A personal question

[SirJack]

Hi guys. I’m Jack. I was raised Catholic. I have worked for the Church here and there, and I’m almost finished a theology degree. I have a question and I was hoping you may help me.

All through my teens - and most of my twenties - I went to Mass regularly. Often I would try to go daily. (I toyed with the idea of a vocation, but God had other plans.) I haven’t been regularly for over two years.

In the past two years I have had two major discoveries. The first is that I finally realised that I was a homosexual - something I had denied since I was an adolescent. And the second was a diagnosis that I have bipolar disorder.

In my madness I have seen many things that are not real. Some of these things were once quite helpful in my faith. I could trust in God because I had seen his hand at work in my life - and then, with the right medication, it dawns on me that those experiences were hallucinations and delusions.

Consequently I feel quite broken. I have approached priests and others whose advice I trust, but they just offer platitudes and reassure me that chastity is the goal. (The thing is, chastity isn’t the problem.)

I wonder that if God has a plan for us all, what could that mean for me? It seems that for the rest of my life I will never experience the comfort of the faith I once had. I am bound not to enter a homosexual relationship (which more than anything else would simply devastate my family), so I will not enjoy intimacy and love. My own mind serves to undermine itself, and there are days when I am simply not there. I cannot provide a witness to others because my pains are hidden and my faith is shallow.

I can be reassured with quotes from the Bible, or anecdotes from the saints, but my problems remain. And laying underneath it all is my personal question: why would God permit me to be so broken and yet not allow for my healing?

My problems will not go away. They can be hidden, but they cannot be fixed with medicine. And miracles are in rare supply, so I don’t think its appropriate that I pray for God to make me straight and sane.

Anyway, I figured that you kind souls might be able to help somehow. I hope you can.

Thanks,

Jack

 

[Chochy]

In the past two years I have had two major discoveries. The first is that I finally realised that I was a homosexual - something I had denied since I was an adolescent. And the second was a diagnosis that I have bipolar disorder.

In my madness I have seen many things that are not real. Some of these things were once quite helpful in my faith. I could trust in God because I had seen his hand at work in my life - and then, with the right medication, it dawns on me that those experiences were hallucinations and delusions.

Consequently I feel quite broken. I have approached priests and others whose advice I trust, but they just offer platitudes and reassure me that chastity is the goal. (The thing is, chastity isn’t the problem.)

I wonder that if God has a plan for us all, what could that mean for me? It seems that for the rest of my life I will never experience the comfort of the faith I once had. I am bound not to enter a homosexual relationship (which more than anything else would simply devastate my family), so I will not enjoy intimacy and love. My own mind serves to undermine itself, and there are days when I am simply not there. I cannot provide a witness to others because my pains are hidden and my faith is shallow.

I can be reassured with quotes from the Bible, or anecdotes from the saints, but my problems remain. And laying underneath it all is my personal question: why would God permit me to be so broken and yet not allow for my healing?

My problems will not go away. They can be hidden, but they cannot be fixed with medicine. And miracles are in rare supply, so I don’t think its appropriate that I pray for God to make me straight and sane.

Anyway, I figured that you kind souls might be able to help somehow. I hope you can.

Dear Jack,

I will begin by saying hello. Thank you for sharing what you are experiencing. I too, hope that many kind souls will be able to help you.

I have a question. In addition to trusting God because you could SEE His hand at work in your life, did you ever FEEL his Love in your heart?

I believe God does have a plan for us all. I believe we all struggle to know what that plan is, regardless of the specific challenges we face. We all struggle and we all search. Don’t we all feel at some point that our pain is hidden and our faith is shallow? The more posts and threads I read, regardless of the topic, it seems to me that we are all searching for the same thing. We are all searching for love. It’s so complex, but it’s so simple all at the same time.

God does not want you to remain broken. God can take your problems away. God is love and only God can heal.

“When we finally invite Christ into our mess, we discover that He has not come to condemn us. Neither does He demand we work harder to fix our broken lives. On the contrary, He comes as a loving Savior to the door of our hearts, knocking, waiting, for us to say, Yes Lord, come in. Take over. Forgive me. Change me. Through our surrender, God begins a life time process of change and transformation. Only He can fill our hearts to overflowing with His Amazing Grace. Lord come in and help me.”

