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A spiritual comment and prayer to begin the day with Father Luigi Gioia.

Good morning.

The year I joined a Benedictine monastery when I was 18 I faced the most searing onslaught of negative feelings and thoughts of my life.

I had experienced annoyance, insecurity, envy, anxiety before – but never with such intensity. I felt worse than before I had become a monk and could not understand why.

Living together, even with the people we love or normally get on with, inevitably generates exasperation, frustration, boredom – or even worse, anger and resentment. And of course guilt for being unable to avoid or suppress these feelings.

This is just normal.

What I learnt from my own experience is that we should never be afraid of these feelings, nor hard on ourselves for experiencing them.

The apostle Paul talks about something similar when he uses the image of a thorn in his flesh or laments that he sees himself trapped in negativity despite all his efforts to do and be good.

We only see our shadow when we are in the sun.

The potential for negativity is in us always, but appears only when we try to love and care for others.

When I am faced with a surge of negative feelings, say exasperation for example, I name it, try to understand why it is hitting me so hard, reason with it, and slowly learn how to live with it.

We can learn how to deal with our unruly feelings – and maybe start loving ourselves not only when we shine but also when we fail.

Let us pray

Let us never be afraid of our weaknesses, Lord, and trust that the day always returns at the end of our nights.

Amen.

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