Prayer of Healing & Surrender of One's Emotions

JMJT! Praise be Jesus Christ! Now and Forever! Amen!

This entire year, I have sought to pursue God's call to welcome and practice more silence in my life, and this has included quieting my emotions.  As someone who has a melancholic-phlegmatic spiritual temperament, and generally experiences life and others through intuition and feelings, this continues to be quite a serious undertaking of self-surrender, renunciation, and receptivity to God's invitation and grace to enter into each present moment with calm, equinimity and detachment.

The spiritual greats in the treasury of our Catholic faith discuss at length the importance of becoming detached, purified and healed from our passions.  The Catechism of the Catholic Church recognizes that, “The passions are natural components of the human psyche; they form the passageway and ensure the connection between the life of the senses and the life of the mind” (CCC 1764). 

It goes on to explain that they are neutral in nature and can contribute to either good acts and the exercise of virtue or perverted by vices, and thus are to be governed by reason. This points to the necessity  that the movements of the senses, passions and appetites become purified and ordered towards the good. [See CCC 1768]

This is done by the Holy Spirit, who "accomplishes his work by mobolizing the whole being, with all its sorrows, fears and sadness, as is visible in the Lord's agony and passion. In Christ, human feelings are able to reach their consummation in charity and divine beatitude." [CCC 1769]

St. John of the Cross dedicates a large portion of his works, specifically in both The Ascent of Mount Carmel as well as The Dark Night of the Soul to the importance of this process of letting go of our natural as well as any spiritual or supernatural passions,  which he broadly enumerates as joy, hope, fear, and sorrow. These are beautiful gifts that we experience in our humanity, but we often struggle with disorder and serving these as false idols. That is why the dark nights of both the senses and the very roots of our soul/spirit are necessary to reharmonize these so that we are not slaves to our feelings and sensory experiences, but instead all is ordered towards God Himself as the Source of everything in our lives. 

The following prayer was written from the depths of my heart's desire and within my abject poverty to be fully purified in my affectivity, so that my passions can be rightly ordered and I can purely love God as the center of my life and love my neighbor as myself.  

My Beloved Lord Jesus, 

In Your Most Holy and Powerful Name, through the Immaculate Heart and Womb of Our Lady, I offer you all of my emotions and affectivity that are known and unknown to me. I recognize all of my emotions as your gifts to me as your daughter and in the workings of my feminine genius, but also the need for these interior movements to be purified.  I therefore give you all of my attachments and disordered feelings, and ask that you burn them away in Your Most Sacred Heart, the furnace of Your Merciful Love. I surrender to you all of my senses and appetites, including the six universal emotions of anger, fear, joy, surprise, sadness, and disgust, and all of the ways that I uniquely experience and express them, try to control them and any ways that they uniquely manifest themselves as patterns in my life.  

I freely give to you all the ways that I do not fully understand myself, my responses and feelings, nor their role in my sacred journey and relationship with others. I place down before the foot of the Cross, my blindness, deafness, and ignorance pertaining to all of these hidden ways that I act out of these emotions and ask for your grace and healing.

I ask that you purify any ways that I express my sentiments in a disordered manner, either in the extremes of numbing myself or in hyper-emotionalism. I ask for you to reveal and illuminate through the Holy Spirit the manner in which these passions  adversely impact myself and others, and most importantly how they hinder and create blockages in my relationship with You. I also ask that you bring to light any ways that my emotions are an attempt to manipulate or control others, or to create false idols that replace your primacy in my life and I ask profound forgiveness to you for this through your Most Precious Blood and Holy Wounds, Lord Jesus. 

I pray that I may turn solely and only to You to be heard, seen, known and understood. May I be humble, hidden and balanced in my emotions, by avoiding over-sensitivity, emotional intoxication, dissociation and/or numbing. May I be attuned to Your Divine Presence, always listening for Your voice as the Good Shepherd.  May I also be aware of the ways that you speak to me in the voice of conscience, and the subtle ways that my body provides me with signals regarding how I am responding in a given situation to people, places, and sitations. May I take care to listen deeply to my sacred story and to the ways that you are increasing self-knowledge and awareness within me so that I may better know and honor myself, to in turn better know and love You and all those you place upon my path.  In doing so, may I receive the gifts of wisdom, understanding and knowledge, to better recognize any interior responses that are connected with my memories, be they either good or bad; as well as understand and integrate my attachment style, my spiritual temperament, and sacred journey with your grace.  

