A better question being: How many of us Catholics have actually quit being Catholic and thrown in the proverbial towel a long time ago?
Indulge me for a few brief paragraphs here while I tell you about a dream I recently had.
It first started when I was on an airplane, waiting on the tarmac runway of some airport or another waiting for takeoff. Then all of a sudden a number of military and law enforcement personnel began evacuating the plane and corralling people like cattle.
I managed to escape down a hatch with two others as we made our way into the cargo bay, undetected. Then, I started to notice a number of military-type drones and soldiers surveilling the cold industrial landscape of my dream.
I somehow managed to find an apartment where my family lived. Since I had been on the run for a few days, I was relieved to get some food and see familiar faces. My family informed me that I should not eat too much because now every citizen was expected to give a sizable portion of the food or food budget to feed any government representative who came knocking at their door.
Not only that, but the surveillance was constant and I was detected shortly after by an officer with a laser heat-seeking light attached to his helmet. He was accompanied by a very gruff-looking man who started in on me in an alien tongue about how I was going to die.
Like most dreams, there was little reason or rhyme to the developments which ensued.
I beat down the gruff man and I managed to pierce his flesh with a sharp object, causing several dark, bat-like demons to fly out of his body and into the air in a wild and haunting gust of wind and whistling.
Without going into it in further detail, the dream continued with my still trying to avoid the authorities as I made my way in a new society which denied its citizens, or slaves, the freedom to worship God.
While my “dark night of the soul” and this dream were separated by at least a couple of days, I believe that in that dream, I was being reminded by our Lord Jesus just how easily we could lose our religious freedoms in today’s political climate.
Here I am selfishly thinking that I do not need my Catholic faith anymore, while martyrs have died horrible and painful deaths in order to remain true to Christ the King and His one and only Holy Catholic Church.
“Enter ye in at the narrow gate: for wide is the gate, and broad is the way that leadeth to destruction, and many there are who go in thereat. How narrow is the gate, and strait is the way that leadeth to life: and few there are that find it!” (Matt. 7:13,14).
True, so very true, and our Lord reminds us of this in so many ways every day when we choose to do bad over good, or preferably good over bad.
We are called fallen creatures for a reason, because we are fallen indeed. The ones who choose to remain fallen and not get up and keep trying are the ones who risk losing God for all eternity. I do not want to be in that category of perpetually fallen souls.
What must we do to avoid the wickedness and snares of Satan who tempts us every day to choose the wide and easy path? What can we do for each other in order to defeat Satan and all of his demons to abandon their mission to destroy our lives and steal our souls?
I cannot answer that question for anyone but myself, but if you can please pray for my spiritual health and well-being, and I will do the same for each and every one of you. Let us keep each other in the brightest light of Christ and avoid the darkness at all costs.
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(Rey Flores is a Catholic writer and speaker. Contact Rey at reyfloresusa@gmail.com.)
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