Please don’t be afraid Jack. You are not alone in your pain and your struggle. Brighter days are in the forcast. I will pray for you.

Blessings - Chochy

 

[starsmurf]

Hi Jack

I am sorry that you have had such an awful time. I hope that I can help you with your questions.

From personal experience, I have found that when I stop going to Mass regularly, I find that my faith suffers. I think we need to attend Mass to nurture our faith, to allow God to pour His grace into our hearts. Without Mass, I am like the poor houseplants I sometimes forget to water, my spiritual strength is gone. If it is possible for you, attend at least Sunday Mass for a few weeks to help revive your faith.

As for the fact that you have discovered that you are homosexual, that in itself is not a problem. Why would it be? It is not sinful to be gay. As long as you are celibate, which would also be the case if you were heterosexual, that is all the Church asks of you. Not being in a sexual relationship does not mean that you will be lonely for the rest of your life. You can cultivate love and emotional intimacy with good friends. I am heterosexual but I have been single for a long time, I also think I am called to a celibate life (either as a single person or in Religious life). I find it hard sometimes to face a life without a one-to-one relationship, but I recognise that this is actually the way I will best be happy. God wants us to be happy, not miserable. A life of loneliness and pain is not going to be your “punishment” for the “sin” of being homosexual. I know a nun who is a widow. Her marriage was very happy and loving but she has told me that she feels even more loved and supported in the Religious Life. If you were not a Catholic and were therefore free to persue homosexual relationships, it would be no guaruntee of happiness. There are lots of non-celibate people (homo- and heterosexual) who are unhappy, lonely and in despair. Perhaps you could join a group, I think there’s one on here, for people who are Catholic, homosexual and celibate. Getting support and advice from others going through the same could help you to feel less lonely.

Your bi-polar disorder has made you feel that all the things that supported your faith has been taken away. I have a very good friend who has schizophrenia. He also found that when his condition was recognised and treated, that many of the things that he had felt were evidence of God acting in his life were delusions. This made him very depressed and almost destroyed his faith. Gradually he realised that God was actually trying to get through to him in that pain. He struggled through it and says that his faith is now actually stronger than ever. In the dark nights of the sense and of the soul, which anyone who is going to make spiritual progress experiences, all our supports are taken away. We have to nakedly cling to God and trust Him. What you are feeling is natural, you have been through a very difficult time.

God will heal you, but at the moment you cannot feel that healing beginning. I have had times in my own life when I have also felt utterly broken. I found it is only when I look back that I can see God present in that brokenness and pain. Remember that when God became human, He also felt overwhelmed by his sufferings and begged to be spared His Passion. I have found that my brokenness was necessary to allow me to heal fully of certain pain in my life. It was like re-breaking a bone that had healed badly from a fracture, in order to make it stronger.

We all have times in our lives where we are the ones who support and witness to others and other times when we need to be supported and witnessed to. You are simply in the latter, that is all.

Also please note that you ARE sane, my friend still takes medication for his schizophrenia but he is sane (he even has a certificate to prove it!). You are not “mad” or “insane”. You simply have a problem with the chemistry in your brain. If it were a problem with the chemistry in your liver, would you see it as a moral failing?

I will pray for you, Jack, you are trying to carry a very heavy cross right now. Ask Jesus to come and help you carry it, just as Simon of Cyrene helped Him.

God bless

 

[apfrita]

Hi guys. I’m Jack. I was raised Catholic. I have worked for the Church here and there, and I’m almost finished a theology degree. I have a question and I was hoping you may help me.

All through my teens - and most of my twenties - I went to Mass regularly. Often I would try to go daily. (I toyed with the idea of a vocation, but God had other plans.) I haven’t been regularly for over two years.

In the past two years I have had two major discoveries. The first is that I finally realised that I was a homosexual - something I had denied since I was an adolescent. And the second was a diagnosis that I have bipolar disorder.

In my madness I have seen many things that are not real. Some of these things were once quite helpful in my faith. I could trust in God because I had seen his hand at work in my life - and then, with the right medication, it dawns on me that those experiences were hallucinations and delusions.

Consequently I feel quite broken. I have approached priests and others whose advice I trust, but they just offer platitudes and reassure me that chastity is the goal. (The thing is, chastity isn’t the problem.)

