Desolation

[CompSciGuy]

The past couple of days I have been experiencing what I believe has been described to me by others as desolation. I have been in a sort of depressed state of mind, although not necessarily always unhappy, but in particular a spiritually depressed state that affects other aspects of my life. It began when I was debating a pro-choice person on facebook (bad idea from the get-go) and then became worse when I heard some news story about ISIS burning christian children in cages. It made me ill to think of it, and though I prayed fervently upon hearing this, I had begun to wonder if God was going to help those being persecuted, or if ISIS was going to triumph. My ‘desolation’ did not lift after going to confession yesterday, and tonight I hit an all-time low when I went to an adult faith formation program at my parish where I usually get really excited and involved in the small group discussions, but I completely fell flat. I had nothing to share, and I felt ashamed because the topic was personal prayer which is an area that I have been failing in and haven’t seen much progress. Furthermore when I got home I found I was tempted toward the same sins I had confessed the day before, in particular impatience with other people, especially my spouse. I haven’t felt this low in a long time. To be clear, I am not losing my faith nor am I in any way planning on leaving the Catholic Church, now or ever. I am just at a very, very low point spiritually. I have never felt further from God than I do currently. I am wondering if anyone else has experienced this and if there is anything I should expect.

 

[benotagoat]

The past couple of days I have been experiencing what I believe has been described to me by others as desolation. I have been in a sort of depressed state of mind, although not necessarily always unhappy, but in particular a spiritually depressed state that affects other aspects of my life. It began when I was debating a pro-choice person on facebook (bad idea from the get-go) and then became worse when I heard some news story about ISIS burning christian children in cages. It made me ill to think of it, and though I prayed fervently upon hearing this, I had begun to wonder if God was going to help those being persecuted, or if ISIS was going to triumph. My ‘desolation’ did not lift after going to confession yesterday, and tonight I hit an all-time low when I went to an adult faith formation program at my parish where I usually get really excited and involved in the small group discussions, but I completely fell flat. I had nothing to share, and I felt ashamed because the topic was personal prayer which is an area that I have been failing in and haven’t seen much progress. Furthermore when I got home I found I was tempted toward the same sins I had confessed the day before, in particular impatience with other people, especially my spouse. I haven’t felt this low in a long time. To be clear, I am not losing my faith nor am I in any way planning on leaving the Catholic Church, now or ever. I am just at a very, very low point spiritually. I have never felt further from God than I do currently. I am wondering if anyone else has experienced this and if there is anything I should expect.

It will pass,but we are all in the beginning of what is predicted in the bible about the
trial before Jesus comes back . We do not know the date or hour , just the season .
We are in the season,and we must stay close with Christ, as He only can deliver us .

Remember that you , we all are being tested ,and it seems to me you had a test
to see whether you can be trusted by God, when the chips are down .You will get better as you overcome the personalisation of your feelings and remember that God needs you to be strong ,and to stay with Him until the end . Our every day sins, are less important than our love of God ,our faithfulness, and our Witness. By spending too much time on worrying about whether wea have sinned , unless it is very very grave ,we forget it is all about Him ,this loving and brilliant God .

 

[Mr_Clean]

I struggle with periods of hopelessness and feel like I’m drowning in fear sometimes. I let the bad things in this world get to me as well. I imagine lots of people experience this sort if thing. I’ve read about some of the saints who went through this sort of thing for many years at a time. For me it goes away usually within a few months tops. How? I don’t know for sure. I know when I’m spending as much time as possible focusing on the Lord and trying to do what he asks of me is when I feel safe and secure. The world has been an ugly place since man fell - nothing new under the sun.

Praying you find peace in our Lord.

 

[oldgraymare2]

Hi CompSciGuy,

There are times when I just have to stop reading the news, or just listening to it, and there are some times that I just have to stop visiting other internet forums, too, because of how I see people treating each other.

Anyway, some of the things that I read about in the news, makes me just cry at times. The heinous things that people do to each other. I just can’t believe it. It does really depress me, at times.

I went through a “dry period” regarding my faith years ago, where I just felt “nothing” inside, and because I knew that this could happen, I didn’t panic about it. I just kept on going to Adoration, and kept on going to Mass, too, and I read spiritual books about it, too. It eventually passed, but if I recall correctly, it lasted for some time, probably a couple of months, at least.

So, I would personally say to just “hang on,” and just hang on to the faith, and just keep persevering. Keep on going to Mass, Confession, Adoration, and so on.

Know that you are not alone, and that others have been where you are, and that others feel as you do, regarding what is going on in the world, too.

 

[10Cathy]

When I feel the same as you have described and I believe we all feel this way from time to time, I try to remember the footprints in the sand poem. I picture Christ carrying me through my life at this time because he is watching over his sheep and loves us enough to be there for us in times of strife. It is a good time to meditate on him instead of the things that are horribly wrong in our world today. Hope this helps. Praying for your soul to be at peace.

 

[Contra_Mundum_1]

I think you need to carry on going to mass, perhaps adoration, confession, pray (even if it is short spontaneous prayers during the day if you can’t handle anything longer and structured at the moment), etc. Just wait for this to pass.

 

[CompSciGuy]

I have to say that reading all of your responses has brought me a great deal of peace and has given me more to pray about.

