Buddhist Catholic Contemplative Evangelical General Christian Hindu Jewish Latter-day Saint Muslim New Visions Progressive Christian

Beliefs

Topics

Columnists

Resource Library

Research Tools

Video

Podcasts

Thought Readers

Faith In Media Tracker

Newsletters

Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In Subscription Support

Follow Patheos

Home
Catholic
Home and Religion
Vidi Aquam, I Saw Water

Vidi Aquam, I Saw Water

Last updated on: November 14, 2024 at 8:55 am by Mary Pezzulo

Vidi Aquam, I Saw Water 2024-11-14T08:55:41-04:00 Mary Pezzulo

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

I woke up under that terrible weight– the fear that I am going to hell.

I’m nearly used to the feeling now. I’ve had it for a long time. It started last April and got decidedly worse over the winter. Now, after the events of last week, it’s the worst it’s ever been. And yesterday was particularly terrible.

For so many years, I’ve been determined that they couldn’t chase me away. I was going to go to confession even though it made me nervous. I was going to learn to drive, get a car, find a church to go to even though going to church makes me panic. I I was not going to let the trolls and abusers and the PTSD grind me down. They would never get between me and Jesus. I was going to do everything right in spite of them. I was going to get out of Steubenville and find a church community. was going to find an affable priest somewhere who would understand that Rose can’t stand crowds and noise and people staring at her, and that she would like to receive her First Holy Communion by going to confession one Saturday afternoon and then slipping in line with the grown-ups to receive Holy Communion in her special occasion khakis with no fuss. I was going to heal my spiritual life. I would find a way.

But this week, I’m broken.

They won. I lost. There’s no more fight in me. I can’t take it anymore. They get Jesus, and I’m going to hell. Even if I do go to Mass this Sunday, and grip the pew with both hands and close my eyes and breathe through another panic attack, I will still go to hell because God doesn’t love me. I can’t stop feeling that way.

Have you ever gone for a drive while badly depressed, and absolutely convinced you are going to hell?

That’s what I did yesterday.

I went for a drive across the chimney of West Virginia to a state park in Pennsylvania, to see if the wildflowers were up yet. I didn’t think it would dig me out of the dumps, but I was keen to try anyway. And all the while I felt that if I got into an accident, I would fall into the dark abyss and suffer for eternity.

When I got there, the flowers weren’t blooming. The trees still looked dormant, save a bud here and there. Barely anything even looked alive except the moss, which had greened up with all the water from the melting snow. And the next thing I knew, I was hiking up the trail, admiring the moss. Sometimes I’d stop in mid-stride and admire the green. Sometimes I’d bend over and touch it, and think about the August afternoons walking barefoot on luxurious moss at the State Park in Pocahontas County, when I was a little girl. It was such a bright, stark, vibrant shade of green against a world of mud and papery dead leaves. It didn’t look real.

Could the God who made moss send someone to hell for giving up?

It was so wet that in places, the melted snow running downhill made the trail into a muddy stream.

The trail darted uphill, and then my feet stopped going squish on fresh mud and made no sound at all on a carpet of gold needles. The air was all incense, a cloud of fragrance from a tight congregation of pines. All I could do was stand in awe, staring at a fresh woodpecker hole in the living yellow wood of a pine, listening to the creaking of boughs against boughs as if it were a chant.

My mother told me that no good a person does counts for anything when they are in mortal sin. I don’t know that I’m in mortal sin, but I feel like I am.

What, then, does it matter, that I stood there, awestruck, breathing incense, gazing at the woodpecker hole as if it were an icon, praying lamentations along with the groans of the pines?

And then the trail went on, astonishingly quiet, over the side of a hill until I got to the waterfall. They tell me there used to be a lodge where people would bring the sick, near the top of that waterfall, because the water was said to be good for your health. Now, the state park warns tourists not to drink the water, but people do it anyway. The healing water comes over the top of a cliff and it also comes spurting out of cracks in the shale rock, not one great cataract but a thousand little ones, cascading down into the noisiest of streams. Over the years, it’s hollowed out a grotto in the shale.

I followed the steps down to the grotto.

The sun sparkled through a particularly lively stream of water just in front of me. Every place in the shale wall that that stream ran against was not brown or gray, but red-gold from minerals leeched out of the ground, as if the wall was bleeding. The cascade fell into a natural stone cup, hollowed out from the constant outpouring.

Vidi aquam egredientem de templo, a latere dextro, alleluia: et omnes, ad quos pervenit aqua ista, salvi facti sunt, et dicent, alleluia, alleluia.

I saw water coming from the right side of the temple, alleluia, and all to whom the water came were saved. Alleluia, alleluia.

I am going to hell, so I might as well sing “alleluia” during Lent.

I stuck my hand in the font at the bottom of the waterfall. In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. And my hand, too, was stained red.

It doesn’t do any good, because the water isn’t blessed water from a church font. It’s the other kind, the profane kind you find in nature.

“I want to go home,” I said as I took the trail downstream. “I want to go home. I give up being a saint. I was never strong enough to be a saint. I’m old, I’m traumatized, I’m poor, I’m alone, I’m in debt that will last until I die, and none of that would matter if you hadn’t left me as well. I was raised to believe that you were all that mattered. We were all going to die anyway, from persecutions and cataclysms and the Three Days of Darkness, but it would all be all right as long as we had you. And now, here I’ve given up everything for you, and the world didn’t end, and I didn’t die, and you are gone as well. All I want is to go home, but I can’t.”

