Interior Shack

At mass a couple Sundays ago I was struck (distracted?) by the massive Nativity Scene that had been set up in Christ the King Chapel. It wasn’t the Nativity Scene itself that distracted me, of course, but my own wandering mind. You see, lately I’ve been seriously struggling in my spiritual life. Prayer (when I do it) is dry and seemingly fruitless, full of distraction and wandering thoughts. The prayer lives of everyone else around me seem so much better in comparison and I’m self-conscious that they’re going to discover my secret and judge me for it.

I feel like I can relate really well to the Israelites wandering around in the desert, wanting what their neighbors had and feeling self-conscious because they didn’t have it, falling into sin and repenting, only to fall back into sin again. That has been my frustration lately as bad habits and little sins that I thought I had snuffed out have crept back into my life which has caused me to be full of self-doubt and anxious as I struggle to remember my identity as a chosen and cherished daughter of the Father. As a result, I've resorted to grasping at any bit of power or control I come across which means I’ve insisted that nothing is wrong with me and I’ve been obstinate, rude, self-centered, and angry towards others.

And the worst part about it is that, just like the Israelites, I have no excuse. I know how I’m supposed to act (I too know the 10 Commandments and have “prophetic” friends who call me out when I mess up) so I know I’m wrong when I do these things but I still do them anyway and can’t seem to shake the lies I’m believing about myself. Quite simply, I’m frustrated with myself for having fallen into the same old sins that I always fall into because shouldn’t I know better by now? And knowing what it is that I keep doing wrong, shouldn’t I be able to fix it?

It feels as though my “interior castle” (in the words of St. Teresa of Avila) has become more of a shack: a hollow, dilapidated structure that is barely standing and that has cracks in the walls that allow the cold wind to whip through. And no matter what I do, I can’t seem to make my interior shack back into a castle. Heck, I can’t even repair the holes in the walls!

Just like with the Israelites, there’s an emptiness on the inside. Something is missing, and I can’t do anything about it.

What is it that is missing? Jesus.

The Israelites had the 10 Commandments and the prophets. They knew what to do and what not to do. They knew all of these things, but they still couldn’t “fix” or save themselves. For that, they needed Jesus.

That’s why Jesus had to come and save them. That’s why he had to become a little baby at Christmas. That’s what we are preparing for during Advent: our Savior.

And here’s the good news: Jesus wasn’t born in a castle. Jesus was born in a stable. Jesus was born in a shack. Just like the Nativity Scene in Christ the King shows, that stable was shabby and hollow and had holes in the walls where the wind could blow through. He wasn’t born at a nice, warm, attractive inn because “there was no room at the inn.”

So as I looked at that Nativity Scene I realized that this Advent the Lord has been preparing my heart (even if I haven’t done anything to prepare it myself). He did this by hollowing me out, by letting me experience what life is like without Christ, what it was like for the Israelites to struggle and fall over and over and over again. He has let me experience that struggle and that fall to remind me that I need Him to come and to awaken in my soul a deep longing for His coming like the Israelites longed for the coming of their Savior.

And like the Jewish people I still miss it sometimes. I fail to see how Christ is present in my life and acknowledge His divinity. But that’s OK because He comes anyway. Jesus Christ, my Savior, is coming at Christmas, and there’s nothing I can do to stop Him.

The only question that remains for me is whether or not I’m going to turn Him away by saying there’s no room at the inn, or if I’m going to offer Him the shabbiness of my hollow inner heart and allow Him to be born there. I pray that I would have the humility to let Jesus Christ, my God and my Savior into my broken, hurting heart and I pray that you would do the same.

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Alyssa is a Junior studying Humanities and Catholic Culture, Theology, and Philosophy. She is a native of Texas where she lives with her family in a blue-roofed house on top of a hill. She is passionate about the Truth of the Lord's Incarnation and loves spending time discovering and discussing ways in which others have incarnated the Gospel in film, history, literature, politics, and art. Her favorite saints are St. Teresa of Avila and St. Catherine of Siena because they both personify St. John Paul II's "feminine genius" in her mind.