When You Don't Feel The Love

Since Easter, I have been going through the motions in my faith life. Sunday Mass, daily morning offering, weekly holy hour, monthly Confession. But I feel like I'm on autopilot. I feel nothing. The truth of the matter is, I am suffering from the consequences of the sin of indifference. It doesn't seem like it should be, but I'm pretty sure this is a deadly sin. For why else would the Lord vomit the lukewarm from his mouth, and say "I wish you were either hot or cold" (Rev 3:16)?

As a largely emotional person, I recognize the danger in being beholden to one's emotional flux. This is where I think left-brained people have a slight advantage by shelving how they "feel" about something and just doing it--either by force of habit or simple logic. 

The Devil is wily, and has certainly been working on me lately by a thousand cuts. I've been feeling burnt out, out of step with the Catholic "scene," having little to draw from for writing, feeling neglected, cynical, distracted, worldly, and a host of other little things that make it easy to snip away at the hair-like roots holding the spiritual dunes together and erosion at bay. It reminds me of a story of the late Fr. Benedict Groeschel, who 

fostered a paternal love for priests, men worn out by the ministry, men fallen on hard times, addicted to alcohol or other vices, and then the most despised of all: priests who had abused. In a Church where the ministry of priests is taken for granted and many are forgotten, left to their work, not cared for, Fr Benedict was one who reached out to them to rebuild and restore what had crumbled through years of neglect, fatigue and loneliness. He said that often when burnt-out priests arrived to speak to him, or those who were considering leaving the ministry, the first question he asked them was: "When did you stop praying?" Inevitably all of them had abandoned prayer, and Fr Benedict's first piece of advice was to begin praying again. No priest can live without prayer, no priest can work without prayer, no priest can be a priest without prayer. 

It is not just priests that cannot live without prayer, but lay disciples like you and I who can admittedly take the work of prayer for granted...until you let it fall by the wayside and realize how far you have the potential to drift without it. And admittedly, it's not just that one stops praying one day...just as one drifts from their spouse a little bit at a time, day after day, until they find themselves in a bed far from their own. Divorce lawyer James Sexton related an insightful little story on Rogan to illustrate this point:

The problem is these little disconnections. This woman, my client, we were sitting outside the courtroom...late thirties, very attractive. And I said to her, "Was there a moment when you realized the marriage was over?" And she said "Yes," 

"There was this granola I liked, and they only sold it at a particular grocery store. And I liked to put it in my yogurt. Whenever I'd be running low on it, I'd just open the thing and a new bag would be there. And it made me feel so loved. I didn't have to ask, he didn't want credit for it. He would just do this thing...and it would always make me smile. 

"And one day, the granola ran out. And I thought that's weird, maybe he didn't see it. So I left the bag in there, because I thought at some point I figured he would notice.  And he didn't notice. So I took the bag out. And I waited. And he didn't get a new bag. And I thought, "Okay, this thing's going down..."

We all have these little 'canaries in the cage' in our marriages, our friendships, our work, and yes, our spiritual lives. They start slowly and innocuously but create little divots in the turf that over time create an indentation deep enough to get your car stuck in the mud. 

For me, it's usually my daily rosary that falls by the wayside. Missing one day turns into two or three per week, which is curiously when other sins and temptations start to sneak under the fence, ones that wouldn't have bothered or tempted me otherwise. Then it becomes easier for the Devil to discharge the demons of sloth, acedia, and hatred of all spiritual things. All because, little by little, I dropped my defenses of prayer which kept them at bay.

The thing is, I know the response I would give--either to myself or a close friend--were he to say "I just don't feel the love anymore," or "I just don't love him/her anymore." The response?:

"So? Who cares? Get back to work."

The work, of course, is the work of love. We show love by our devotion, not our emotion. And, sadly, many of us in the spiritual life fail the tests that the Lord subjects us to to test our faith: when we don't feel the love of the Lord, when He has hidden himself from us (Is 45:15), we lose our incentive and impetus to pray, adore, and sacrifice. We feel like the fool who says, "there is no God" because we do not feel His presence (Ps 14:1). And yet, you made a vow....you're not going anywhere son. 

What we really need to do is get our butts in the chapel pew, double down, and give God the time even when it feels completely wasted. If you're being tested, it's not the time to dial back off the gas. The thing is, we usually realize how much we've taken our loves for granted too late. In a marriage that depends on two fallible people, that can lead to rifts difficult to repair. With the Lord, however, we are only one confession away from healing. We are the ones that veer off into the night--the Lord is a constant (Heb 13:8) waiting for us to return. 

Continue your prayer routine, even when you have seemingly nothing to give, when everything is dry and seems meaningless.  Quit making shallow excuses. Your tinder offering is a worthy oblation because it's divorced from what you "get out of it." When you don't feel the love, stay the course, double down on the work, and keep your butt in the marriage and the pew.