Holy Saturday
According to St. Ignatius Loyola, when Christ died, his soul and body were separated from each other. The body remained in the tomb while the soul went to hell for three days. According to sacred scripture, some women brought various ointments to anoint the body of Christ in the tomb. Even though the soul was absent, they wanted to anoint the body because the body remains a very intimate part of a person even when the soul is gone. Therefore, the bodies of dead human beings should be treated with a certain veneration and respect, and ideally laid to rest in consecrated ground, even though the souls have gone on to meet their maker.
This much is true for the bodies of the deceased. Something analogous applies to the bodies of the merely absent-minded. Although their souls are technically still present, their minds are somewhere else, so to speak. Perhaps one person is mentally ill, perhaps another person is in shock of some kind, perhaps a third person is simply distracted and not really paying attention to his circumstances. It is incumbent on the rest of us, though, still to respect such people.
And if you find yourself distracted and absent-minded while you are trying to focus on your prayers and meditations at home or in church, don’t be too hard on yourself. Give yourself some respect. It is meritorious in God’s sight when you make time for him, even if you become distracted and the quality of the time is not the best.
This is not to say that it’s okay to be lukewarm in your service of God. It’s not. Jesus has promised to “spit out of his mouth” those who are lukewarm (Rev 3:16). You should always offer yourself to God, one hundred percent. However, this one hundred percent will include times when the only self you have to offer is a distracted, absent-minded self.