Taking Off the Veil/Stopping Cross-dressing

So I recently made a resolution to stop wearing feminine clothing and I'm kinda regretting it.

My parents had both called me expressing their concern and trying to be supportive, but I could hear the pain in their voices (both had called on different occasions) and I explained things to them and basically told them that I had to do what was right and comfortable for me, and that I was sorry.

After the fact, I had started thinking about how much I love them and how much I do want their approval, and if that I didn't want anything to get into the way of my love for them, so I sent them a pretty lengthy e-mail in which I told them that I would no longer be wearing feminine clothing out of love for them and because they really mean a lot to me and it seems like it's the right thing and that my problems with gender aren't an excuse to sin.

Woman in prayer with a mantilla

It was one thing to say it and I felt a burden lifted off my shoulders, but it was another thing to actually do it.  I included the mantilla (chapel veil) and hijab in this resolution because technically they are pieces of feminine clothing.

Walking outside and being in public uncovered was very difficult and I felt so awkward and could feel the disapproval of others (even at church) but I kept trying to tell myself that I love my parents and that this would make them happy and with all that they have to deal with, at least they can have peace knowing that I'm being more like God wants me to be.  I figured it would take time to adjust and that I would be fine.  I felt very impious and impure without the hijab, it had been my protection from strong lustful thoughts and to remind myself to submit to God and to be holy and not to be exposed to the world, but to practice humility and curving the desire to be seen (which covering my head full time has immensely helped with) and then yesterday it hit me and even today a little...

I went to church to pray a Rosary for priests and for the Bishop of my diocese and to offer prayers for an increase in vocations of holy, orthodox men and women to either the priesthood or consecrated life when entering the nave of the church, I felt this huge awkwardness...  I didn't feel right, I didn't feel like I should be in there and I was trying to just repeat to myself "Christopher, you're obeying God and you're conforming to society; you're doing the right thing.  Relax, relax!" but it just kept getting worse to when I tried to kneel down and pray and struggled slowly through a Pater (the Lord's Prayer) and an Ave (the Angelic Salutation to the Virgin) and just was burning with this feeling like something wasn't right and then it really got deep when someone else came into the church because we thought there would be Mass and upon hearing them, my natural impulse to cover made me throw my hand on my head and then I tried to as inconspicuously as possible get the heck outta there.  Almost had a slight panic attack, but calmed down at which point I had talked to a friend of mine who offered some support and encouragement and posed the dreaded question of why I wasn't covered...  And it was hard to give the answer, but I did tell her.  She didn't agree with my reasoning and encouraged me to reconsider and I really felt even more guilty as I always do when people tell me how my piety has encouraged and helped theirs.  I had a huge headache.

I haven't told my spiritual director yet, although he wouldn't mind either way, even though I've been trying to meet with him but he's so busy and I have like no one to really turn to, so yet again, I feel like I'm struggling alone.  But it's not true, I know a lot of people are praying for me even if they don't know what I'm going through.

I'm upset that everything that the veil and hijab have done for me seems to have gone to naught.  I was trying so hard to be pious in front of the Blessed Sacrament in church that day when I was about to pray the Rosary, but it was like I couldn't grasp the reality anymore of this central Mystery of the Catholic Faith.  I wanted to be humble and I just didn't feel like I could be, it turned into fear and like I was not showing honor and devotion to God that is due Him, maybe I'm just very sensitive right now because of these changes I'm going through.

As for the hijab, I feel like purity is no longer guarded and that I'm just all out there for the world to see even though my 'guy' clothes, like my girl clothes, are very covering.  I haven't worn shorts in about 8 years and I usually do not wear short sleeves (especially not to church), and I was covered, but I still felt the struggle like I was grasping for purity and then all these thoughts of lust started to come over me again and I went into despair and again I felt isolated from the Sacraments and am having a hard time forcing myself to go to Confession tomorrow.

Another thing I've noticed is now I have a desire to wear shorts and short sleeves out in public in hopes that it will make me seem more attractive to others instead of it just being a thought in the back of my mind.  I feel so vain lately and again want to be seen and am struggling to humble myself in church as well as outside of church.