I wonder that if God has a plan for us all, what could that mean for me? It seems that for the rest of my life I will never experience the comfort of the faith I once had. I am bound not to enter a homosexual relationship (which more than anything else would simply devastate my family), so I will not enjoy intimacy and love. My own mind serves to undermine itself, and there are days when I am simply not there. I cannot provide a witness to others because my pains are hidden and my faith is shallow.

I can be reassured with quotes from the Bible, or anecdotes from the saints, but my problems remain. And laying underneath it all is my personal question: why would God permit me to be so broken and yet not allow for my healing?

My problems will not go away. They can be hidden, but they cannot be fixed with medicine. And miracles are in rare supply, so I don’t think its appropriate that I pray for God to make me straight and sane.

Anyway, I figured that you kind souls might be able to help somehow. I hope you can.

Thanks,

Jack

Dear Jack,
Our mind may sometimes play tricks with us, but though faith has a lot to do with the mind, it does not have to be entirely dependent on our mind. Trust in God to help you and he will. I have found situations in my life where no one could have helped me and I simply surrendered myself into the hands of Jesus and even maintained a diary of what he said to me when I prayed to him. And believe me that which I thought would never be possible and if it did not happen I would have truly been miserable in my life, my life would have been without meaning; that happened and till today whatever I am is because of Jesus’ intervention in my life at the right time. Today I am a happy man in spite of whatever problems I still face in life and this is because when I called out to the Lord in faith and trust he heard me. Keep up you faith in Jesus, He is the only person who can help you. Rather then doubt God thinking that He is not coming to your help, just learn to trust him after you have placed your problem before him. The problem with us human beings is that we want God to respond according to our own whims and fancies. It does not happen that way. God is God and he will act in our lives according to his sovereign will and believe me when he acts that is the best resolution to our problems. He created us, he redeemed us, he loves us. Only he will not act in our lives if we mistrust him because then he cannot act since he cannot go against our own free will which he himself has given us. The trust that I am speaking of is that a child has on its mother. When we grow up we do not have the same trust on our parents because we have learnt to reason out for ourselves but when we are children we trust our parents instinctively and we find that they never fall short. This is the trust that I ask you to have in Jesus. He has said, “Come to me all you who are burdened and heavy-laden and I will give you rest”. Only Jesus can give rest for our souls. If Jesus cannot do it, then no one else can. But the good news is that since Jesus is the Almighty God, he has nothing to stop him from acting as he wills, except our free will. If we choose to mistrust him, then he is not capable of helping us. But if we choose to trust him with child-like faith, there is nothing to stop him from helping us.

 

[Sherry_G]

WElcome to CA , Sir Jack! We are glad to have you here. We’ll pray with you and for you in your struggle with faith matters.
I was struck by your interpretation in the area of your human sexuality, where you indicated that you will never experience love or intimacy due to your homosexuality. I suggest that your thinking here is muddled. Physical expressions or carnal knowledge has no bearing whatsoever on intimacy or love. Please consider and re-evaluate on this issue. God calls us all to chastity, including those who are heterosexual and married. Love and intimacy can only be achieved through the spiritual realm.
With regard to your physical and mental maladies, you are bearing a great cross. Just as Jesus suffered and died for us, we are sometimes subjected to pain and suffering, each of us in his or her own way. No one in this life gets through to eternal salvation without experiencing suffering. This is not a platitude- it’s a reality of life itself. We are not made for this world, please remember that we are all on a journey. We will all pray for your spiritual well being as you struggle with the trials of your life. I enc ourage you to spend time before the Blessed Sacrament, attend daily Mass if possible, and take advantage of the Sacraments of Reconciliation and receive the Holy Eucharist as often as possible. No one else but Jesus can help you bear your crosses. He knows you inside out and backwards and will never leave you.

 

[Bookcat]

catholictherapists.com/

( I saved this site that I saw advertised some time back)

We are not really permitted here to give medical etc advice.

