The roller coaster of feelings

The question of ‘feelings’ has come up in some recent Secular meetings I have attended, and it is so important.  We live in a society so attuned to looking for experiences, and experiences are really about feelings – the adrenaline rush etc.  I find St John of the Cross so helpful in this regard, but he is also very challenging.  He continually calls us back to trust in God, not in our feelings, and that can be hard to absorb, because our feelings seem to permeate everything.  But compared to living by feelings, living by trust is so liberating.  Feelings take us on a roller-coaster to nowhere, trust in God keeps us firmly grounded.  That is also a lesson given by Therese of Lisieux, who lost God from her feelings entirely towards the end of her life; she had then to cling to blind trust, as she tells us herself.  It’s the trust of the child holding out its hand to its parent to be taken where the parent wants it to go. The spiritual quest is not after all about excitement, it is a quest for truth. 

Intercessions:

Brian Davis - cancer

Marie, Bernard (and wife Angela), Agnes – cancer

Siena, Elara – sick children

Rosemarie – seriously ill

Wojtek – massive heart attack leaving him incapacitated

David - housebound

Sophia – blind infant