I want so badly just to cover again, but my parents, I can't let them down and I feel like in terms of the Holy Scripture I'm doing the right thing but why am I not getting Actual Grace from it and I hate that I'm going back to how I was before I started covering and am afraid there's going to be a long stretch of me not going to the Sacraments and wallowing in despair or indifference.  I don't want that, but I don't know what to do right now.  I know my decision has upset a lot of people and probably will upset more people and especially after meeting my Bishop again the other day and after the Pontifical Mass, having that lady come up to me and tell me how beautiful the mantilla was (although that has nothing to do with it), and that she felt called to cover and that she'd been praying on it and that she's hoping to find the strength to do so and thanked me and I told her I would pray and shared my experiences with her about how it deepened my spiritual life so much.  I don't know what to say to these priests who see me reguarly, I just don't know.

As for non religious things, I've been getting some very weird and awkward looks from people now and my one teacher was acting funny towards to me and some of the kids in my calc class were a little rude to me after I had removed the veil (although these were guys that you would think would have been glad because they're the jock/preppy cool rich kid types...) and also a couple people didn't really recognize me and made it awkward in public when they asked why I wasn't covered anymore and I just felt put on the spot and in a little malice, I'm so tempted to just e-mail my parents and be like "thanks..." but I won't because I know Mommy has great intentions and Pop doesn't really care either way, he just said he kinda feels embarrassed about it, but it's my choice, I am grown, and that they both love me so much and I love them, but I'm trying to tell myself if God went through ridicule for doing the right thing, then who am I to think I should not?  I don't really know what to tell people and it's just embarrassing with them asking me and looking at me weird, I don't know, but I'm not going to Stations of the Cross this evening because I just can't be in church right now, but I'm still planning on going to Sunday Mass, maybe I'll sit in the cry room or the nave, I don't know exactly how I'm going to tackle this, but I'll figure something out.  I'm definitely not going to receive Holy Communion until I talk to my priest or to my spiritual director.  Please pray for me everyone.

lastly, I do want to mention that these are personal experiences that I have had with covering and I am not implying in any way that any woman who does not cover either in church or otherwise is being impious or impure.  The mantilla and hijab were ways for ME to help overcome sinful passions and to bring me closer to God, a devotion just like everyone has his or her own way of showing piety and devotion.  The Church does NOT obligate women to cover and a woman CAN be a great Catholic and holy woman without.  Some feel called to covering and others do not.  I've read a lot of commentary on the First Epistle of St. Paul the Apostle to the Corinthians and although some see it as a universal law of church and social conduct in prayer, the Church does not say this anymore (although it very well used to be a requirement).

This is just overwhelming, I'm having all these seconds thoughts, I was so confident at first, but then it hit when I went to pray before the Blessed Sacrament.  Satan works in some weird ways.

Please pray and any feedback is appreciated (even though I know a lot of you don't usually comment, but I could use some advice/discussion).

Trusting God is Scary Sometimes...

Mother always tells me that "When God closes one door, He opens up a new one."

I hope that is so true right about now.  I'm feeling depressed, but not hopeless really, just frustrated at where I'm supposed to go from here if that makes sense, so much is going on but not enough is going on I'm on a forreal brink at the moment.

This is why I have such a hard time praying the Our Father at the part where it is "Thy will be done."  Everytime I try to trust and submit to God's will, something bad happens and I gotta walk through it alone.  Lovin my life, right?  I just wish He would give me just a tad, tad break and let me enjoy things for once and not always have my conscience preaching at me.

Doesn't He realize that temptation to many things is everywhere (except for maybe in a cloistered monastery)??  If you avoid one temptation, you're confronted with another.  There is no rest.  How many times do we pray and beg in Holy Mass (in either Form) that the Lord grant us peace?  Where is this peace?  That is one of the parts of the Liturgy where my heart is really feeling it and I feel like I beg God.

My eyes are doing some serious rolling right about now.  *sigh*

It's like being Catholic, you can't enjoy anything...ugh!

