crisis of faith

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Ravyn_Guiliani

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God has never been friendly to me. I grew up with a father who
practiced Satanism and was always told that God did not like me very much and of course this always proved true. How do I change it? How do I start to believe in the goodness of God and that it applies to me also? I have no faith in anything. How do I get it?
 
God has never been friendly to me. I grew up with a father who
practiced Satanism and was always told that God did not like me very much and of course this always proved true.

**And just how would your satanist father know that God didn’t like you? It’s not like he was on speaking terms with God, now is it?

The Devil’s a liar and so are those who deliberately follow him.**
 
I know where you are at, I have a son brought up in the catholic faith who didn’t like the way I would give children a chance and then help my son through my asking him forgiveness if I did wrong, and there is more, but not for now.

Just have a look around and see the trees the plants the joy of those who love God, read them in these threads there are many. Even though many are going through pain it is this world that is going wrong, and why, because as you have seen they believe in their own self.
Look at all around you see the beauty and read the bible of Jesus life and build your faith on that. Ask God, tell Him you don’t have faith in much, to take that past teaching away from you and ask Jesus to help you to believe in His love.
God tells us that we are made to God’s own likeness. To be in likeness with God’s desire for mankind we have to go through the rights of the mass. The apostles greed, the rites said at baptism and the conformation rites.

Before that though, you will have to see a priest ask God the Father of Jesus to send you to the right one, and God will.
You will have to rebuke and go against satin and his evil ways.
I will leave it at that for now and will pray for your father to as I will put you all on my prayer chain.

Godbless.
 
Ravyn_Guiliani said:
God has never been friendly to me. I grew up with a father who
practiced Satanism and was always told that God did not like me very much and of course this always proved true. How do I change it? How do I start to believe in the goodness of God and that it applies to me also? I have no faith in anything. How do I get it?
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if you still have unresolved issues with your father, and a father who would tell his child he is unloved does not sound like a paternal role model, you must resolve those issues and find a path to forgiveness of him before you can have right relationship with God the Father. Seek that healing on a spiritual level through Mass and the sacraments, and with pastoral counselling on spiritual issues if necessary. Seek healing on a psychological and emotional level, with professional help if necessary, if the issues are causing problems in your current life and relationships especially.

You begin an experience of the goodness of God by surrounding yourself with good people, and filling your own life with good actions, thoughts, words, music, films, books, and distancing yourself from bad people, bad words and actions, bad thoughts, bad words, music, film, books etc.
 
first let me thank all of you for your responses. I have been in so much spiritual pain (and physical pain because of chronic bad health–a genetic disorder…) that I have not been able to focus on much of anything else this past year, and financial and marriage problems only complicate the whole mess. It does not get better, only worse. I am amazed at the lows, when I think I can be no lower, life sinks again. And I have asked for help from my parish and was told that after helping me one time last year to pay my electric bill that they could do no more. So I feel very alone and isolated.

I did speak to my priest regularly, go to Confession and Mass and also try to attend a Cenacle and do my rosary and Divine Mercy chaplet everyday. But I am now homebound because of my illness and have been since Thanksgiving, without so much as a phone call from anyone at Church to see how I am. No one has missed me. I have called a couple people myself to let them know I cannot get out like I was, but if I don’t call them, they don’t call me. I know people are busy and have their own troubles, and in the past I tried to be the one who called and checked and brought over a casserole or stopped whatever I was doing to say a prayer for them. I feel abandonned.

All I have now is online and because of the finances I will lose that next month. (LONG story short–husband was hurt on the job 3 years ago–still in litigation and working two jobs for half the pay and we don’t make the bills every month, had to pay taxes this year and are in over our head in debt right now. I have been on disability since I was a child and cannot work or drive. We have never been so low. Medical bills for him are now threatening to garnish wages and we can’t even afford to do a bankruptcy. We have sold and pawned everything we can and NetZero was the last luxury I had. No cable, no long-distance.)

I have not spoken with my father for 4 years and the priest thot this was for the best considering the stuff I had gone thru as a child. Forgive? Intellectually I have forgiven both my parents (my mother allowed it and didn’t protect me.) And the experience has made me who I am today which I can even be grateful for. But I have been completely cut off from my family because of all that and now family members have passed and I cannot change history or go back in time to fix things. I was willingly given up and orphaned. And I know it affects how I see God. How can I change it? I want to have faith, have prayed for it. But it does not come naturally to me. How can I ever trust a God who comes to me as a Parent?

