Finding eternity amidst a raffle drawing: the despair in spiritual apathy and idolatry, and the hope in love and self-forgetfulness

In this article, I am going to share a little bit about where I currently am in my spiritual life. 

Spiritual apathy has a way of weakening the soul.

And for me as of late, to put it very simply, going to Mass has felt profoundly difficult. The routine of attending Mass every Sunday has begun to feel stale, empty, and hollow. Nothing about it causes me to feel hopeful or joyful; instead, I feel bored and uninspired. These emotions lead to my flat-out resistance to going at all. And so, I have begun making excuses not to go. “I have to do homework anyway” is my most commonly used excuse for skipping Mass. It’s often true, though: I usually do have assignments to finish by the time Sunday afternoon comes around.

But very recently, on August 16th, there was an evening when I did have homework to complete. Emptiness and acedia filled my heart when I imagined going to Mass that evening. So, what did I do? I gave in to that awful feeling, and I decided to stay home. Instead, my dad and sister went.

Now, I need to interrupt this with a little story.

Months before this date, I purchased two tickets for a raffle hosted by my parish, with the grand prize being $50,000. I felt rather excited about this as I thought it would be a beautiful blessing to win that sum of money. One of the two tickets that I purchased had the number “1130” on it. Now, you must know that this was not meaningless to me. This was no mere, random number lost in a sea of randomness.

On November 30th, 2022 (11/30), I shared my blog, Lockheart Arden Publishing, with the world. Though this blog only has fewer than 10 people who read the things I write, it has given me a way to share my soul with the world. And through it, I am always finding my voice and refining my writing. I will never forget that day.

Because of that, I held an inkling of hope that, just maybe, “1130” meant something.

Taking this back to August 16th, when my dad and sister got home from Mass, they informed me that that night, the parish was hosting the raffle drawing at 7 pm.

I was utterly stunned.

This was the raffle that I had entered all that time ago… and now, the drawing was happening.

And I’d completely forgotten about it.

With great haste, I stopped what I was doing. Then, with giddiness, I got ready to leave the house, and I drove to my church for the event. My dad ended up going there with me, which brought me a lot of happiness.

To no one’s surprise, the parish event ended up being very busy. Families and children were present, with most of everyone playing bags, enjoying snow cones, and socializing. I ran into some people whom I haven’t spoken with in years. We talked and talked and talked, and before I knew it—the drawing was actually over.

When the priest was about to announce the final name for the grand prize, I briefly looked over at my dad as everyone standing outside paused their conversations. Though in that moment, it was not my last name that I heard ring out over the large speakers in the parking lot.

To be honest, a very small—but real—wave of disappointment came over me.

I thought of my lucky little “1130,” and heaviness settled in a weird place in my heart. Not only was this entire affair rather disappointing, but it started to feel embarrassing, almost. Is there a better way to put it? I remember driving home from the raffle drawing feeling so odd; I had been filled with such a random jolt of excitement and hope over the possibility of winning $50,000—only for that jolt to flicker out faster than it was ignited.

Well, I suppose this is now where the conversation about my nonexistent desire to attend Mass, which was manifest spiritual apathy, turns into a conversation about outright idolatry.

To make something an idol is to place it above God. You probably already drew this conclusion, but in this entire situation, I placed God’s creation (money, which is a gift) over God (who is the Creator of the entire universe, including His gifts). You see, the moment when I was too busy and desolate to go to Mass was the very same moment I rushed to a raffle drawing because I deeply believed I might win.

It’s a tale as old as time, really: I placed my hope in something outside of God—in this case, a lucky number with a possible correlation to money—believing that it would grant me a sign of His glory and provision over my life. The spiritual irony of this is, in all truth, devastating. God—the Originator and Perfector of my own very being, inner life, and identity—is fully and wholly present within the Eucharist. His presence within the Eucharist represents a glory and a provision that beckons no sign, sight, or wonder; a glory and provision that, quite literally, brings heaven down to earth; and a glory and a provision that is entirely accessible to all peoples, times, and places—including myself—through the Mass.

Yes, the same Mass that I ignored.

Like I said. This is a tale as old as time.

Though I knew it before, this entire thing is a very concrete example of how misdirected hope is actually just despair. I believe that anything other than true, authentic, eternity-inspired hope is a counterfeit.

Fortunately for me, this entire thing has been a beautiful, meaning-filled lesson for me that I suspect is going to bear a lot of fruit in my life.

I say that because, through it, I have been made plainly aware of the spiritual apathy and idolatry present in my life. This awareness is so important for my relationship with God to truly become the center of my life—not only in my mind, but through my actions, too. And if I want my relationship with God to become the center of my life, I must seek to repent of those sins through the Sacrament of Reconciliation. In confessing to Christ all that I have done against Him, I will receive graces that will follow me and strengthen my walk with Him. That is because sin thrives in secret, but when it is brought to light with a priest who is in the Person of Christ, it dies.

As I mentioned earlier, what I truly want to possess in life is true, authentic, eternity-inspired hope.

