Abandoning my Faith

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MichaelAnonymous

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I have been very disappointed with God in the past one month and a half and I always feel tempted to abandon my Catholic Faith.

Yes, I do love the Eucharist, I do believe in the Real Presence, but I don’t find God a loving Father. He does not respond to my prayer and I cannot hear His voice.

I know I have sinned to much and sometimes I am indeed dismayed at my poor spiritual progress, but sometimes I also feel He doesn’t really care about me - well, if He wants to throw me into Hell, feel free to do so! He is always moving the goal post in the game called life …

I am fed up with seeing bad priests and priests who do not care about the faithful. They are like civil servants within a hierarchy known as the Church - they may do their job right, nothing more, nothing less, but don’t expect too much. They are more like church keepers than pastors.

I am fed up with hypocritical parishioners and unfairness in the parish. Of course there are a lot of kindhearted ladies and gentlemen, but this is a rarity.

I know everyone is a sinner - I am in fact a big sinner so I shouldn’t be that ‘intolerant’ towards others. But I am fed up with all these.

I know I should go to Mass, and I do, but this is done only to avoid punishment. I still remember how much I loved going to the Mass and saying the Rosary when I was young. Well, admit it - the sheer fact that I was baptized was already too much a miracle, for my family was non-religious, the entire society was secular, and I grew up in an environment of little Faith. I feel detached to the parish.

Every Sunday I am tempted not to go to the Mass. And I am getting less interested in Tridentine Liturgy as I used to be. Yet I really feel how dead and dry deep within me without my Catholic Faith. But I don’t care. If God is really a loving Father, why not guide me through all these?

Why can our Cardinals, Bishops - and the Pope - abandon the suffering faithful and seek to establish diplomatic relationship with the evil Communists? I am really afraid of being abandoned by the Church one day - no matter if I am still a churchgoer or I am a future priest.

My spiritual director said I seem to have a Vocation, but God never replies to my prayer. I am fed up with searching for meaning of my life. I am lazy. I am scared of change. And my spiritual director, by the way, is a non-empathic parish priest. I asked God to find me another spiritual director but He never replied.

And I failed my exam. Why abandon me?
 
Are you married?

In a marriage there are times when you are wildly, passionately in love with each other. There are also times when you do not want to be in the same room as your spouse. There is every stage in between.

In our relationship with Christ and His Church, it is normal to have times when you feel alone, dry, arid, abandoned.

The good thing is that we do not rely on our feelings. Trust that God is Truth. Just like in a marriage, we do not have an affair because we have hit a time when we are distant but we keep on and know that this feeling is not reality.

How is your prayer life? Is it a series of “please give me this and please do that?” Do you listen? Do you praise?

I’d suggest some of Fr Dubay’s books on prayer. “The Prayer Primer” and “Deep Conversion, Deep Prayer”.

Also, Fr Jaques Phillipe’s books, “Searching For and Maintaining Peace” and “Time For God”.

Loving Fathers know that as their child grows up, they have to let him sometimes fall or he will never walk, that the child will never learn to ride a bike if the training wheels are always on, that the child will never succede if he does not learn how to fail.

Remember, your Spiritual Director is filling a role. He is not your friend or a shrink. Listen to him and try not to let emotions cloud your hearing.
 
Hi there,

I empathize with your feelings of disappointment in God - that He seems absent, uncaring, punishing.

God is love and He can will nothing but what is good for us. We may not understand or feel but we must believe that every second of our existence, God is with us willing good. Despite our disappointments, failures, sadness. Somehow…somewhere…God is willing good.

As for disappointments with people — that’s a given. No one is perfect – not us, not anyone. We need to close our eyes and just trust God with blind faith. Blind faith. Not according to our intellect, not according to our thoughts, not according to our expectations.

Our thoughts can get very cloudy very quickly — and I am certain satan takes advantage of this to make us overthinking, overanalyze, overprocess, to think the worst. To make us doubt, disbelieve, fear, hate, resent, feel insecure.

