Lenten Reflections, Messy Saints, Chronic Grumblitis

Today is Palm Sunday and the start of Holy Week, marking the culmination of my second Lenten season since returning to the Catholic Church. Last Lent, I was mired in the stress of our epic move and very distracted, so I settled on the minimum—no meat on Fridays, fasting here and there, and getting a full rosary in every day that I could. I felt guilty about not doing more, so to make up for it this year, I created an overly-ambitious plan that I knew full well I was going fail at, and fail I did. But it led to some very good things—I started reading the Autobiography of St. Teresa of Avila, which I find totally captivating, and I started journaling again after a long hiatus.

One of the things that St. Teresa talks about in her book is a savage, prolonged illness that was so severe there was a grave prepared for her outside of her convent, and she she woke up several times finding wax on her eyelids, a detail I find especially horrifying. Somehow she got through this terrifying ordeal of daily suffering with her faith intact, and even references moments of profound joy in submitting to God’s will in accepting her pain. That having been said, one of the reasons I am so drawn to St. Teresa is her deep flaws and messiness. I’m only at the beginning of learning about the saints, and I know that prior to conversion, many of them led dissolute lives and struggled mightily with faith, but something about St. Teresa in particular speaks to me. She’s fun. She’s warm. She seems like she would be an absolute delight to hang out with. She was thrust into being a nun at an early age, not because of any particular calling, but because of life circumstances, and she had one foot in and one foot out for many years. She loved romance novels, beautiful clothes, and idle chatter and gossip. She was obsessed with her outward appearance and coming across as pious to others, when she knew inside that she wasn’t. She stopped praying for a long span of time. She struggled with all sorts of temptations and often lost the fight. I find her very relatable.

As I was journaling about her horrifying illness and musing on how she even survived such an ordeal in the mid-1500’s without the benefits of advanced medicine, it occurred to me with how little grace I accept even the least physical discomfort in my own body. I’m a total Goldilocks. I can’t stand being too hot or too cold, too full or too hungry, itchy, sneezy, stiff, under-exerted or over-exerted. I have some sort of deep hip pain going on right now which I think is sciatica, and I don’t want to accept it. I just want the pain to go away, the same as I want my emotional and spiritual suffering to go away. I don’t do pain well. I don’t do stoicism well. I would beg God to kill me if I underwent what St. Teresa experienced. I can’t fathom getting cancer or any sort of serious illness and accepting it on any level whatsoever. And yet despite my hot-house flower temperament, I’ve been extremely blessed with my health. Praise God, I’m in quite good shape considering my genetics and the number of years I spent doing little to nothing in the fitness arena. All of my physical calamities have been relatively short-lived, and so far nothing life-threatening has gotten a hold of me, a least not that I’m aware of. And yet I worry and grouch habitually.

So this Lent, I have been making a conscious effort to thank God every time I go swimming or go to the gym or take a long walk—to thank Him for my functional body, my good health, my physical independence, and my freedom from disease and serious illness. It is by His grace alone. I intend to carry this through past Lent, and hope that it maybe it reduces my tendency to grumble about every mild physical discomfort. And maybe I can go into Holy Week tolerating just a bit more and complaining just a bit less.

--Kristen McHenry