I believe that possessing such hope is only possible through deeply centering myself on the boundless and unfathomable love of God—and remaining “rooted” in that centeredness, not drifting away from it. This is a truth that is so simple, and yet so challenging to actually put into practice, but I believe that one of the best ways for me to stay in the secret place—the secret place where God is gazing upon me and I am gazing upon Him—is through a solid, well-established, rich life of prayer.

I am not of the opinion that having a solid, well-established, rich life of prayer looks the exact same for everyone. In fact, I think that everyone’s lives of prayer likely appear completely different from one another, yet are united by the same eternal God. All people are “fleeting infinities,” as I like to call them, and so it makes sense that there is beautiful diversity present within each individual person.

In her book, Gravity and Grace, the French philosopher Simone Weil has written, “Attention, taken to its highest degree, is the same thing as prayer. It presupposes faith and love. Absolutely unmixed attention is prayer. If we turn our mind toward the good, it is impossible that little by little the whole soul will not be attracted thereto in spite of itself.”

Attention, then, is my most precious asset as far as my life of prayer is concerned. Unfortunately, it is so easy for my attention to be misplaced. When I am lost in spiritual apathy and idolatry, I turn to God’s creation, temporal and limited in its nature, unconsciously and consciously expecting it to provide me with fulfillment and meaning. In this article, I’ve expressed how this raffle drawing and my lucky number, “1130,” were idols in my heart; however, other idols in my life have included materialism, shopping, status, and self-importance. I’ve noticed that whenever my attention is misplaced in these ways, I feel something of a chasm within me. I feel emptiness, even though I am trying so hard to convince myself that these components of life can be ends in and of themselves.

But in reality, these temporary components of life can never provide me with the infinity I have been destined for. Never.

Bringing back to mind this concept of attention, it is true that I feel closest to God when I am either writing or reading something spiritually significant, guided by truth, goodness, and beauty. I always feel His presence deeply, and because of that, He expresses His Sacred Heart to me in beautifully intimate ways when I participate in these passions of mine. I feel expansively captured and directed by nothing other than love, with the whole of my attention cast upon God, the One who is my Beloved.

This is where I want to talk about how there is true, authentic, eternity-inspired hope in a heart posture of self-forgetfulness. I’m sure I’ve written of this already, whether or not I’ve shared it with anyone yet, but when my heart is captured by God’s infinite love, through these pursuits of both writing and reading, I find that I completely forget myself. By forgetting myself, I am in a state that is often referred to as “flow,” which is a magnificent and glorious place to be in. In “flow,” it seems that all that exists is existence itself, and wildly, this is where I truly feel most myself. My heart turns into God’s, in a way, and I feel a freedom so deep that it has the effect of magnifying who I already am, even though the “I” that exists in the world has completely faded away… and all that is left is God’s beholding of me.

Thus, this heart posture of self-forgetfulness, which is what I believe to be the truest expression of the virtue of humility, is the answer to my spiritual apathy and idolatry.

Not only do self-forgetfulness and humility shorten the distance between myself and God, but I believe they are sanctifying in and of themselves, allowing me to grow in holiness. Growing in holiness will one day mean that I can step into the fullness of His presence in eternity, which is the only place my soul has ever wanted to be. While this world is full of great gifts, beauty, and goodness—it is not my final destination. As my Patron Saint, Thérèse of Lisieux, has written, “The world is thy ship and not thy home.”

There really is a place where goodness is literally so great it feels like a burning flame, brighter than any sun or star in this entire universe. There really is a place where truth is so present it etches itself into the fabric of my being, and I can direct myself to nothing other than it. And there is a place where beauty is so astounding that it beckons me towards it endlessly, new and fascinating as frequently as it is known and familiar.

In all of this, I still view “1130” as a very special number—maybe even more now than before the raffle drawing ever happened. To me, my blog, Lockheart Arden Publishing, is a beacon of God’s love and all that He is to me. While I hope to evangelize to others through it, my primary aim is that I seek to love God through my writing and the readings that I share. It truly is my art, my immaterial soul made tangible.

As I said, I will never forget the day I shared it with the world.

So, thank you, November 30th, my lucky little “1130,” for representing not God’s gifts and money, but instead for representing a little glimpse into the very heart of God Himself.

My spiritual life has truly been transformed and made even more beautiful by this whole experience.

~~~

“... there is a self-forgetfulness which is so complete that it really seems as though the soul no longer existed, because it is such that she has neither knowledge nor remembrance that there is either heaven or life or honor for her, so entirely is she employed in seeking the honor of God. It appears that the words which His Majesty addressed to her have produced their effect—namely, that she must take care of His business and He will take care of hers. And thus, happen what may, she does not mind in the least, but lives in so strange a state of forgetfulness that, as I say, she seems no longer to exist, and has no desire to exist—no, absolutely none—save when she realizes that she can do something to advance the glory and honor of God, for which she would gladly lay down her life.” — St. Teresa of Ávila

Written by Samantha Arden Lockheart

Date // 28. August 2028

@LockheartArdenPublishing