When being Catholic makes you (literally) crazy

What is up with me and my faith?

Not sure. I've had the strangest period of my life (?) since I moved back from Kansas 2 1/2 years ago. I found a Latin Mass and loved it. And went "religiously" (hehe) for a few months. But I was also working daily at a job I really didn't like (fortunately I was not in the same building as my direct supervisor) and struggling because making friends isn't exactly the easiest thing for me and I had left my life for the past 3 years completely behind. Months and months of struggling, including getting my psychiatric meds managed which of course just compounded the whole situation. Ended up moving out of my parents house and the landlord ended up being crazy. Moved back in with parents. Found a nice normal roommate whom I still live with. Fell down stairs and broke pretty much every bone below my calf (not every bone in my foot and toes, but a lot of them) and was out of work and back with my parents for three months. Got mono. Changed jobs. Found out I had mono. Been sick off and on ever since. Bought a car in Dec. That was 2011.

But just recently I purchased Truth and Life***, the new (imprimatur, I might add) dramatized audio New Testament and have been listening to it daily in my new car which comes with - gasp! - a CD player! (I do have a fondness for all my old cassette tapes though, they took me through some long road trips...Peter Paul and Mary in Concert, for example :-) And I'm wrestling with this frustrating love for Jesus which somehow manages to combine itself with this terrible anxiety which makes going to church unbearable and not going even worse. But 3/4 times I choose not to go. I really want to go daily, but I don't have faith in myself to be able to keep it up, so I don't do it because I don't want to let myself down.

But something I heard Jesus say in the audio bible tells me what I need to do. I don't remember the exact words, except that a master doesn't thank his servant for doing what he is supposed to do. Therefore, when you do as you should do you should think of yourself as an unworthy servant, simply doing your job. And I felt that Jesus was saying this to me about going to daily mass. It wouldn't make me any different or better than anyone else. Which for some reason I think is what I was worried about all along. And so I set my alarm fifteen minutes earlier, got better prepared for work the night before, and made it to 7 am mass Monday - Friday. Didn't go yesterday but plan to go today to the afternoon mass. I'm glad this happened.


***I don't love this version but it's not bad. I'm now looking at The Word of Promise version, which actually has the entire Bible (I think the Truth and Life Old Testament should becoming out soon). I just have a hard time imagining Jesus (or any normal person) actually talking the way he does in most of it. BUT it has deepened my faith and understanding of Jesus' teaching so it is worth listening to. I actually think whoever plays Pilate is really good, as is the narrator of the gospel of Luke. Jim Caviezel is in the Word of Promise so....yeah, that might have to be my big purchase for February. Maybe my thing for Lent will be to listen to the entire Bible in 40 Days.