Does God love me?

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Seraphim73 said:
None of our faults are by God’s will. But He does use them to save us.
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LOL. So now the spiritual dryness is my fault? In my copy of the catechism it says that faith is a gift from God infused by the Holy Spirit, and that matches what I’ve always been taught. ?]
 
JosieN said:
I think at some point on this journey of life we all feel the way you do. May God Bless you and answer your prayers. My daughter and I prayed a rosary for you tonight.
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Thank you. I can’t tell you how cool I would find it if/when that works. 😃
 
Neoplatonist said:
LOL. So now the spiritual dryness is my fault? In my copy of the catechism it says that faith is a gift from God infused by the Holy Spirit, and that matches what I’ve always been taught. ?]
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I have collected many prayers over the years, this is one of my favorites. I hope it will help you also.

Hail, Sacred Heart of Jesus, living and strengthening source of eternal life, infinite treasury of the divinity, burning furnace of divine love! You are my refuge and my sanctuary.My loving Savior, consume my heart in that burning fire with which Your own is inflamed. Pour into my soul those graces which flow from Your love. Let my heart be so united with Yours that our wills may be one, and my will in all things conformed with Yours. May Your Will be the guide and rule of my desires and of my actions. Amen
 
Let us try to make sense out of the issue as far as we can in human terms. For now let’s try to steer around the “it’s a mystery” line of thought, because that solves nothing and, in fact, undermines any attempt to get a grip on the little we do wrap our mind around to be able to discuss and reason about these things.

So, here’s my question:

Can anyone offer a sufficiently similar example in which a mother NOT responding to a child’s heartfelt cries with words of comfort (or encouragement) or a hug (or some similar gesture - even coming to sit by the bedside where she can be seen if the child is in some kind of intensive care) is considered as either a.) loving, or b.) likely to make their child more loving?

Let’s bracket cases where, maybe Dad said x a hundred times before, and doesn’t say it this 101st time. (And I mean THIS kid, not a book that Dad wrote 20 years ago about his love for all kids.)
 
Here is my thinking about this. The mother loves the child but the child has gone missing. She is waiting and searching for her little child, and hoping he will come home ,but a stranger has captured him and won’t let go. The stranger has convinced the child his mother does not love him, all the while the mother continues to love her child and waits for him to come home. Because she cannot reach him and he is unable to reach her, he remains certain his mother does not love him.
 
JosieN said:
Here is my thinking about this. The mother loves the child but the child has gone missing. She is waiting and searching for her little child, and hoping he will come home ,but a stranger has captured him and won’t let go. The stranger has convinced the child his mother does not love him, all the while the mother continues to love her child and waits for him to come home. Because she cannot reach him and he is unable to reach her, he remains certain his mother does not love him.
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But she has all the resources at her disposal. Where could she not go, how could she not find him?

In what hiding place could he not hear her calling out to him? She can be as loud as earthquakes and thunder, when he did not respond would she not call more loudly?

And surely she could say things, remind him of things, that only she could know. He might think she does not love him, but he could not pretend to himself that it was not her and that she did not come looking for him.

Besides, she is brilliant beyond measure. How could she not puncture the lies the kidnapper fed him? Perhaps he (or the kidnapper) tells himself that he just imagined it was his mother. Could she not offer information that the child would not have known as evidence that it was not possibly his own imagination?

Even so, what happens in the case where he goes out each day looking for her in return and calling out to her. Is there someplace he could be where she would not be able to hear him? Would she not shout back to him in the voice like the earthquakes and thunder?

How can we say he is trapped if he is going out looking for her and calling to her? Are we back to the defense that he must just be doing it wrong in spite of his best efforts and intentions?
 
Neoplatonist said:
But she has all the resources at her disposal. Where could she not go, how could she not find him?

In what hiding place could he not hear her calling out to him? She can be as loud as earthquakes and thunder, when he did not respond would she not call more loudly?

And surely she could say things, remind him of things, that only she could know. He might think she does not love him, but he could not pretend to himself that it was not her and that she did not come looking for him.

Besides, she is brilliant beyond measure. How could she not puncture the lies the kidnapper fed him? Perhaps he (or the kidnapper) tells himself that he just imagined it was his mother. Could she not offer information that the child would not have known as evidence that it was not possibly his own imagination?

Even so, what happens in the case where he goes out each day looking for her in return and calling out to her. Is there someplace he could be where she would not be able to hear him? Would she not shout back to him in the voice like the earthquakes and thunder?

How can we say he is trapped if he is going out looking for her and calling to her? Are we back to the defense that he must just be doing it wrong in spite of his best efforts and intentions?
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When she sent her other son to find him, he would still not listen and believed the liars. The liars killed her other son and said if she really loved him she would have shouted back to him with the voice like the earthquakes and thunder, and not sent her other son, and he believed this and was still convinced his mother did not love him.
 
