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Divine Mercy

I have been thinking about the Divine Mercy recently. Others have been writing about it in their posts and I was so enamored with it when I was first directed towards it last year. While I found it easy to adapt to the Rosary beads and the new prayers, I have since found the simplicity of the of the decade bead prayers to be full of depth.

A long while has passed since the last time I found prayer painful. In fact, when I did used to find prayer painful it was because I despised God, so this kind of pain is not related.

Perhaps pain is not the right word to use, but I also cannot say that the pain dwells only in my soul. Maybe it's the closest we can get to begging God without actually begging, although I certainly have done that!

But I really need to go, I have a paper due on Thursday and I am merely procrastinating here while I conjucture what it is that I feel each time I pray the Divine Mercy. All I know is that I avoid it. Prayed the DM yesterday with a group before the Blessed Sacrament and before the first 'decade' I was so close to tears that I could hardly finish the decade. If it hadn't been for the recitation of the group I do not think I would have finished praying it on my own.

have you ever encountered similar problems in prayer?

Midterms

Next Tuesday I have a midterm exam that will give a case vingette and I will have to apply:

1. social systems theory
2. ecological perspectives theory
3. psychoanalytic theory
4. ego psychology
5. object relations theory
6. attachment theory

I am well versed in attachment theory, but I do need to brush up on it. I have been working on Object relations theory all day, and I have about 5 pages of typed notes thus far. I have further to go. However I really do dread the aspect of ego psychology and psychoanalytic theory.

Next Thursday I have a policy paper where I have to apply AB 490 to my field practicum. Easy enough, I'm just frustrated with my lack of resources - I'm so used to have too many references and citations that I feel rather lost on how to start this paper (I love literature reviews in journal articles).

Here's what object relations is (briefly, I promise!):

OBJECT RELATIONS is the process of internalizing the images of objects and understanding the impact this has on personality and interpersonal relationships. In other words, an infant internalizes the mother as a "good object" or a "bad object" (ie, good/bad breast), and then uses the internalized construct of the object to inform further relationships and personality.

Contemporary Object Relations“Object relations theory describes internal mental representations of relationships between self and other rather than actual external interpersonal relationships” (Applegate). The theory cannot ignore the importance of process and context. Two patterns emerge from the intrapsychic reality of process and experience: self-representations and object-representations; these are later formed into enduring relationships.Child must internalize the self and have reliable caregivers to allow the child to feel secure when the primary caregiver is absent. Object relations impacted by culture, family formation, race and ethnicity, and child rearing practices; may remove one or more particular of object relations theory (ie, transitional objects or separation anxiety).

Spitz thought that infants develop these pathologies from psychic disruptions in critical periods. Normally, infants are ambivalent towards the mother/object upon realizing that the bad object and good object are one entity; this unifying of the libidinal object is fusion, the lack of fusion leads to pathology.

On the other hand, Margaret Mahler worked with psychotic and autistic children. She rephrases object relations as the way an infant’s basic ego organizes during the first 3.5 years of life. Infant has to differentiate between the self and the (m)other (ie, “me” and “not me”).

ad infinitum (correct?)

Please be patient with me. I'm so busy that I can only write at one blog site, so once I finish the one I'm working on, I'll post it here.

I think I might actually like this research paper I have to do...not sure I like policy though. So much to do. Hyper: sleep deprived & 2+ cups of coffee. So, when I'm writing this the voice in side my head is like a munchkin ... keeps life interesting. =)

Re: Thoughts from Prayer

yeah. I kind of noticed it the other day when I was praying the novena to the Archangels (their feast is this Saturday), that when you get kicked out of Heaven, you're really damned. Well, there were good intentions in my thought!

During Mass on Sunday, I had the thought "This is the Lord thy God, whom you will serve all the rest of your life" right between recieving the Eucharist and the wine/Blood. The "amen" seemed insufficient after that great thought. Not great as in "gee, wow, what insight" but great in magnitude and gravity. Part of that thought was due to the fact that the rector of St Johns Seminary in Camarillo CA had given the sermon. He put in the plug for male vocations. It left me feeling kind of invisible because he did not address female vocations. I know that we need male vocations, but for Heaven's sake, don't kick me to the curbside! Then I remembered that although my life may be invisible to the world, it is not invisible to our Lord.