Yes…various aspects in life can play into our lives…be they physical or environmental etc and we have to deal with them. They can come from the admixture of genes we got…or what have you. Mixtures of freedom, the effects of the fall, choice of others and our own, biology and chance. Just like all the “adventures” that we encounter on a journey from one place to another here…say even on a “vacation” …

there are lots of aspects that go into make up the Big Journey…the pilgrimage of our very life. Which is towards God in heaven and the resurrection and new heavens and new earth…where even our tears will truly be wiped away. We can have “true life” already in Christ here…and we will now this true life purely then.

We are not the end in the hands of “chance” …but in the hands of God who loves us and who can bring good even out of the most trying difficulties…

Let us follow our Lord through the various difficulties and pray and live in hope…knowing he is with us…and take also the needed means to make things better here (good counsel …medically etc).

I do want to encourage you that Jesus the Good Shepherd loves you. Stay faithful and close and indeed pray…

 

[Mickey]

Attend Liturgy often. Go to confession often. Prepare for…and receive…Holy Communion often. This will transform your life.

Peace and prayers,
Mickey

 

[SirJack]

Thank you all. You have given me much to think about - especially you Starsmurf.

Thanks again.

Jack.

 

[PbloPicasso]

If chastity is not a problem, perhaps you can discern a vocation. But it would require much discernment and proof that you can be chaste. My only issue with those suffering from Same Sex Attraction is that so many can not behave themselves. But, I know I can behave myself. But then I don’t suffer from SAA as you. I also know that it becomes difficult abstaining when I want to be close to my wife, but I have lived chaste prior to marriage. In order to do this one must emerge themselves in the gospel and the liturgy. Have you tried praying the Liturgy of the Hours as a daily devotion? This would truly help a lot. It would also be good to offer up your sufferings and prayers for faithfulness of the laity and the clergy to their prospective vocations. You can also offer it up for those suffering with the same problems you’ve stated. This in itself would be a vocation in and of itself.

Hope this helps, Jack.

 

[SirJack]

Thanks Pablo for the suggestion.

There are three obstacles to it, unfortunately.

The first - and most considered - is that I do not believe God is calling me to religious life.
The second, it is unlikely - although not unheard of - that I would be admitted for study given my orientation.
The third, given my mental illness it is impossible for me to enter a seminary. (cf. Canon law).

I used to pray the hours. Its been a long time since I have. I may take your suggestion and run with it. The psalms have always been comforting (especially Ps 88!)

 

[starsmurf]

Thanks Pablo for the suggestion.

There are three obstacles to it, unfortunately.

The first - and most considered - is that I do not believe God is calling me to religious life.
The second, it is unlikely - although not unheard of - that I would be admitted for study given my orientation.
The third, given my mental illness it is impossible for me to enter a seminary. (cf. Canon law).

I used to pray the hours. Its been a long time since I have. I may take your suggestion and run with it. The psalms have always been comforting (especially Ps 88!)

Obviously the first obstacle is the important one, however in my case, I found the sense of being called to the Religious Life went away for a time, and then came back. The most important thing to do is to try and rebuild your faith and your relationship with God. Then you will be in a position to discern what God wants you to do with your life. Even if it is God’s will that you become a priest or religious, He would not be calling you right now as you have enough to cope with.

I think that your sexual orientation would not be an automatic barrier to a vocation to the Religious Life or Priesthood, I think the Church simply requires that you have been celibate. I think one of Pope Benedict XVI’s first encyclicals dealt with this subject, and I seem to remember that homosexuality was only a barrier if you acted on the temptation or supported “gay culture”.

Finally, with regards to your mental illness, if it is controlled and you’ve been stable for a while, I think you could enter a seminary or religious order. If you ever do feel that your vocation is to the priesthood or religious life, you can speak to your priest or to a vocations director about these two issues as part of your discernment process.

 

[onlybygrace]

Hello Sir Jack!

Amazing isn’t it? This forum! How one can be able to say what we really feel and yet we are welcomed with such beautiful and reassuring words.

I agree with most of the people here, especially going to Mass. I also highly suggest that you join a parish community for singles in order for you to help you with what your going through. I know that these people will be much more understanding of your situation rather than being around with people who are not devout and who’s faith is still shaken. In fact, your testimony might even help a lot of single men and women out there who is struggling in living a chaste life.

I commend you, as the others have, for being able to allow God’s love to be inside you all the time. I will continue to pray for you, my friend and may you allow God’s love to pour into your heart and out to another.

God Bless.