My Season in the Desert

It was January of my junior year of college. I don’t remember how I discovered it, but I realized that I no longer believed in the Resurrection of Jesus. Like a doctor prodding for swollen organs, I examined my mind and soul for any sign of it: nothing. 

Was it that history class that had leaned a little too hard into the perspective that the Catholic Church was an empire? Was it an act of sin that brought this on? I don’t know.

A rational being, I then asked myself a series of questions—after all, how deep did this go? Did I believe in a Creator? Yes. Did I believe in the God of the Old Testament? Yes. Did I believe that Jesus was the Messiah? I did. Did I believe He founded the Catholic Church? Yup. Well, it only followed, logically, that I would believe in the Resurrection that Jesus Himself had foretold and that the Church had been preaching for 2,000 years… except I didn’t. I simply… didn’t.

Since this was not only a spiritual conundrum but also (at least in my mind) a rational one (see above), and I was still quite a private person in my interior life, I didn’t tell anyone. I simply asked my best friends to pray for me—with that look that I was going through something. I also, importantly, continued going to Sunday Mass, maybe even the occasional daily Mass, although I abstained from the Eucharist, as I couldn’t dare to claim to be in union with the Catholic Church. My Lutheran boyfriend at the time (as in-the-dark as my close Catholic friends were about the state of my internal world) would confusedly and encouragingly nudge me when I didn’t join the other communicants. I simply responded with a grateful shake of my head and stayed in my seat next to him.

I did this for weeks… months. Nothing changed. I still regularly prodded unsuccessfully for that Resurrection organ. I still prayed. Lord, increase my faith.

Easter Sunday, I was back home with my family. We filed into the first pew. I knelt and said my prayers. I sat and gloried in the beauty of our home parish. I stood for the processional hymn.

And then… it was there. Without any action or thought on my part, it was just suddenly there. I kept reaching out interiorly, doing the same organ-prodding I had done for months, and it was undeniably there. I stood in the pew, possibly wide-eyed, astounded at the pure gift of faith that had been given me while those around me stood oblivious to the grace I was experiencing: the true gift of the Resurrection at Easter.

Are you in the desert? Keep going. Stay faithful. He’ll stay faithful, too. And realize what a gift faith is. Do not take it for granted. Share it with the world.