Am I hearing voices in my head?

[Rutherford2]

According to the CCC, I must be baptised first before the Holy Spirit could touch me. Once the Holy Spirit has touched me, then I could be in touch with Christ. Since I am not baptized yet, does it mean all my inspirations or voices I heard during Holy Hour are imaginary voices in my heard? Have I been talking to myself all these while, making a fool out of myself?

 

[mrsdizzyd]

God is capable of doing whatever he wills. If he wants to talk to you he will.

I can’t say if what you are experiencing is God or not. I’d suggest bringing this to your priest. He can help you discern the source better than any of us can.

 

[adgloriam]

baptised first before the Holy Spirit could touch me.

exact quote please.

 

[Rutherford2]

exact quote please.

CCC 683 No one can say ‘Jesus is Lord’ except by the Holy Spirit." “God has sent the Spirit of his Son in
to our hearts, crying, 'Abba! Father!”’ This knowledge of faith is possible only in the Holy Spirit: to be
in touch with Christ, we must first have been touched by the Holy Spirit. He comes to meet us and
kindles faith in us. By virtue of our Baptism, thefirst sacrament of the faith, the Holy Spirit in the
Church communicates to us, intimately and personally, the life that originates in the Father and is
offered to us in the Son. Baptism gives us the grace of new birth in God the Father, through his
Son, in the Holy Spirit. For those who bear God’s Spirit are led to the Word, that is, to the Son,
and the Son presents them to the Father, and the Father confers incorruptibility on them. And it is
impossible to see God’s Son without the Spirit, and no one can approach the Father without the
Son, for the knowledge of the Father is the Son, and the knowledge of God’s Son is obtained through the Holy Spirit.

 

[Todd_Easton]

The inspirations or voices you heard remind me of the vision Cornelius had before he was baptized. See Acts 10.

 

[Deulofeu]

Todd brings up a great point. Clearly Cornelius was given God’s message before he was baptized. Then, in Acts 10:44-48, the Holy Spirit touches those who were unbaptized. Peter remarks, “Could anyone refuse the water of baptism to these people, now they have received the Holy Spirit just as we have?”

 

[Rutherford2]

If I am not mistaken, I think Saint Paul heard the voice of Jesus before he was baptized right?

 

[Todd_Easton]

Yes.

And he fell to the ground and heard a voice saying to him, “Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?” And he said, “Who are you, Lord?” And he said, “I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting; but rise and enter the city, and you will be told what you are to do.” (Acts 9:4-6)

He wasn’t baptized until a few days later. (Acts 9:18)

 

[otrrl]

We have a lot of thoughts and certainly these are not all divine inspiration. Personally, in my case anyway, I apply myself to the scriptures and see what these say to me.

Only you know if you are hearing voices. My mind is always flooded with thoughts. I’m not sure how I could even tell if these thoughts were voices. We really do have an unconscious mind that is working 24/7. Some of my thoughts originate in that unconscious part of my mind. My thinking is usually verbal, so that might seem like a voice. I personally don’t believe in voices. We do have imaginations, too.

 

[Rutherford2]

Only you know if you are hearing voices.

From my experience, you cannot “hear” the voices. It is more like more and more words are put into your head until you can form a complete sentence. For example (starting from #1)
#1 “Your choice…”, “Do it for me…”, “Do from your heart…”
#2 “Do it for yourself…”, “Or on my behalf?”, “You decide…”
#3 "My child, it is up to your heart. Do you want to do it for My sake? Or do you want to do it for your sake?"

 

[TK421]

God can and does communicate graces to any soul at any point in their life.

If this weren’t the case, people would never make the decision to be baptized.

 

[Wm777]

According to the CCC, I must be baptised first before the Holy Spirit could touch me. Once the Holy Spirit has touched me, then I could be in touch with Christ. Since I am not baptized yet, does it mean all my inspirations or voices I heard during Holy Hour are imaginary voices in my heard? Have I been talking to myself all these while, making a fool out of myself?

I dont mean to discourage you at all, but you might want to talk with the Priest and RCIA people, who know you better and can communicate with you more readily than probably anyone on here.

What you are describing could be any number of things.

My first thought, which I think would be the first thought many Priest’s might ask is, “Do you have a health or drug condition?” They wouldn’t (or, at least, they shouldn’t) be asking you any such thing to hold it against you, but it would help them understand where you are coming from better. And, btw, I am not asking you to provide any such answers here, as I would consider asking such questions prying and indiscreet.

If you’re not having a hallucination, then it might become a spiritual matter. In which case, they would have to discern what kind of spirit it is, usually by what the spirit is saying to you. I may have missed it, but I don’t recall you saying what the voices are telling you. My point isn’t to question the content anyway. It might be best to tell the Priest and your RCIA directors what you’re perceiving in private.

A few things to bear in mind…

1.) The Holy Spirit would never tell you to do anything bad or harmful to yourself or anyone else.

2.) Saint Theresa of Avila, The Doctor of Prayer, calls hearing voices in prayer “locutions”, and she says they can be perceived in varying degrees. However, if you were to be experiencing locutions, then it gets into an area of mysticism, which (again) you would do well to take to your Priest and RCIA directors.

