Real Excitement

By Fr. Christopher Kubat, M.D.

Try for a moment to image and compare two scenarios.

The first is being at a sporting event at a major stadium, or a concert in a large auditorium. Have you ever been to an NFL or MLB game? Or at a college football game between two major rivals? How about a concert with a famous singer? If so, you would have to admit the atmosphere was ‘electric,’ that people were involved, engaged and ecstatic. Have you ever seen people in a crowd singing along with a performer?

Next, imagine yourself at Sunday Mass on a typical weekend. To be fair, we do not want people ‘going nuts,’ in the pews but many are not active participants and would rather be elsewhere. Fr. Donald Haggerty has written a marvelous book entitled, The Hour of Testing, in which he points out that we are in a period of spiritual apathy which amounts to a quiet rejection of God. Many young people do not know how to pray because they do not know what prayer is. In this moment of testing, in which atheism is on the rise, a “Commitment to prayer, sacrifice, and fidelity must intensify.”

I bet when asked, most if not all who are reading this would admit they have a desire to intensify their life of prayer. That said, it is not always about the quantity of prayer but the quality of prayer. Many people’s prayers are mostly those of petition, asking God for something, rather than expressing love and adoration to love itself. Yes, expressing love to love itself, because that is what God is.

A soul deprived of serious prayer is akin to a desert devoid of vegetation and flowers. Fr. Haggerty writes, “The deserts of Africa can bloom in a brilliant array of radiant color with a single, sudden rainfall … But is this phenomenon in the desert not a telling symptom of what can happen to a soul when rain and sunlight combine to soak the dry crevices of inner darkness in a life? The sudden bloom of happiness in a soul can be inexplicably profound.”

Accepting and using the gift of prayer is what leads to real excitement, not the fading kind one experiences during and immediately after a game or concert.  This kind of excitement lasts and perdures. This is what caused the conversion of St. Ignatius of Loyola. His biography is worth a look.

Physicians are always worried about the spread of communicable diseases. Authentic excitement about the faith is infectious. It spreads. Even though St. Mother Teresa often experienced profound desolation, those around her never knew it. She was very joyful and was frequently seen with a smile. Some who were with her for only a moment were touched by the Divine.

Let us all take a serious look inward and cast off some of the things keeping us away from the Lord. He is waiting for you in the tabernacle and monstrance, even in a prayer corner in your home or office. Only He can satisfy your deepest longings.