Abba, Heavenly Father, I humbly ask that within my interior movements and passions, that I may recognize my inner voice as Your daughter, and be assured that You know me and call me by name and knit me together in my mother's womb. May I bring myself to You when I am experiencing distress or feelings of profound sadness, anger, abandonment, powerlessness, rejection or any other wound.  May I receive You, Jesus, as my Savior and Redeemer, as my Divine Bridegroom, my Brother and my Friend by Whose stripes I am healed. May I always remember that you are Emanuel, God With us,  and that you perpetually abide with me, most especially through the Eucharist, the Living Bread come down from heaven, to strengthen me and to slake my thirst. Holy Spirit, may I welcome you as my Divine Counselor, Consoler and Architect, and as the Sweet Guest of my soul, who leads and guides me on my journey back home to the Father. May I receive the gifts and fruits you wish to give me in your perfect pace, space, and place, and may I trust and abandon myself to the path you are calling me to follow without complaint. 

May I receive the tender love, mercy and maternal protection of Mama Mary, who always accompanies me along with St. Joseph, her most chaste spouse. May I seek to imitate the equinimity of Our Lady of Sorrows, the Immaculata and Burning Bush standing at the foot of the Cross, who models pure affectivity.  May I abandon myself to her as my Celestial Mother and Queen, Mediatrix and Intercessor of all graces, in complete confidence that she may mold and shape me in order to fully surrender and heal my emotions.  I pray this through the intercession of St. John of the Cross, St. Augustine, and St. Therese of the Child Jesus and Holy Face for the glory of the Most Holy Trinity.  Amen. 

Our Lady, the Burning Bush, Teaches us How to Live in Equanimity

JMJT! Praise be Jesus Christ! Now and Forever!

Blessings on the first day of 2024 when we honor the Solemnity of Mary, Mother of God,

who assists us in preparing our hearts for what God might be calling us to in the months to come! As we begin this year, perhaps we have discerned some goals or resolutions that we are being invited to more intentionally pursue, whether it is working on one particular virtue, strengthening a relationship with God or another, or developing a particular gift or talent more fully in our lives.  Before modeling such goals on an Excel spreadsheet or peppering our Google calendars with reminders  [all potentially very helpful and good things in and of themselves], it can be helpful to check in with our Celestial Mama and Queen who only wants what is best for her children, and who is always there to help. Just be meditating on the Gospels, we can encounter Our Lady's humility, open receptivity, and calm demeanor in every interaction and every twist, turn, and surprise in her life, all of which are worthy of our imitation. 

Recently, the image of Our Lady as the Burning Bush has become a symbol that is soaking ever deeper into my interiority as it is teaching me how to respond to the known and unknown aspects of my life with an increased interior disposition towards eqanimity or calm. The word “equanimity” comes from the combination of two Latin terms: aequus, meaning “even, level” and animus, meaning “mind” or “spirit.” Christian philosophers have characterized equanimity as the ability to remain calm, composed, open and non-reactive in the face of challenging and distressing situations. Some have suggested that the gift of equinimity is an essential component for carrying the virtues of modesty, gentleness, contentment, temperance, and charity. According to St. John Henry Newman in his homily, “Equanimity,” our peace rests on our ability to maintain a supernatural vision of our lives. To enjoy Christ's peace in the midst of events that impact my own interiority, my family and close loved ones, as well as my country and the greater world, he suggests that our eyes must be fixed on Christ, rather than the cares of earthly existence. This does not mean a cold detachment from others or our human embodiment in this life, but it does mean being able to maintain a calmness regardless of circumstances with a spirit of detachment, calm, docility, and flexibility in imitation of Our Lady, knowing that we are pilgrims on this earth who are destined for eternal life.  

