How To Not Over-Spiritualize Your Heartache

Jan 11

We can pray our hearts out, light those candles, crank out novenas, and sacrifice like never before. We have a God whose heart went dead cold so that ours might go on, and we have a mother whose heart was pierced by not one but seven swords.

But, whew. Sometimes we need to recognize the danger of over spiritualizing heartache and simply accept the tough reality that, frankly, it's hard. It’s not easy, but the following reflections may help.

Emotions Are Powerful

Edith Stein wrote, “Emotions occupy the center of a woman’s soul.” This isn’t a cop-out, pithy one liner to justify why our sentiments sometimes override our reason, but it does say this: It’s okay. You will be okay.

t’s important to feel your emotions but to remember that they aren’t everything. In fact, the louder and more powerful they are, the more likely they are short-lived and therefore not from the Lord. There’s a great risk in focusing too much on our emotions precisely because they can be so intense, especially during times of great suffering.

The spiritual masters began discernment by taking pulse of how they were feeling and why. On one end of the spectrum there's wallowing in sorrow, and on the other end there's escapism: if we don’t like how we feel, our culture encourages us to do something else. We need to strive for a middle ground because it’s important to have dialogue with our emotions.

We can ask, “Where are you coming from? What specifically prompted this? (External or internal?) Am I crying because I saw a photo of him on social media? (Maybe I should avoid Instagram for a while). Are these emotions drawing me to greater trust or despair?”

The Importance of Embracing Reality

Sometimes we like to avoid asking ourselves these questions because we don’t like the answers, but when we engage with reality (even when it’s dark or painful), we can, in a sense, own it. Simply by acknowledging it, we are taking the first step towards healing.

Even in these hard times, in the midst of brokenness, the Lord is still good. He is still holy. He is still worthy of praise — now more than ever. For whatever reason, the Lord is asking this of you, and it is enough for you to say “Okay.”

We need to ask for the courage to embrace reality however it comes to us. Marko Ivan Rupnik, SJ writes in Discernment: Acquiring the Heart of God, “Love always has a paschal dimension…[which] is sacrifice and offering...It is neither easy to understand nor to accept the love that is fulfilled in a paschal way...everything beautiful, good, noble, and just is played out in the midst of difficulties, obstacles, and resistance and thus assumes a paschal dimension. The path of the Holy Spirit never passes from Holy Thursday to Easter Sunday, skipping over Good Friday and Holy Saturday.”

Do Not Despair

It’s important to mourn, grieve, and to process in a way that is healthy for you, but we should not despair. Despair occurs when we put too much faith in ourselves and not enough in God’s plan for our eternal happiness; it is a complete abandonment of hope. Counteract it with hope — place your hope in Him, not him.

Fr. Jacques Philippe writes in Interior Freedom, “It could be said that, while charity is the greatest of the three theological virtues, in practice hope is the most important.” St. Therese of Lisieux takes it a step further, saying, “We obtain from God as much as we hope for from him.” And here’s the kicker: hope can only be born in poverty. Pope Francis writes in The Christian Meaning of Suffering that it is through perseverance in bearing whatever disturbs us that hope is unleashed.

Fr. Jacques Philippe adds, “Hope is not vague and dreamy, but confidence in the faithfulness of God who will fulfill his promises — confidence that gives us great strength...when we hope we are not passive: we are acting.”

Do Not Romanticize Your Pain

You may be filled to the brim with reflections on paschal love and redemptive suffering, but do not self-isolate these fruits. It is too easy for the devil to take such vulnerable pieces and contort them or even pluck them from the vine. For example: yes, this may literally be the deepest form of love you can give him. By your sacrifice and by your commitment to letting go, this act of love may be the greatest gift you can ever offer. But do not stop there. Do not fixate on Good Friday without keeping the Resurrection in sight.

And if romanticism is a way to help you cope or is a language that speaks to your heart, simply allow the Lord to be the one that uses it. St. Faustina’s diary is full of lyrical language that is like balm for the worn and weary heart:

Do not be absorbed in your misery — you are still too weak to speak of it — but, rather, gaze on my heart filled with goodness, and be imbued with my sentiments. Strive for meekness and humility; be merciful to others, as I am to you; and, when you feel your strength failing, if you come to the fountain of mercy to fortify your soul, you will not grow weary on your journey. (1486)

Be Extra Conscious Of How You Pray

It’s so easy to offer up every single rosary for him every single time, to keep fervently praying solely to saints he loved, but we need to recognize how the Lord is speaking to us in prayer.

And are we finding ourselves using prayer as a way to cling, claw, and clutch? Sometimes we use prayer as an anchor when it needs to be wind in our sails. We try to wrestle to conform the Lord’s will to fit ours, and in the end, we will only hurt ourselves.

We might find it valiant to make sacrifices during this time, or we may find ourselves going to great feats to do whatever it is we think is being asked of us. But Rupnik adds, “At times, to avoid the path of true faith, we propose high ideals, projects that go beyond even what the Gospel proposes, more than the imitation of the greatest saints. Then afterward, bitter, tired, and deluded, we reject not only the proposed ideals we have made but also our faith, or we become closed, hardened, and harsh…”

In summary, sometimes we demand more of ourselves than what God is even asking. And if we aren’t paying attention to our prayer, Rupnik says it can “become rote, a habit, or degenerate from a true conversation with God to one in which one is actually only alone with one’s thoughts.”

You (Really) Can’t Do It Alone

All of this is tough, so how do you do it? You need to seek out a spiritual advisor or someone who can give you sage advice. It’s good and important to talk to your girlfriends, but you also need someone who can give objective, Catholic advice.

This can be tough, but we have a beautiful saving grace: the Blessed Mother. St. Louise de Montfort writes that when we offer our sacrifices and efforts into the Blessed Mother’s hands, she purifies our intentions and flaws and delivers spotless gifts to her Son.

Let’s have confidence and the grace to truly believe that our Lord’s power is manifested in our weakness (2 Cor 12:9).