Happy First Sunday of Quadragesima all

God, I Cannot Keep Chasing You

About to head to Adoration soon to place myself at the foot of Christ's earthly throne and ask His help and advice.

I really need Him to uplift me and sustain my soul right now and I want Him to take care of me and to console and comfort me because of my weakness and because I don't really know what to do.  The heart is a fragile thing, and when it breaks, only God can heal it.  None of us are immune to real life (I mean that...none of us), and those particularly in touch with their feminine sides are going to the pangs of disappointment from a guy.  Maybe once, maybe twice or more, but it seems to happen to everyone and it hurts, but God is strong and He knows what He's doing.

My emotions are very unstable and no particular emotion seems to last for too long, but when I experience an emotion, I really experience it with all the intensity and passion one can imagine.  People have often described me as passionate.  But I am like a desert sandstorm in the sense that after the experience, I can go back to nothing.  I ended my first and only rlationship ever a few months ago and this week has been particularly hard because for some reason, it's on my mind again. 

I feel like I have been begging and praying that God give me some superwoman power to avoid feeling this vulnerable and from having the desire to "go back there."  But no, I have to struggle this out like any other woman does. 

Because of my state (SSA and gender problems), God doesn't want anyone else to share my love with anyone else.  He wants to have me all to Himself and wants me to be in love with Him alone, but why won't He pursue me so much that my mind doesn't drift from Him?  Any woman wants her man to pursue her, so why won't God pursue me and why does He leave me wanting to be wanted?  Lord, hear my prayer and heal me...

Satan keeps crawling into my mind telling me how I lost such a great man and won't let me remember all the problems and difficulties he and I had.  He keeps telling me to lament and to pity myself and shows me images in my mind of him being with someone else and happy with that other person while the thought of me sickens him to no end.  I just want God to block those thoughts, I don't want to experience human emotion because it's too hard for me.  I don't want to have feelings or be attracted to anyone anymore nor do I want to deal with temptation in the world because it makes me hate being Catholic knowing that I'm giving up all that (even though what I'm gaining is infinitely greater, but I can't experience it to know).  If this is how Catholicism has to be experienced, then I resent being baptized into this religion because I can't have temporal happiness either way.  At least the Catholic way promises eternal happiness, but who can really contemplate eternity? 

I still am in love, although I hate it because I can't have what I want.  With him I would have a family, someone who cares about me, protection and safety from those who hate me and wish harm to me, companionship, encouragement (sometimes...ha), but I would be confined to Hell and have no access to Grace.  Without Him, I can technically receive Sacraments and do good works and fast and give alms and have it amount to something, but I have to deal with a whole life time of being scared and always wondering what-if, and watching everyone around me have that which I do not have, I hate feeling left out, but then I could technically go to Heaven (or have a shot at it).  This isn't fun and I hate the agony. 

Satan sadistically likes the challenge I give him because I'm always on the brink, on that edge and threshold between Hell and Holiness and it would please him immensely for me to die having just barely breached the threshold so he can laugh in my face and tell me how everything I did was for nothing because I'm his now.  I wish God would pull me so far into the realm of holiness and fill me with so much Grace that it would take lots of hard work for me to even get to the threshold.  Satan won't do the same with the side of evil because if I were so far gone in that realm, I wouldn't be fun for him.  Why torture me if he already has me?

This is one of those times where I sit and wonder what the heck my Guardian Angel is doing...  Hello patron saints??  St. Christopher, St. Dominic, St. Patrick of Ireland, St. Maria Goretti, St. Anthony of Padua, do you all not see what I"m going through??????  Can I have one prayer on my behalf please?  An Our FAther?  Something, unless you guys don't care either. 

All it would take is for God to just alter my feelings just ever so slightly, show Himself to me, and I swear, I would not have any attachment to worldly things. 

While others are strong enough for sanctification through trials and tribulations, I am positive that my sanctification should be lived out in me not having to deal with any of that because I get easily discouraged and start to second guess all this.

Off to Adoration....begging my dear readership to say a prayer for me (Jesse, I know you got this part covered).

