For all my highly critical attitude towards the Church, I realize how I run my life along liturgical lines. I start the day by asking my husband who uses a standard meditation book who the saint of the day is.

My subconscious must be influenced by the liturgical calendar. I notice how dramas occur around the feasts of the Church. Days before the feast of the Rosary, I had a horrible misunderstanding with our daughter based in London. A blessed telecom we have been subscribing to for years did it AGAIN. Very delayed delivery of messages. It did not help at all in clarifying urgent issues. I ended up agonizing unnecessarily fr more than 20 hours. Happily our daughter decided to call PLDT. It was my husband who calmly resolved the differences.

The dramas around the feasts of the Church may be explained by heightened expectations for answered prayers experienced throughout my school years (grade school to college).

My subconscious may still believe in the power of the institutional Church on all of life: “The law and the practice of showing to the priest after healing indicates the social and the communitarian dimension of sickness. In a way, the priests in the temple are the stabilizers and conservers of the social order so they have a say on sick people who might cause imbalance and disorder in society.” Fr. Belita thus wrote about the power of the institutional Church.

Days after the feast of the Rosary I had nightmares about dead members of my family asking me to obey the Church. It was hard to differentiate the dream from
reality. I woke up with pains in he neck. Dr Page would interpret the pains as difficulty to change viewpoints. I want badly to go against my tribe and follow my own pathway to spirituality.

My old belief that good could  only come from the institutional Church is creating havoc to my peace of mind. Somehow all my readings and even my gut feel when awake can’t seem to shake up my ingrained belief (like the people written about by Fr Belita) that only the institutional Church” which speaks and acts in the name of God” could grant answered prayers.