My Soul is Thirsty

 ”You, God, are my God, earnestly I seek you; I thirst for you, my whole being longs for you, in a dry and parched land where there is no water.” Psalm 63:1

When the pandemic began in March and the churches closed, we began to attend mass from our living room. The advantage of technology is that we could watch the live mass through You Tube without fear of catching the corona virus. Eventually, the churches reopened, but we were still weary of attending in person, thus, we continued watching from our living room.

This was all fine and dandy, except for the fact that we were not receiving the Body of Christ. Yes, we were receiving it spiritually, but it is not the same. Eventually, we found the courage to start attending mass in person once again. But somehow, laziness got the best of us. Mass is still being streamed live through You Tube, and it is so much easier just to watch it from our living room, especially on rainy days or if we are running late, that little by little we found that we were attending in person 25% of the time and the other 75%, we were just watching from home. The past couple of months, we have not returned to church. Yes, we are participating in the mass from our living room, sometimes live and sometimes after the fact, but it is definitely affecting my soul.

Today, the responsorial psalm was “My soul is thirsting for you, O Lord my God,” and that’s when it hit me. My soul is thirsty for God. My well is running dry. I need to return to church. I need to receive the Body of Christy, not just spiritually but sacramentally. I need a good confession.

Confession has been evading me this year. I tried to go before the pandemic began, just as Lent was beginning. The line was so long that the priest ran out of time. The following weekend, I planned to go earlier, and the churches closed down because of the pandemic. Then, I heard that St. Augustine was doing drive thru confessions. The day I decided to go, there was no one there. I checked online, and the Pope had prohibited drive thru confessions because of the lack of privacy. Finally, a couple of months ago, I made it on time before mass. The priest was doing confessions outside, a la pandemic. There was no line and only one lady was confessing. It was half an hour before mass so I figured I had plenty of time. Not so. The lady confessing kept going on and on and on. I guess she needed it more than me because by the time she finished, it was fifteen minutes before the mass. The priest gave me confession but it was like a fast food meal. He was rushing me and I got so nervous that I forgot all my sins. I said a couple and he gave me absolution. I know that it counted even for those sins that I had forgotten to mention, but I felt like I had not been satisfied. My soul remained thirsty.

Another thing that I’m missing tremendously is my Bible classes. We are not allowed to meet, therefore the classes are being held via Zoom. I had tried this Zoom thing back on the spring, and I simply didn’t like it at all. I had also been real busy with tax work, so I decided not to register. But now I feel like my thirst is not being quenched. The thirstier I’m becoming, the less I’m praying.

My soul is thirsting for You, my Lord. I have been feeling so spiritually dry lately. I need You, God. I need you to quench my thirst. I need to return to You because I know that You have not abandoned me. It is I who has turned my back on You. Please Lord, lead me back to You. I feel so empty. Help me to refill my well so my soul can be filled once again with your life-giving water. I love You, Lord. I need You, Lord. My soul is thirsting for you, O Lord my God.