I have done everything I know how to do to be open to faith. I have trusted that things will work out and be ok. They didn’t and weren’t. what now? I think I am cursed.

I have a difficult time seeing the justice in Original Sin. For this same God to exact an eye for an eye–stealing a piece of fruit and being full of hubris does not exactly match the punishment. And I have always been obedient (one of the problems when I was a child) and have always thot that I would not have done what the first humans did–so why am I punished? There must be more to the story than we have been told even if it is an allegory!
How can I trust a God who seems so capricious?

I did have this faith once. It kept me alive as a child. I came into the Church in 2002. My body just wore out. 5 years of trying to maintain faith without seeing it in my life just depleted me physically and spiritually. The last 5 years, since I have been Catholic, have been the worst years of my life—including being raised by a father who was a religious nutcase and practiced Luciferianism at night and was a Jehovah’s Witness during the day and a mother who didn’t care!

I don’t want to feel this way. I still pray. I called the Church office 4 times and requested that the priest come and hear my Confession and someone bring me Communion. So far, nothing. Out of sight, out of mind (and heart).
puzzleannie said:
if you still have unresolved issues with your father, and a father who would tell his child he is unloved does not sound like a paternal role model, you must resolve those issues and find a path to forgiveness of him before you can have right relationship with God the Father. Seek that healing on a spiritual level through Mass and the sacraments, and with pastoral counselling on spiritual issues if necessary. Seek healing on a psychological and emotional level, with professional help if necessary, if the issues are causing problems in your current life and relationships especially.

You begin an experience of the goodness of God by surrounding yourself with good people, and filling your own life with good actions, thoughts, words, music, films, books, and distancing yourself from bad people, bad words and actions, bad thoughts, bad words, music, film, books etc.
Click to expand...
 
I am thinking of you even though I don’t know where you live. We are starting a ministry in our Church that should help people just like you. Volunteers to help baby sit, fix meals, fix a door, or just hold a hand. We are going to require our RCIA people to be a part of this ministry.
I will keep you and your family in my prayers.
Prague
 
Ravyn_Guiliani
I have no faith in anything. How do I get it?
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First off, congradulate yourself on your excellent assessment.
If this is how God was presented to you - it would be
astonishing if you did have faith in Him, or in His goodness.
Who would want to have faith in someone -even God- when

quote:Ravyn_Guiliani
…and was always told that God did not like me very much
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Secondly, you might consider asking yourself *why *you
wish to believe - to have faith. This is more of an existential question than a religious question.

For what it’s worth, I look at it this way.

-Either God exists - or He does not.

-If He exists, He is either a personal God or
a remote deity who has no interest in human
affairs.

-If He is a personal God, who begins the relationship?.

And here is the key, I think. People seem to say -
with some frequency - that they are searching for God.

But, you see, if God exists, and if He is a personal God,
then He as already “located” us. It’s kind of like
wandering around, trying to figure out what life
is all about, and how to find God - when all the
time He is sitting quietly nearby, waiting for us to find Him.

And, sometimes, when we find Him, we start to say to Him
“But I was told…”

And does God say?
“Now, I’m telling you. Forget what was told to you about Me.
I love you and care for you. Can you understand that? I will all that is good for you.”

It is trust that is essential. To trust what God is telling me.

And how hard it is - for many human beings to extend that trust.

But, you see, in some sense - it does not matter. God will
remain with us throughout life’s journey, whether we think
we’ve found Him or not. It is God Who does the reaching out.
He is aware of us - eons before we become aware of Him.

quote: Ravyn_Guiliani
I have no faith in anything. How do I get it?
Click to expand...
And as to how one gets faith, I guess that all I can say is
that faith is not something someone gets, but a Someone Who loves us.

Faith is all about relationship. Not a what - rather a Who.
You surely have my prayers, Ravyn_Guiliani.

reen12
 
Ravyn, I am so very sorry you are experiencing this crisis; you are in my prayers. I would like to recommend a book to you that I have found very helpful in appreciating the Father’s loving care of us (it’s an old book, out-of-print, but available at a very reasonable price):

catholicauthors.org/cgi-bin/rpb455/17090.html

This is a book I return to regularly fas an aid in meditation.
 
I am so sorry for your time of crisis.

I have no suggestions, but:

I am praying for the warmth and the light of God to envelop your heart - that you will feel this embrace - and your body’s difficulties, your mind’s challenges, and your emotional heart will be eased. That you will know without a doubt that this embrace is God’s love for you. I am praying that there will be people who will be an inspiration to you and be a support to you in your isolated times. I am praying that you will get the financial resources you need - and to also stay online with us here.