JosieN said:
When she sent her other son to find him, he would still not listen and believed the liars. The liars killed her other son and said if she really loved him she would have shouted back to him with the voice like the earthquakes and thunder, and not sent her other son, and he believed this and was still convinced his mother did not love him.
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Sure, but before he died, the boy’s brother said, “just call out for Mom and she’ll answer.” That’s why he goes out every day wandering and shouting to try and find her.
 
Neoplatonist said:
Sure, but before he died, the boy’s brother said, “just call out for Mom and she’ll answer.” That’s why he goes out every day wandering and shouting to try and find her.
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That is not my understanding of the brothers message. He said “It is finished”. And bowing His head, He handed over His spirit.
 
JosieN said:
That is not my understanding of the brothers message. He said “It is finished”. And bowing His head, He handed over His spirit.
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I’m puzzled by this. You don’t think we’re supposed to continue praying and asking for guidance every day?

Should we not be looking to find signs of God in the world around us?

Christ’s claim that if we ask it will be answered no longer applies?

I’m not quite sure which question to ask here…
 
Neoplatonist said:
I’m puzzled by this. You don’t think we’re supposed to continue praying and asking for guidance every day?

Should we not be looking to find signs of God in the world around us?

Christ’s claim that if we ask it will be answered no longer applies?

I’m not quite sure which question to ask here…
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Yes we are to ask for guidance every day and then we must be patient and wait for His answer and always trust that He knows best.
 
Seraphim73 said:
Disease is a direct result of sin. If we had not broken communion with God we would not suffer and die. But more importantly, seen through the light of the Gospel, suffering is unitive and redemptive. God Himself chose to suffer horribly in order to redeem us. That is the great surprise of the Gospel. That’s what no one expected. That God would save us by being humiliated and killed. That God would reveal His power through dying.
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Who is ‘we’ exactly?
And why do those may never have even heard of your faith be punished for others ‘sin’ ?
 
Seraphim73 said:
Yes you have. Look around you. Listen to the witnesses. If you want a hard heart my friend God will harden it. If you don’t show even a little willingness there is nothing God can do to convince you. You think we don’t understand you but we do. I know exactly why you reject God. But even though we are faithless God is faithful, always.
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Seeing the garden doesn’t give me any reason to believe that there are fairies in it.
And why should believe what humans say when humans believe in Islam and Judaism.
 
Winterwolf00 said:
Who is ‘we’ exactly?
And why do those may never have even heard of your faith be punished for others ‘sin’ ?
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When my daughter was young she asked me why it was that if Adam and Eve sinned and they made the bad choice of disobeying God, why do we have to suffer on this earth for their sin? I explained it this way. If you built a beautiful house and someone made a whole in the roof (Adam and Eve’s sin) everyone in the house will be cold and the rain will fall on them all even though they were not responsible for it. The damage was done. Death, sickness, etc. was brought into the world. and everyone suffered because of the fall of man, and the gates of Heaven were closed. Jesus came into the world to correct this. Jesus was good and obedient and suffered and died because He loves us, and if we are obedient we will one day be in Heaven with Him. It will not be easy in this life. You may even be persecuted for your Faith but the reward you will receive in Heaven will be great.

So you see death, illnesses etc. are the result of sin, and everyone suffers for it, even if they are not directly responsible for it. At least that is the way I see it.
 
Winterwolf00 said:
Seeing the garden doesn’t give me any reason to believe that there are fairies in it.
And why should believe what humans say when humans believe in Islam and Judaism.
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Hear this, O foolish and senseless people,
who have eyes, but see not,
who have ears, but hear not. - Jeremiah 5:21

And he said ,‘Then I beg you, father, to send him to my father’s house, for I have five brothers, so that he may warn them, lest they also come into this place of torment.’ But Abraham said, ‘They have Moses and the prophets; let them hear them.’ And he said, ‘No, father Abraham; but if some one goes to them from the dead, they will repent.’ He said to him, ‘If they do not hear Moses and the prophets, neither will they be convinced if some one should rise from the dead.’ - Luke 16:21-31

And Jesus answered him, “Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jona! For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father who is in heaven." - Matthew 16:17

Open your heart and you will understand.
 
Seraphim73 said:
We is the human race. And no one is punished for another’s sins.
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You’ve puzzled me here, Seraphim73: isn’t disease and pain in childbirth and all that other stuff forms of punishment? Our loss of grace and immortality, how are those not as well?
 
Neoplatonist said:
You’ve puzzled me here, Seraphim73: isn’t disease and pain in childbirth and all that other stuff forms of punishment? Our loss of grace and immortality, how are those not as well?
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No of course not. How could God punish us for what others did and still be called just? That is the very definition of injustice.
 
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