Do you ever experience spiritual resistance as your faith grows?

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AlruwhAlquds

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Have you experienced spiritual resistance as you grow closer in the Catholic faith? I’ve noticed it in our family during a joyful moment in the faith (conversions, convalidation, confirmations and etc.) I’m avoiding going into a lot of detail with these experiences. But they are in the form of health issues that were never there and come and go. Has anyone ever experienced this?

Our spiritual advisor believes he experienced spiritual resistance during the 33 days Consecration to Mary, their infant was hospitalized and almost lost his life. As a parent with small ones my husband and I can’t imagine that and it has put fear in us as we thought about trying it this month. I suppose that’s a sin to fear that. Any thoughts are welcome.
 
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If you mean the Devil tries to mess with you and stop you, yeah that happens to me, mostly in the form of just small annoyances. Like I plan to go to a daily Mass and the car won’t start, or I have a bad anxiety attack on a day when I’m trying to do a particular devotion, etc.

However, it’s a bit much for someone to think that while he was doing a Marian consecration, a severe illness was sent to a family member as a form of “spiritual resistance”. That borders on superstition. First of all, health problems can come at any time; second of all, if one is devout then one is likely doing some special devotion or prayer a large amount of the time so all kinds of things would be happening during all kinds of prayers; third of all, God may have been conveying a particular lesson such as wanting the person to trust in Him during the health crisis, and the person is missing that point claiming it’s “spiritual resistance” and scaring people off from doing the devotion.

When the police called me to tell me my husband had dropped dead, I was in the middle of doing Lectio Divina with the Sunday readings. I don’t see it as “spiritual resistance” that resulted from me doing Lectio Divina, and actually if one has to get that type of call, isn’t it better to get it in the middle of an activity that draws you close to God rather than in the middle of some sinful or worldly activity?
Likewise, if you are in the middle of a consecration to Mary when your child happens to get sick, isn’t that the time to remember Our Lady’s words to Juan Diego when he also had a seriously ill family member, “Am I not here, who is your mother?”

I know there are all kinds of reasons people come up with to not do Marian consecrations. I put it off for the longest time myself for a totally different reason. Once I just decided to bite the bullet and do it, I wondered why I had waited in the first place. You can trust Jesus and also trust his mother, but stop seeing disaster under every bush or you’ll end up not praying at all because you’re afraid of this so-called “spiritual resistance”. Negative things are going to happen in life. Pray and do Marian consecrations and such so that you will be adequately prepared when they hit you.
 
When I am about to do something good it seems obstacles show up. I take that as a sign that I am doing the right thing! Pray to St. John the Baptist he prepared a path for the Lord. He removes all those obstacles!
 
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One thing that gets in the way for me is my family! There doesn’t seem to be many people who agree with me, and it’s isolating . Jesus said, “Some of your worst enemies would be in your own family”, or similar to that. It just seems like after one’s confirmation, any thought about the Catholic faith is made fun of. Does this happen with you? It’s more like the “resistance” is followed by tension.
 
Sometimes I plan to go to confession, or to say my rosary or a daily mass and I’m overcome with reluctance and sluggishness and in the moment I do NOT want to do any of it.

So I say to God, “I really don’t want to go to confession, so I’m doing it anyway”.

Afterwards I’m always glad I did.
 
AlruwhAlquds said:
Have you experienced spiritual resistance as you grow
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Yes, and I believe this to be both normal and good. Without resistance there can be no strengthening. The same is true in weight lifting and other physical exercise; our muscles need resistance in order to grow. The spirit, likewise. The quote below, which is from a post I made earlier today, fits well;

“If I had a formula for bypassing trouble, I wouldn’t pass it around. Wouldn’t be doing anybody a favor. Trouble creates a capacity to handle it… you’ll see a lot of it and had better be on speaking terms with it.” - Oliver Wendell Holmes
 
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‘WHAT are you saying, My child? Think of My suffering and that of the saints, and cease
complaining. You have not yet resisted to the shedding of blood. What you suffer is very little
compared with the great things they suffered who were so strongly tempted, so severely troubled,
so tried and tormented in many ways. Well may you remember, therefore, the very painful woes
of others, that you may bear your own little ones the more easily.’ - The Imitation of Christ
 
Yes, it does seem that spiritual attacks increase along with your faith. The evil one is filled with envy and detests a soul drawing nearer to God.
 
It just seems that whenever religion/faith comes up, people you’re not close to suddenly speak up, and for me they just yell! Does anyone else have situations like this?
 
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Yes some people get offended/angry at the mere mention of God. They cannot understand why others do not ignore/reject God like they do.
 
Dan,
What bothers and hurts me most these days is that my nieces and nephews who are now getting married, are getting married outside the Catholic church. I don’t want to attend, because it hurts me to know that this seems to be a trend among young people. I don’t know what their reasons are, and it’s none of my business, but to me, marriage is holy. And only church weddings mean something. Make any sense?
 
Demonic oppression, where physically bad things happen, seems to be highly unusual but spiritual resistance from the Enemy is 100% guaranteed.

The devil wants to destroy our friendships, our marriages, our professions, our vocations, and everything else. It is personal because we are striving for Heaven, which is something he will never have. He is angry, all the time.
 
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I experience doubts, so I guess that counts. I occasionally doubt that God cares about me. I know that there is a God, so I never doubt that. There is a big difference between believing that God exists and believing that He doesn’t care about me. The devil has tried to use my family’s unbelief as a reason to doubt God’s love for me. My family is not spiritual in any way and I have been praying for them to find God, but God has not answered that prayer yet.

It makes me sick to think about my dad, mom, brother and sister burning in Hell, so I hope the Lord guides all of them.
 
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The Church does not explicitly forbid Catholics from attending presumptively-invalid weddings. You have to exercise discernment. If you are sure that the couple knows full well that their actions are considered outside the bounds of traditional morality but does not care, then do not attend.
 
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