God Bless,
Andi V.
 
Oh Ravyn, I am so sorry for your situation, and absolutely horrified that you seem to have been abandoned by your Christian brothers and sisters in your parish.

I will pray for you and your husband and this awful situation. My only suggestion is have you tried Catholic Charities for some help? Also, are you sure you cannot go bankrupt? Is there a Legal Aid Society in your area? While bankruptcy ruins your credit for a number of years, it probably is already ruined, and you may be able to save some of your assets like your car so your husband can get to work, and can stop wage garnishment and harrassment by creditors. You certainly seem to have a legitimate reason to declare it, and, although I am no lawyer, I have had friends who have declared it because of situations similar to yours, not of their own doing, and they did not have the money for it, either–I don’t know what arrangements they were able to work out. Maybe you should pursue this a little more.

In any case, I will offer up your intentions in Morning Prayer, and pray that God will guide you through all of this.
 
Ravyn, I’m concerned about you, my sister in christ, I suppose advice comes easy,but I pretty much know at least in some ways what you’re going thru having experienced similar things, however in some key points I can’t know fully because I had a loving catholic father who raised me to know God’s love by his godly example, for what it’s worth i’ve been a schizophrenic all my 60 yrs. of life, in and out of horrible mental institutions, live on small veterans disability pension, court-martialed in the navy, also spent a month in county jail because of something i did while insane, long lonely days locked in pscho ward’s, all i wanted to do was go home and retreat from the world, had a wife who bore me a daughter and devorced me, i still love her always will, i could go on but but none of this matters to me because i trust in JESUS, He was with me thru all this and i have my treasure in heaven, not on earth where moth corrupts, where your heart is there will your treasure be, so put treasure in heaven where Satan can’t rob you, it may help if you were to explain your case tocatholic exorcist and learned how to cast satan out when he fills you negetive thinking and doubts, the best way to get faith is by hearing the word of God (romans 10:17), fight, fight like heck against negitive thoughts by countering it with God’s word, my father passed away in '05 it was a great loss but GOd had me ready for it,if my story seems sad it’s not i’ve never been happier than what i am now even with all the aches and pains of old age, count your blessings, name them one by one and it will surprise you what the the Lord has done, read 1 Corinthians 10:13, study it ,study it word for word and burn it into your mind, one final suggestion, maybe an anti-depressent could help you with a doctor’s supervision, you could be a little depressed if you wanted to try that, or maybe not, i don’t know if anything i’ve said can help you, but i love just the same and will say a Rosary for you dear, bye for now.
 
Ravyn, permit me to practise tough love, you’ve listed all your woes and the injustices against you, you look for happiness in other people and circumstances, and you’ll never find it there i’m afraid, you think you’re the only one abondoned by others, welcome to the club, you say God doesn’t like you and it’s always proven true, well there’s you problem because that’s a lie, satan is a liar and the father, i said FATHER of it, you’ve been blaming the wrong father for your woes and that’s the truth, until you end your anger with God and start getting angry with satan, you’ll never be blessed by God, read jeremiah 23:33-40 and repent of blaming God, He won’t bless you until you change your attitude toward Him, that’s tough love but your life with God will completely brighten as soon as you change, straighten up and don’t let satan rob you of God’s ever enduring love, He loves you even now, but can’t bless your anger. God bless, i love you too.👍
 
Ravyn_Guiliani said:
God has never been friendly to me. I grew up with a father who
practiced Satanism and was always told that God did not like me very much and of course this always proved true. How do I change it? How do I start to believe in the goodness of God and that it applies to me also? I have no faith in anything. How do I get it?
Click to expand...
Ravyn,

I have friends who were brought up in Satanism and it is a terrible way to live. If your father was a Satanist then he MAY have consecrated you to Satan. If that is true, you have to break that. I would find a quiet time to pray. Audibly renounce any curse, pact, blood oath or connection made against you and ask God the Father to fill you with the Holy Spirit, cleansing you of generational sin.

For me, I didn’t know the goodness of God till I met the hatred of evil. It was in this contrast that my faith in God became strong. There is no magic formula that I can share with you to make the pain go away.

My friends don’t understand how God could stand idly by while they experienced these things as kids. They prayed and prayed, yet they didn’t seem to have any answers. For them, it was and has been a process that continues to this day. And it will be a process for you also.

That’s why I recommended what I did in the first paragraph. If you were consecrated to Satan, that has to be renounced. The things he said only proved true because he willed them into existence and you accepted it - self-fulfilling prophecy.