Many Church Fathers have commented on the rich symbol of Our Lady as the Burning Bush. St. Ephrem saw the burning bush as a symbol of Mary’s purity and holiness, while St. John of Damascus, who lived in the 8th century AD, saw the burning bush as a symbol of the Incarnation of Christ. The following are inspirations that have come during my prayer time as I have been seeking to grow in equanimity, the exercise of virtue, and emotional sobriety in my life. I am hopeful that these thoughts might be helpful to others. 

The Blessed Virgin Mary is the burning bush because she burns brightly and fully, but is never consumed. The Lord Jesus is contained within her as the New Ark, along with a perpetual flow of Trinitarian Love. Amidst this fire, she is also perpetually the fountain of grace rooted in living waters as one 'who meditates upon the law day and night without ceasing. She is like a tree planted near streams of water, that yields its fruit in due season; Its leaves never wither; whatever he does prospers' [Ps 1:2-3], so she is in perfect balance and equalibrium. In other words, she does not ever become emotionally overheated!  Her feelings do not consume her in a way that she becomes a flamethrower or a dangerous conflagration that spills out in a haphazard or chaotic way. Instead, she ponders all things in Her Immaculate Heart, and is thereby able to respond to any situation, event or circumstance, whether seemingly positive of negative, good or evil, with complete calm. She is 'full of grace' and contains such purity as the New Eve that she receives the flow of Trinitarian Love within which burns as a perpetual lantern of light and love for her spiritual children. By maintaining this equanimity and being perpetually focused on the Divine Will and giving her fiat in each present moment, she contains all within this perfect burning flame of the Holy Spirit. 

She is also grounded [no pun  intended] in the rich soil of humility. She knows that Her Son is the vine and she is the branches and without Him, she can do nothing.  The elements within her very being as contained in the image of the burning bush are completely in balance, with no excess or deficit of any emotion. This allows her to respond in the fullness of grace and calm, in the midst of experiencing feelings and emotions at the deepest levels due to her open Immaculate Heart, her perfect sensitivities to the Divine Will and to the sufferings of both her Son, Jesus, as well as to all of humanity. Yet, she stands at the foot of the Cross in total equanimity. She gathers with the Apostles in the Upper Room in a calm way that unites everyone together in holy expectation, prayerfulness, silence, and harmony. This fire of love burning within her reflects and glorifies the Holy Three. 

As the Burning Bush, she invites us to stay in her Immaculate Heart and Womb perpetually as each contains the proper boundaries to live in such harmony. As one seeking to surrender more to dwelling within the beauty and grace of Her Womb, Our Lady gently molds and shapes us in her tender maternal love, and assists us in avoiding impulsivity or unbalanced reactivity to unforeseen situations. She helps to ensure that one's passions and zeal do not become an unwieldy firestorm that leads to confusion, heightened anxiety, division or tensions. She teaches us how to hold 'this little light of mine' in an orderly way that does not hurt one's relationship with God, with others, or with oneself.  

She also brings us to her Divine Spouse, the Holy Spirit or 'Ruah' breath of life, who leads and guides us in strengthening and developing stronger virtues in a spirit of emotional calm. This literally assists us in breathing calmly to receive grace and release emotional overloads that stir dangerous firestorms interiorly and to instead gain composure and embrace the present moment with a docile spirit.

The journey is arduous and I have a very long way to go, but this beautiful symbol and title of Our Lady has definitely assisted me in making wee baby steps towards increased self-awareness regarding emotional eqanimity and freedom that is expressed in healthy and loving ways. It has helped to ground me in making sure that I am taking time to be rooted in humilty; breathing in the calming gentle wind of the Holy Spirit; drinking from and plunging into the living waters that are provided and available to us whilest rooted in prayer and the Sacraments; and receiving the fire of God's Love in grateful receptivity, with my eyes fixed upon Jesus. I humbly hope this might be helpful to others in some small way, and wish everyone a very blessed New Year!