I tried to run away...

I tried to run away from God. I tried to call it quits with my faith. Very recently. I reached rock bottom. I didn't know what to do. The situation with COVID-19 has become difficult to handle. It feels as if I've been shut out of my church. My home. It doesn't help that my family does not believe either. It's always great to see extended family but when your aunt comes to visit and she has a Buddha sticker slapped onto her laptop computer that lies around in the living room, well, yeah.

And so I tried to turn back to demons. It felt as if people had given up on me. But they didn't. I asked Crazy Church Lady to pray extra for me last week because I knew I was falling. I had hurled obscenities at different men at the parish. Some, I was able to be more rational with. One who I found is also struggling with the same things I am going through right now. I talked with his ex-girlfriend's sister for a little while too. She was able to strongly talk me away from it. She is canonically Latin rite, her husband is Melkite. So she told me how Eucharistic adoration helps her. I have been to one Eucharistic adoration service. Ironically, it was at an Orthodox parish. I believe the parish was using the rite of St. Tikhon's. The only Orthodox parish I've attended services at happens to have been a Western rite Orthodox parish. The talk with the former was even more productive because what I found is that he is having similar struggles. He asked me to pray for him. He's a dear friend of mine. I still have the holy water he gave me from over a year ago.

After talking with them, I realized what a mistake it was I had been making. Despite blaspheming God in this madness and trying to run toward demons instead, somehow I did not forget to pray. I knew what I was going through was a lot of mental baggage. I had to wrest it off somehow but I am simply powerless on my own. I've been trying to get a psychologist but the intake process coupled with the lockdowns means that this is going to take a lot longer than these things normally would. At my wit's end, I was considering the possibility that I might need an exorcism.

Well I knew at that point what my spiritual director would say (well, I consider the Ruthenian deacon I met years ago my spiritual director, any who). He would say, "You don't need an exorcism. Exorcism is only a sacramental. You need a sacrament because a sacrament would fill you with the Holy Spirit and no demons can dwell when they are exposed to the Holy Spirit." I felt as if I had fallen away from the Church entirely on Sunday evening. But I knew what I had to do to reunite myself to the body. It was simple. I honestly was prepared for a "not at this time" response when I asked for it. But I sent an e-mail to my priest to schedule a confession appointment and I also requested a sick anointing. He got back to me later that night and I responded on my break at work that noon would be the best time.

I woke up, drove to the parish at noon, and he greeted me when I got to the parking lot. He's done this previously but I've been very hesitant since as a retail employee, I don't know if I'm more exposed or not. Since I'm overnight, I'm not as exposed as I was as a cashier. But he invited me into the parish. And he strongly insisted this time arguing that it would help. He knew what I was going through. He had asked if I had been taking my medications too.

As he went to the sacristy to get his epatrichelion, I slowly walked into the nave to where the icon made without hands was. It wasn't there! I began to cry. I asked him where the icon was. He went back into the sacristy and brought it out. As I looked at it, I became calm in spirit. I confessed everything that I had done since my last confession which was less than a week before. My emotional and spiritual collapse. How I tried to run from God, how I turned to demons and hurled obscenities at many different people, how I blasphemed and nearly apostasized. At that point, instead of the normal absolution, he read from a prayer book he was holding. He read the prayers from the rite of the anointing of the sick. And then, from out of no where, I felt the touch of a brush on my forehead, and on my cheeks, and on my hands. I had had my eyes closed while he held the book over my head so I didn't even realized what had happened.

He asked me if I knew the story of the icon made without hands. And he told me the story of how King Abgar V corresponded with Jesus and asked to be healed of his leprosy. He asked for a visit but Jesus delayed and said that after his ascension his entire kingdom would be healed. The image came with one of the letters. Thaddeus of Edessa then came into the city and healed the king through the words of Jesus. I said to him, "There is a reason I wanted to see that icon."