Pray to God daily (as you have been) for faith, for light, for love. Be aware that it may take time.

I’ll be praying for you Ravyn. I’ll say the rosary tonight on your behalf asking for relief for you. If you need further help, feel free to contact me via email or PM in regards to the Satanic background of your father.

Peace…

MW
 
Isn’t an exorcism and renouncement of satan done at every baptism and confirmation? Wouldn’t that break any satanic consecration her father may have done? My Benedictine rosary was even exorcised by ritual blessing. Tim
Added:
The Solemn Exorcism

Priest: I exorcise thee, every unclean spirit, in the name of God the Father + Almighty, in the name of Jesus + Christ, His Son, our Lord and Judge, and in the power of the Holy + Spirit, that thou be depart from this creature of God N, which our Lord hath deigned to call unto His holy temple, that it may be made the temple of the living God, and that the Holy Spirit may dwell therein. Through the same Christ our Lord, who shall come to judge the living and the dead, and the world by fire Priest: Exorcizo te, omnis spiritus immunde, in nomine Dei + Patris omnipotentis, et in nomine Iesu + Christi Filii eius, Domini et Iudicis nostri, et in virtute Spiritus + Sancti, ut discedas ab hoc plasmate Dei N, quod Dominus noster ad templum sanctum suum vocare dignatus est, ut fiat templum Dei vivi, et Spiritus Sanctus habitet in eo. Per eundum Christum Dominum nostrum, qui venturus est iudicare vivos et mortuos, et saeculum per ignem.
The Ephpheta

The priest takes a little spittle and touches the ears and nostrils of the candidate with it. For health reasons, the use of spittle may be omitted. This rite comes from Mark 7:33-35, when Jesus healed the deaf-mute: “And taking him from the multitude apart, he put his fingers into his ears: and spitting, he touched his tongue. And looking up to heaven, he groaned and said to him: Ephpheta, which is, Be thou opened. And immediately his ears were opened and the string of his tongue was loosed and he spoke right.”.

Priest: Ephpheta, that is to say, Be opened, for an odour of sweetness. Be thou, devil, begone; for the judgement of God shall draw near.

Priest: Ephpheta, quod est, Adaperire. In odorem suavitatis. Tu autem effugare, diabole; appropinquabit enim iudicium Dei.
The Renunciation of Satan

Priest: N., do you renounce Satan? Priest: N., abrenuntias Satanæ?
Sponsor/Catechumen: I do renounce him. Sponsor/Catechumen: Abrenuntio.
Priest: And all of his works? Priest: Et omnibus operibus eius?
Sponsor/Catechumen: I do renounce him. Sponsor/Catechumen: Abrenuntio.
Priest: And all his pomps? Priest: Et omnibus pompis eius?
Sponsor/Catechumen: I do renounce him.
Sponsor/Catechumen: Abrenuntio.
 
TOP said:
Isn’t an exorcism and renouncement of satan done at every baptism and confirmation? Wouldn’t that break any satanic consecration her father may have done? My Benedictine rosary was even exorcised by ritual blessing. Tim
Added:
The Solemn Exorcism

Priest: I exorcise thee, every unclean spirit, in the name of God the Father + Almighty, in the name of Jesus + Christ, His Son, our Lord and Judge, and in the power of the Holy + Spirit, that thou be depart from this creature of God N, which our Lord hath deigned to call unto His holy temple, that it may be made the temple of the living God, and that the Holy Spirit may dwell therein. Through the same Christ our Lord, who shall come to judge the living and the dead, and the world by fire Priest: Exorcizo te, omnis spiritus immunde, in nomine Dei + Patris omnipotentis, et in nomine Iesu + Christi Filii eius, Domini et Iudicis nostri, et in virtute Spiritus + Sancti, ut discedas ab hoc plasmate Dei N, quod Dominus noster ad templum sanctum suum vocare dignatus est, ut fiat templum Dei vivi, et Spiritus Sanctus habitet in eo. Per eundum Christum Dominum nostrum, qui venturus est iudicare vivos et mortuos, et saeculum per ignem.
The Ephpheta

The priest takes a little spittle and touches the ears and nostrils of the candidate with it. For health reasons, the use of spittle may be omitted. This rite comes from Mark 7:33-35, when Jesus healed the deaf-mute: “And taking him from the multitude apart, he put his fingers into his ears: and spitting, he touched his tongue. And looking up to heaven, he groaned and said to him: Ephpheta, which is, Be thou opened. And immediately his ears were opened and the string of his tongue was loosed and he spoke right.”.