Failure is great disappointment. Unlike even temptation of the flesh, it’s not something that we can control — failures in life happen and expectations do not come true and we can do nothing about it. That powerlessness is excruciating.

But it will force us to trust God because we have nothing else left. When we’ve done everything we possibly can. Perhaps God has not abandoned you but has prodded and guided you to take the one road that will lead to Him. Whatever that may be.

Perhaps after we die, we will see the Providence of God. I know that’s not much consolation when you’re suffering now, but we still have to keep faith and hope alive, however small it is at the moment.

We will pray for you in the meantime…
 
God is not merely an answer man. Growing in the love of God takes a lifetime. It sounds like you have a long way to go in growing in faith and trust of God, and this can only be done by persistence and patience. There simply is no other way.
 
I remember your previous post about your spiritual director. I don’t know if you remember me, but I’m the one who had a similar experience. This thread covers quite a lot, but I’ll see what I can do and maybe some good will come of it.

First, and you may think I’m nuts, but reading your post, I thought “wow, God is really working on this person.” This is how God shapes and strengthens us, by taking a few steps away and seeing if we follow. But as St. Faustina says, God is closest when He feels far away. You’ll sense Him again, when He Wills it, just persevere. Your love will be stronger for this trial. He’s trying to perfect you. Wouldn’t you like to be a saint?

As for your exam, I’m sorry, I know that’s tough. I failed a semester of nursing school and it was downright depressing. But you get back up, and try again. I learned to study harder, ask for help, and finally graduated this past winter. You too will graduate and this exam will just be a memory.

God didn’t send you a different spiritual director - yet. He sends the right people, at the right time, for the right reasons. I waited almost five years for my first spiritual director. As I mentioned in your previous thread, I had some difficulty in the beginning with him due to reasons much like your own. I learned to change my expectations of a spiritual director’s duty in order to fully appreciate the wonderful gifts of his time, attention, and wisdom. God sent me a “spiritual friend” only a few months ago. Since I’m moving in the near future, I’m going to lose my spiritual director. However, to my surprised delight, this friend has assumed the role of spiritual director and will continue as long as he can. If and when that changes, I’ll miss him, but I’ll have to accept that God knows what’s best. He’ll send someone else, with a new message I need to hear, or test me awhile to strengthen my perseverance. Either way, the goal is to make a saint out of me (or at least keep me out of hell!) so I know the way He chooses is for the best. That’s what love is, doing the best for another, even if what’s best is temporarily unpleasant.

PM me if you want to talk. I’ll pray for you. What do you need most right now?
 
MichaelAnonymous said:
I have been very disappointed with God in the past one month and a half and I always feel tempted to abandon my Catholic Faith.
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I feel the same. All I see are evil and sinful people getting blessed and when I try to do something good or nice for someone else all I get is a kick in the rear. My life is totally blocked and I believe God is the one doing the blocking. He wants me to sit here among people who hate me and do nothing. He does. At this point I just want God out of my way so I can live a normal life like normal people do. When I never thought of God and didn’t attend church my life was normal and decent, and things worked out. The minute I came back to God and church, my life completely shut down. Whatever I try to do simply doesn’t work out or turns to crap immediately. This has been going on for a year. How much longer?

I want to be normal again and live a life.
 
Spend some time looking at a Crucifix and tell Christ how much people hate you, how mean they are to you.
 
Talitha712 said:
You’ll sense Him again, when He Wills it, just persevere. Your love will be stronger for this trial. He’s trying to perfect you. Wouldn’t you like to be a saint?
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I know for me I don’t want to be a saint. I want to be a normal human living a normal life, not blocked into some life that is miserable simply because God wants me to persevere. Persevere to what? How long? I want joy in my life, a reason for living, hope, sunshine, warmth, rewards for living a good life. Do I deserve any of it - no obviously. But I want it. When I lived without God I had some of it. Now I have none of it with God. I’m miserable and God doesn’t care.
 
