I have just been struck with an intense desire to be free of this world so plagued by evil. So much of our culture bears the mark of the Devil: the media we consume, the laws we make. I am despairing of this world where your Kingdom seems so, so small. Christianity itself is in shambles. Your body is torn apart and many are astray. Even your Church, your eternal Church, O God. I turn there, but even there the snake holds a vice-grip. I want to be gone from this fallen, fallen, world. Is there any hope, O God? When even your own deny you? This, I suppose, is how it was in the beginning in Gethsemane when your apostles could not stay awake a mere hour, and Peter himself denied you. But what can be done for a world so deeply in the clutches of the serpent’s deceit that so few know you? When souls have lost all sight of the truth and are so deeply astray that they believe your name to be evil and the Serpent good? When souls have lost conception of their desire for your beauty, leaving this desire empty and unfulfilled? Where is your victory in all this? I look to the new freshmen at Davidson. They come from different contexts–some have been devoutly Catholic growing up while others mainly being forced to go to church, if even that. What am I supposed to do when even the former fall prey to the cesspool of our culture? To the partying, to the lust, and empty searchings? They are starved for you. They are starved, I am starved, starved of your physical presence on campus. These are groping, bleeding wounds only you can heal. I pray for them. I pray, pray for ______ [a fellow student], for her faith in you, that she would be a warrior for you. O my Jesus, what can be done for you?
– Prayer Journal, December 19, 2018
An entry from December 7th, 2014 (junior year of high school):
O my Father, I need you so. I need you in everything I do. O God, be with me; be in my heart, and in all I do. O God, even when you seem distant, and I alone, may I always remain faithful to you, my loving Father.
Read previous offerings:
“Why are you afraid?” Isaac’s final journal entry
“Moved to tears: the meaning behind Isaac’s gravestone”
“The reward of distracted prayer” (November 27th)
“The end of all beauties” (November 21s
“Memento mori” (November 18th)
“Root out my sin” (November 15th)
“Let me suffer” (November 12th)
Why the title? About the Offerings of Isaac