Priest: Ephpheta, that is to say, Be opened, for an odour of sweetness. Be thou, devil, begone; for the judgement of God shall draw near.

Priest: Ephpheta, quod est, Adaperire. In odorem suavitatis. Tu autem effugare, diabole; appropinquabit enim iudicium Dei.
The Renunciation of Satan

Priest: N., do you renounce Satan? Priest: N., abrenuntias Satanæ?
Sponsor/Catechumen: I do renounce him. Sponsor/Catechumen: Abrenuntio.
Priest: And all of his works? Priest: Et omnibus operibus eius?
Sponsor/Catechumen: I do renounce him. Sponsor/Catechumen: Abrenuntio.
Priest: And all his pomps? Priest: Et omnibus pompis eius?
Sponsor/Catechumen: I do renounce him.
Sponsor/Catechumen: Abrenuntio.
Click to expand...
This is what I call a “simple” exorcism that is done at baptism. It’s not a “formal” exorcism as prescribed in the official exorcism ritual. And this simple exorcism pertains to the individual, not to generational curses, contracts, etc.

Those in the deliverance ministry attest to the fact that in some cases encounter require specific reference to pacts, curses, hexes, etc. and the breaking of those to effect deliverance from them.

Good books I recommend on this topic are:

“An Exorcist Tells His Story” by Fr. Gabrielle Amorth
“The Dark Sacrament” by David Kiely and Christina McKenna
“Deliverance from Evil Spirits” by Francis MacNutt
“Hostage to the Devil” by Fr. Malachi Martin

I’ve read all of them and I think they can help shed some light on this kind of ministry.

Peace…

MW
 
Ravyn_Guiliani said:
first let me thank all of you for your responses. I have been in so much spiritual pain (and physical pain because of chronic bad health–a genetic disorder…) that I have not been able to focus on much of anything else this past year, and financial and marriage problems only complicate the whole mess. It does not get better, only worse. I am amazed at the lows, when I think I can be no lower, life sinks again. And I have asked for help from my parish and was told that after helping me one time last year to pay my electric bill that they could do no more. So I feel very alone and isolated.

I did speak to my priest regularly, go to Confession and Mass and also try to attend a Cenacle and do my rosary and Divine Mercy chaplet everyday. But I am now homebound because of my illness and have been since Thanksgiving, without so much as a phone call from anyone at Church to see how I am. No one has missed me. I have called a couple people myself to let them know I cannot get out like I was, but if I don’t call them, they don’t call me. I know people are busy and have their own troubles, and in the past I tried to be the one who called and checked and brought over a casserole or stopped whatever I was doing to say a prayer for them. I feel abandonned.

I have done everything I know how to do to be open to faith. I have trusted that things will work out and be ok. They didn’t and weren’t. what now? I think I am cursed.
I don’t want to feel this way. I still pray. I called the Church office 4 times and requested that the priest come and hear my Confession and someone bring me Communion. So far, nothing. Out of sight, out of mind (and heart).
Click to expand...
This is part of your situation

I can understand where you are at and believe me there are many in the church who are bleeding and it is partly because there are those who seem to thing that going to mass but not taking a thought about those who need help will still find them a place iin heaven. I lost my daughter to murder it was not those from the church who came to the funeral but from the university. Today I heard one of my work mates say that he had to go back to Aussee his little sister had been beaten up and is now brain dead, I cried with him. My daughter was the same I know what it feels like.
Point though, I never instigated any of this and you know what they did the same thing to my God Jesus, yes and I had no food no power, could not pay rent, a person paying rent ran up a $600 tole account then wanted to run away from it. My car blew up on the way to my son in laws funeral, the next week the gear box broke down on the way to a group conference about my grandchildren I couldn’t get help, but when I did get my car fixed my car was stolen my grandchildren and I had to walk every where. I couldn’t be there at the family conferences and so the children went to others they were sexually molest by them. My son ran away to live with others in the family it was too hard for him. But they ran away from Jesus to and Jesus could only find the strength to say "Father forgive them " the same as I do for them. My life is starting to come back together after 20 years. It was not Jesus it was circumstances it was people it was the strengthening of God that got me through.

You can do it to don’t let go all we go through seems the worst, it seems so bad, but when we are able to offer it to Jesus, then it becomes a blessing, take it as pruning, even that we will never understand.

You know it is hard when others say that Jesus never gives us more than we can take?? But He doesn’t, some how there is a way and it seems that through it all it is FAITH.

Godbless be strong I will pray for faith and strength for you
Godbless
 
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