Vidi aquam egredientem de templo, a latere dextro, alleluia: et omnes, ad quos pervenit aqua ista, salvi facti sunt, et dicent, alleluia, alleluia.

The water ran down to the side of the road, and finally back to the parking lot.

Last of all, I drove to a different part of the park, to the lake.

Geese paddled on the glassy water that I had walked on two months ago.

And just for a moment, nothing hurt.

Mary Pezzulo is the author of Meditations on the Way of the Cross and Stumbling into Grace: How We Meet God in Tiny Works of Mercy.
Steel Magnificat operates almost entirely on tips. To tip the author, visit our donate page.

Home and Religion

Appalachia

despair

fear

Frankfort Mineral Springs

hell

prayer

Vidi Aquam

Previous Post

March 16, 2022

Yet More on the Consecration of Russia

Next Post

March 21, 2022 Sing When The Sun Is Gone

Browse Our Archives

Select a Category abortion Abuse Advent America American Christianity angel angels Annunciation Appalachia apparition apparition chaser apparition chasers apparition culture art art review babies baby baby Jesus Bad Lip Reading bad statue contest bath beauty Bible story blog blogkeeping blood book review Brandon Sanderson breastfeeding bus Catholic catholic conspiracy alarmism Catholic Oppositional Disorder Charismatic Renewal Charlie the Cat chastity Christ Christian idenitity Christianity and Judaism Chronic Illness clean clothing COD piece comedy compassion conscience conspiracy theory conversion cop-on-black violence Crucifixion cry of the poor culture Daesh Daily Saints death death penalty devotional diaconate diaper diapers dirty disability Donald Trump Dorothy Day dream drugs Eastern Catholicism Eastern Christianity education election election update Elsewhere on Patheos empathy environment Fear feminism film review fish flashback fluffy buns food Franciscan University of Steubenville Friendship Room fun Gabriel gardening gospel hair-splitting Heaven hell heresy Hillary Clinton history Holly the Witch Holy Spirit holy war Homeschooling homosexuality horror human dignity humor Icon idol immigrants infection inter-religious dialogue Interpretation of Scripture Islam Jesus Jihad Joseph joy laity and lay vocations lamb dinner laundry lent lgbtq literature love manners Mary Medicine and Science Meditation mercy mess milk misogyny Missouri monasticism monster motherhood mourn with those mourn movies movis music mystery nature neurodiversity New Pro-Life Movement news nonsense nostalgia O antiphons obituary objectification Ohio Valley Ordinary Time ordination Ordo Amoris parable paradox Passover peanut butter personal beliefs pets philosophy Planet Charismatic poetry politics polls poop Pope Francis Pope Leo power in the Church prayer prayer request prayers preferential option for non-violence president presidential election priest primary private revelation pro-life prophecy Public face of Catholicism Pure Flix Q and A race racism random rape rape. sexuality reader's request Reckoners refugee religious trauma ressurrection Right to life Saints saints and celebrations same-sex same-sex marriage satire scandal secular feasts seder Seven Joys Seven Last Words sex sexual ethics sexuality silencing six months skid row slavery social justice Speculative fiction spiritual abuse spoon stain story suffering suffrage suffragette Sunday Gospel temple Tenebrae Responsories Terror the exorcist The Friendship Room The New Pro-Life Movement Things I Learned on the Internet tin cup traffic true story tv review Uncategorized USCCB vice and temptation violence Virtue virtue and vice war Way of the Cross whimsy whole life women's ordination work of mercy Year A

Select a Month October 2026 September 2026 August 2026 July 2026 June 2026 May 2026 April 2026 March 2026 February 2026 January 2026 December 2025 November 2025 October 2025 September 2025 August 2025 July 2025 June 2025 May 2025 April 2025 March 2025 February 2025 January 2025 December 2024 November 2024 October 2024 September 2024 August 2024 July 2024 June 2024 May 2024 April 2024 March 2024 February 2024 January 2024 December 2023 November 2023 October 2023 September 2023 August 2023 July 2023 June 2023 May 2023 April 2023 March 2023 February 2023 January 2023 December 2022 November 2022 October 2022 September 2022 August 2022 July 2022 June 2022 May 2022 April 2022 March 2022 February 2022 January 2022 December 2021 November 2021 October 2021 September 2021 August 2021 July 2021 June 2021 May 2021 April 2021 March 2021 February 2021 January 2021 December 2020 November 2020 October 2020 September 2020 August 2020 July 2020 June 2020 May 2020 April 2020 March 2020 February 2020 January 2020 December 2019 November 2019 October 2019 September 2019 August 2019 July 2019 June 2019 May 2019 April 2019 March 2019 February 2019 January 2019 December 2018 November 2018 October 2018 September 2018 August 2018 July 2018 June 2018 May 2018 April 2018 March 2018 February 2018 January 2018 December 2017 November 2017 October 2017 September 2017 August 2017 July 2017 June 2017 May 2017 April 2017 March 2017 February 2017 January 2017 December 2016 November 2016 October 2016 September 2016 August 2016 July 2016 June 2016 May 2016 April 2016 March 2016

TAKE THE

Religious Wisdom Quiz

Who was the prophet that confronted King David about his sin with Bathsheba?

Select your answer to see how you score.

Isaiah Nathan Samuel Elijah