 

[Tigg]

I am just at a very, very low point spiritually. I have never felt further from God than I do currently. I am wondering if anyone else has experienced this and if there is anything I should expect.

I do believe many of the saints experienced a similar trial. I have also read that when we “feel” the furthest from God that may be the time when He is working on a silent level in the deepest part of our soul. Of course, we should never judge our spiritual lives by feelings - they are powerful, but really mean nothing as we can never be certain just what is causing them. Perhaps this is a trial of faith for you - to remain in prayer even though you say you are failing in it. We are not to judge our own prayer life btw, but to be faithful to the practice. Here is an excerpt from an article called “We Die Standing Up.” (Emphasis added: mine)

The great complaint with most people about their prayer is that they never feel they’re getting anywhere. But of course it would be a very bad sign if they did. A lot of the trouble about prayer would disappear if we only realized – really realized, and not just supposed that it was so – that we go to pray not because we love prayer but because we love God. Not in order to master distractions or perfect a system or because we have said we would go on with the thing, but simply in order to please God. Once granted that God’s view of our prayer is the only one that is at all worth taking into account, it can’t much matter what our own view of it is. In fact the less view we have of it- and for the less view we can substitute the word “feeling” – the better. We must remember that God’s scale of values, His sphere of operation, His terms, even, are quite different from ours. What is light to Him is so luminous that to our materially focusing eyes it appears as darkness.

There is only one test of our prayer: are we wanting God? Do we want Him so much that we are prepared to go on looking for Him in our prayer in spite of apparently never getting any nearer to Him? Upon the answer to this inquiry depends the whole business of our success or failure in prayer. Success and failure to be judged in God’s terms, not ours.

This “prayer of futility,” then, has this inestimable advantage; it keeps us in our place. (It has its dangers, too: particularly dejection and laziness), but it enables us to say with sincerity, “I am nothing, I can do nothing, I deserve nothing but kicks and crosses. At the same time nothing in the world will induce me to give it up”. ** Such is the mind of the man of prayer. **The true soul of prayer strives after God alone. Not after personal satisfaction, nor after recollection (for itself’s sake alone), not even after holiness (regarded as a state and not as a means of loving God), but simply after God Himself. And inevitably God is the reward of such a striving……but God expressing Himself more in His Absence than in His Presence.

Too long to post the entire thing, but I hope this helps. This was written by Hubert Von Zeller.

 

[Tigg]

^^^
I found it on-line! Read what the devil has to say about your failed prayer life and God’s response.

catholicculture.org/culture/library/view.cfm?recnum=614

 

[InLight247]

^^^
I found it on-line! Read what the devil has to say about your failed prayer life and God’s response.

catholicculture.org/culture/library/view.cfm?recnum=614

A good article to read.

 

[mikekle]

Hi CompSciGuy,

There are times when I just have to stop reading the news, or just listening to it, and there are some times that I just have to stop visiting other internet forums, too, because of how I see people treating each other.

Anyway, some of the things that I read about in the news, makes me just cry at times. The heinous things that people do to each other. I just can’t believe it. It does really depress me, at times.

I went through a “dry period” regarding my faith years ago, where I just felt “nothing” inside, and because I knew that this could happen, I didn’t panic about it. I just kept on going to Adoration, and kept on going to Mass, too, and I read spiritual books about it, too. It eventually passed, but if I recall correctly, it lasted for some time, probably a couple of months, at least.

So, I would personally say to just “hang on,” and just hang on to the faith, and just keep persevering. Keep on going to Mass, Confession, Adoration, and so on.

Know that you are not alone, and that others have been where you are, and that others feel as you do, regarding what is going on in the world, too.

Ive been going thru something similar too, it started couple days ago, I was watching the local news like I do every night, they had some story on it about what a dad did to his own toddler, before the story, they warned that the details were very bad, and it was, after hearing it, I had to turn off the tv, and have not watched any news since, I keep thinking about it and feeling so bad at the immense pain that child went thru (im not going to mention what it is he did, but it is EXTREMELY evil and cruel, Im thankful that the kid is no longer suffering and is dead, but I keep thinking that if this guy did this, there are more than likely many others doing the same thing out there.

It has made me very depressed, to live in such a world, and to hear of people that apparently have no problems inflicting this kind of torture on another living person, I just dont know what to do, part of me wants to go find that guy and make him pay, jail is not enough for what he did, but that is not realistic, and if I did, I would be in jail ( but I think I would feel good about making him suffer for what he did).

I went thu this about 10 yrs ago too, back then I didnt watch the news for the next year, I just could not risk hearing another story like that, it seems I started watching too soon, but this seems like burying my head in the sand…but what else can I do? what else can any of us do…praying doesnt seem to work, as these things just keep happening, getting worse and worse too, so…?

 

[fred_conty]

Depression, that is what it sounds like.

Get outdoors and take a hike, or have a picnic with your family.

Do sports, or go to a good movie and eat popcorn.

Take some pleasure in the good things in life that God gave us to keep us balanced.

Then the other won’t seem so bad. Have some fun.

May the God of hope fill you with every joy.

 

[oldgraymare2]

Mikekle,

I just wanted you to know that I do understand. :console:

I just don’t think that it’s possible for some of us to even begin to understand how someone can do some of these evil things, because we just don’t have the minds for it.

I pray for the world, too. That’s what I do.