3.) I dont think you should worry about the sacraments playing a role. Sacraments are simply “outward signs that confer grace.” When a Priest pours water on your head and blesses you - you can literally see him pouring of the water… The fact that it is visible makes it an outward sign, when he does so while giving you a sacramental blessing, you KNOW it confers grace because you can visibly see him do both… BUT it doesnt mean the Holy Spirit couldn’t invisibly grant you grace… He could! The difference is, you can visibly see a Priest administering a sacrament; but you can’t really see the actions of the Holy Spirit, who could still confer the same grace upon you invisibly any time He wanted without the Priest, or even you knowing about it.

4.) The only other thing I can imagine it might be would be some sort of a charismatic prophecy. However, again, I dont want to venture into a discussion on the charismatics here, as I am usually very much on the fence about charismatics, and yet such discussions always seem to end up being fiercely debated.

I’m not sure if I was able to help much, but I wish you the best in your journey.

God Bless You!

Wm

 

[Tis_Bearself]

This knowledge of faith is possible only in the Holy Spirit: to be
in touch with Christ, we must first have been touched by the Holy Spirit. He comes to meet us and
kindles faith in us.

This doesn’t say anywhere that you have to be baptized in order to be “touched by the Holy Spirit”. God, including God in the person of the Holy Spirit, can touch anybody they want, any time. Paul got knocked to the ground by the Holy Spirit. People are motivated every day by the Holy Spirit to take steps to be closer to God. Not all of them have been baptized yet.

The next sentence and the rest of the paragraph explains to us what the Holy Spirit does via Baptism:

By virtue of our Baptism, the first sacrament of the faith, the Holy Spirit in the
Church communicates to us, intimately and personally, the life that originates in the Father and is
offered to us in the Son.

You get an “intimate and personal” communication of Jesus via the Holy Spirit when you are baptized.

It does NOT mean that the Holy Spirit can’t talk to you at all before you are baptized. It’s not like all of a sudden the minute after baptism, the Holy Spirit phone lines are open when before they were call-blocked. God talks to who He wants, when He wants. He could talk to an unbaptized person, a pagan, an atheist, etc. whenever he felt like it.

So that should clear things up with respect to the Holy Spirit.

If you are “hearing voices” in the sense of hearing actual voices and you are concerned about it, that’s a medical issue. Please see a doctor or mental health professional.

 

[Lee1]

Do you have a priest that you can talk to Rutherford?

 

[Roguish]

I agree with the point already made that baptism is not a requirement for God to start talking to you. Unlike some others though, I would not recommend asking a priest to tell you which thoughts are truly from God and which aren’t. A priest can be a helpful guide with certain things, but his primary task is as dispenser of sacraments. Interpreting or assessing the thoughts, voices, sounds, visions, dreams, etc. of others isn’t something that a priest is trained for. (And neither is a psychiatrist, seeing as how they disqualify themselves by taking an implicitly condescending view of religion.) So generally speaking you’re going to have to learn to do it yourself, but if you’re going to ask anyone for any help it had better be someone who is spiritually very mature and understands you exceptionally well. The ability to help others distinguish between the divine, the mundane, and the diabolical in their mental world is a charism really, a supernatural talent, and we cannot assume that those who have been ordained priests have it while others do not.

In any case, God can and will talk to you in a way that is extremely finely tailored to your personality, circumstances, background, life history, subsconcious desires and fears, etc. etc. What He tells you or shows you may well be incomprehensible or weird to others. Of course this does not mean you should assume that anything that pops into your mind is God talking to you. The devil is also capable of talking to you, so clearly it’s important to be careful. Over time you’ll get better at this.

 

[Rutherford2]

@Wm777 I think it most probably is “locutions” that I am experiencing.
@Tis_Bearself I don’t hear voices all the time. Only when I prayed to God for an answer.
@Lee1 Yeah, I have but I don’t need to. This is the second time he hear my testimony when I present them to the crowd. I think my priest is accustomed to what is happening to me.
@Roguish The Devil usually don’t speak to me. One time he talked (more like screaming) to me to further discourage me when he discovered that I wanted to cut my relationship with the Lord. As for voices from the Lord, there was one time he told me to be a child again if I want to enter the kingdom of God. Another time, the Lord send His angel to comfort me by telling me that He has not forgotten about me. And recently, I faced a dilemma (I shall not reveal it) on which choices to choose so He asked me whether I want to make a decision for His sake or for my own self-interest. Rest assured, it has nothing to do with harming myself or others or anything evil.

 

[Lee1]

That’s true, I agree with most of what you’ve said there.

And someone else mentioned that a voice if from God will not ask you to do anything not in keeping with our faith and tenets of our religion.

So discernment is very necessary. Know it by the fruits.

 

[Lee1]

This sounds ok, I’m relieved.

I’ll keep you in my prayers, peace be with you Rutherford.

 

[adgloriam]

It does NOT mean that the Holy Spirit can’t talk to you at all before you are baptized. It’s not like all of a sudden the minute after baptism, the Holy Spirit phone lines are open when before they were call-blocked. God talks to who He wants, when He wants. He could talk to an unbaptized person, a pagan, an atheist, etc. whenever he felt like it.

This is what I was going to say.