Btw, got through the Feast of St. Valentine, Martyr, unscathed and safely....because I actually observed it as the feast day of a Saint whose intercession I begged, and not some secular hearts and candy holiday which has no relation whatsoever.

The Sorrows of Hell (kinda sorta reflection on the Introit of Septuagesima Sunday)

"The sorrows of death surrounded me, the sorrows of hell encompassed me:  and in my affliction I called upon the Lord, and He heard my voice from His holy temple.  I will love Thee, O Lord, my strength:  the Lord is my firmament, my refuge, and my deliverer."  Psalm XVII, 5-7

This is the Introit of the Mass of Septuagesima Sunday upon which I was meditating tonight and it is so fitting for today.  I did not have a great day (although lunch with one of my best friends helped):  Some guy was really rude to me today at work, another guy that I had met at a party and who was very friendly to me there is still acting like he hates when I speak to him (unless that's all in my head), and I don't know, maybe it's me but people just seem to be really crabby today (because it's Wednesday maybe??). 

The sorrows of death are surrounding me in so many ways.  Spiritually, I'm still not in a State of Grace and it is making me sad, ashamed, and disappointed.  I long to be a holy person who lives the life of a saint and who is perfectly submissive to God and does not let the enemy tempt me so easily.  I have been praying to the Blessed Virgin for quite some time about this, help me to be pure of heart and holy and meek, but when will it happen?  How many prayers do I have to say before that voila moment happens and everything just clicks?

That's what I envy about other Catholics (or religion people in general), being "good" according to their religions seems to come so naturally and easily for them, but me who has been trying to nourish my faith my whole life, I seem to get worse and worse the more "pious" I get!  Why is it so easy for others to follow Catholicism (which I think is pretty hard...been doing it for 23 years now and ummm...), but me, I have to watch every.single.thing.I.do??  Come on God, I am trying here!

Temporally, the sorrows of hell are surrounding me because for whatever reason, regardless of who I'm surrounded by, I feel alone?  Maybe it's pride.  Maybe I think so highly of myself that I don't feel that others could possibly be "with me" because they just wouldn't understand.  Or perhaps I mentally set myself apart from people, anyone, refusing to acknowledging any common ground as if that is a threat to my individuality, in which case this 'lonliness' is my own fault.  I certainly hope that isn't the case...

But I went to the church tonight to pray, in the silence, in the dark, me, before the Tabernacle which houses the Presence of my Lord and God.  I met Him there and prayed to Him, begged Him to tell me something.  I prayed a decade of the Rosary meditating on the Second Glorious Mystery:  the Ascension of the Lord, because I wanted the fruit; and increase in the Theological Virtue of Hope.  I also apologized to God that it seems that a lot of what I do is motivated out of the desire to be more social, have a more stable group of friends, as if I'm fighting lonliness like it's killing me.  But I'm not that lonely, that's the thing?  Why can't I just be grateful?  Something is missing that I do not seem to be  understanding. 

After my Rosary decade, I spent some time in silent prayer just atoning for my sins of the day and discussing with the Lord what I really felt, even if it wasn't very "prayerful" but I just was honest with Him, I didn't waste time composing these gorgeous Elizabethan English phrases and soliloquys of Thees and Thous and arts and makest blah blah blah, I just spoke to Him in my own way, how I would speak to someone else close to me, and was just brutally honest.  Normally, when I pray, I try to impress God with all these big words and what not, but tonight, nahh, I just talked to Him. 

I finished by reading the texts and prayers for the Mass of Septuagesima Sunday, and the Introit really hit me.  I AM a sinner, who is feeling the effects of Adam's sin, of my own sins, and seeing how painfully in need I am of the healing that Christ gives through the Sacraments.  My soul is mourning under the weight and severity of my selfish desires.  But the Lord is my firmament and my deliver, and I am hoping (please intercede for me O Most Pure Virgin), that God will save me and that He will heal me of all my wounds both of body and soul.  That's what He came here to do after all, right? 

Oh, and biiiiiiiiiiig thanks to all 20 cars that decided to ambush me at the same time while I was working drive-thru tonight... Y'all are hateful, and umm God, I got the joke, k thx...