Less Sentimentality More Jesus

When I first thought about writing a post-lent reflection, I was drawing a complete blank.  I hadn’t really noticed any fruits from my sacrifices, and I was really disappointed.  I decided to go to the chapel to pray about it and to see if the Lord would give me a little help and insight.  As I was praying and trying to find something that had changed in me, it hit me. I was in the chapel praying....

 Let me explain by proposing a scenario to you -- You wake up at 7am and make a cup of coffee and eat a small breakfast, which gets you through your 8am class fairly well.  At 9:30, you go to Mariology, where you are completely amazed by how wonderful Mary is and all you want to do is go to the chapel and pray about all the new things you learned, but you have to make it through one more class first.  After that last class, it’s now 12:15 and you’re tired and want to take a nap, you’re hungry because you haven’t eaten since 7am, and all part of you wants to do is go home.  But what about going to the chapel?

 Pre-lent I would have gone home 90% of the time. But there I was, post-lent sitting in the chapel, growling stomach and all. I started to think about what had sparked this change? I began to reflect on what I had given up, especially the sentimental media, because that was what was hardest for me. 

 I realized that in distancing myself from overdramatized sentimentality, I was more aware of my emotions, and more aware when they were getting out of control.  I began to notice how much I was allowing my emotions to control my actions, my thoughts, and my life.  In the instance of the after class chapel run, I would let my laziness get in the way of my prayer life.  Not that post-lent I don’t feel lazy, but I am more able to recognize it and work against it in order to grow.  The same goes for other emotions as well.  When I would begin to feel really down about something and start leaning towards self-pity, I was able to recognize those emotions as out of proportion, and renounce it.

 I also realized that it pertains to happy emotions as well! I always thought that feel-good emotions were good and didn’t need to be addressed, but I was wrong.  Those emotions of hope and expectation you get when you meet a cute guy need to be proportionate to the actual position you’re in. If you have only shaken hands with him and told him your name, no good can come out of hoping and fantasizing about your wedding!

 The Lord didn’t make us to be controlled by our emotions. Picture a world where everyone is driven simply by emotion - it’s not a pretty picture.  The Lord created us to be in control of our emotions.  When we watch movies or listen to music filled with sentimentality and excessive emotion, we begin to dwell on those emotions rather than tame them.  We begin to think that good emotion is the only way to determine if something is good, and bad emotion determines if something is bad, but thats not the way it works. 

Sometimes it is hard to pray, we don’t feel like it, or we don’t feel the Lord’s presence, but that doesn’t mean we don’t need to pray! Mother Teresa never “felt” God’s love, but she never doubted that He loved her, and His love inspired her to love the world in an extraordinary way.  Love hurts!  It is a sacrifice!  Sometimes the right thing to do is hard, and sometimes we want to do the wrong thing, but it is precisely in doing what is right, even when we don’t feel like it, that we unite ourselves to Christ and truly learn to love.  When someone says that love is simply a warm and fuzzy feeling, think of Christ on the cross.  True love is so much more than a sentimental feeling! 

 

In Him,

 Carrie