Do you think things will get better if you leave God and go back to living how you were before?

Or would you just be having a crappy life only also without God?
 
Every joy and sorrow in this world is fleeting — compared to eternity, everything is just a point on a needle.

We just have to live day-by-day with the last bit of hope and faith we have even when we don’t feel it…just one ray of light peering into the soul through a tiny crack.

Sometimes that is all we get it seems…but things do change.

Our minds are sharp and we hurt ourselves overthinking too much…I guess that’s why Jesus told us to be like little children who just trust in their parents…

Less is more?
 
Nap66 said:
I know for me I don’t want to be a saint. I want to be a normal human living a normal life, not blocked into some life that is miserable simply because God wants me to persevere. Persevere to what? How long? I want joy in my life, a reason for living, hope, sunshine, warmth, rewards for living a good life. Do I deserve any of it - no obviously. But I want it. When I lived without God I had some of it. Now I have none of it with God. I’m miserable and God doesn’t care.
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Blocked into some life that is miserable? On the contrary, the most joyful people I have ever met are priests and religious. The trials are usually ordinary events that require greater faith and trust - a diagnosis of cancer, the loss of a loved one, loneliness, familial discord, etc. We don’t go out of our way for misery, we simply make the most of suffering and offer it up for other souls. This life is only temporary so if we make the most out of this temporary life, and temporary suffering, for our own and others’ eternity, it’s worth it.

Of course you want joy in your life. We all do. But even having all the joy of Earth with none of its sufferings is nothing, not the barest shadow of happiness, compared to the eternal joy of a saint.
 
Despair is what the prince of lies whispers in your ear. Depression is what people fall into.

Just know that God loves you more than you could possibly fathom, and FWIW, will never abandon you.
 
I see God in everyone posting about their frustrations here, because they cared enough to bother to want to post and discuss about Him rather than just walking out.

God’s not that easy to leave because on some level, y’all love him and know that he’s a good thing in your life.

Stuff is just really frustrating right now.

Maybe God wants you to see God in other people who are falling short of the mark right and left, but must be doing something good, something of which God would approve.
 
Talitha712 said:
We don’t go out of our way for misery, we simply make the most of suffering and offer it up for other souls.
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What does that mean to offer up our suffering? I’m serious, I would like to know so I can do it.
 
It means to accept it, try not to despair over it, and ask God to use it against your sins or the sins of another. Such a practice earns graces for you and others. Suffering is horrible, but it has tremendous redemptive value. I’ve heard it said, though I’m not sure where, that if there is anything that humans have that an angel would want, it is the ability to suffer and offer it up to God.
 
Tis_Bearself said:
How so? (+10 char)
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Before I came back to the church and God I just lived. Hard to explain but my professional life was going ok, and I would be recognized for my hard work and I felt like my work mattered. Now I have no professional life to speak of and when I try and try to start over again, nothing. I had personal relationships that brought joy and I could help other people who appreciated it. Now all my personal relationships crash and burn, especially after I start helping people (or think I am). Before I lived somewhere sunny and warm, now I live somewhere cold, snowy, cloudy and just simply depressing (never underestimate weather in people’s feeling of miserableness).

I’m sure all of what I just said is shallow and “feelings” and it is. But it is what it is now in my life and I feel miserable. If being with God for the rest of my life means I must endure in the same situation, I prefer not.
 
Why not try to go back to the way you were, but take God with you?
He would go with you.

You can’t necessarily change other people’s attitudes, but you could go somewhere warm.

And unless your past professional life was something immoral that you had to quit in order to get in good with God, he’s not responsible for whatever happened there.
 
Talitha712 said:
and ask God to use it against your sins or the sins of another.
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To use it against your sins or someone else’s sins. Does that mean that you get credit for sinning since you paid the price with your suffering? Do you say “God see my suffering, please cancel my sins since I have paid my price?” Is it said in prayer?
 
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