Why do so many people (including on these forums) think you need to run off to a monastery or self flagellate each morning at dawn to be a good Christian. It’s as if people feel like living a normal life isn’t enough.
Well, that’s kind of generalizing, itsn’t it? I don’t know many Christians who follow that exact itinerary… running off to a monastery or self flagellating each morning at dawn. I would suppose to that you are generalizing again that they do this to 'be a good Christian". Have you ever asked one of these people, like in an actual converation, why they do that? I’m not talking here on these boards… I’m talking face to face discussion with these people whom you find … I dunno… curious? weird? intersteting? confusing?.. whatever you are feeling about them and prompted you to ask… you need to go to the source, ask THEM.
Only they can tell you that answer. And not all of us do that sort of thing. Sometimes we might. We have our reasons just as someone might have their reason why to forgo their daily cup of joe at the local coffee joint and give that money to the homeless man they saw begging for moneyt hat morning… they were compelled… They felt that was right thing to do. So they did it.
I ask all of you what’s so wrong with living a normal life? Spirituality isn’t something you necessarily feel 24/7. Just because you aren’t convulsing on the ground and foaming at the mouth with psychedelic visions of the Virgin Mary…doesn’t mean something is wrong with your spiritual life.
You can be a Wal Mart greeter and still be a holy person, don’t ya think? All I’m hearing is honest labor and a desire to do what’s right. If you are following the precepts of the Catholic Church and praying, what makes you feel any less Holy simply because you are a full time mom who is stressed as heck, or work a thankless bottom barrel job?
Thoughts?
What is a 'normal life"… honestly… lets broaden your horizons a bit… What is normal here -* wherever you are-* is not necessarily so in other places. So what is a normal life? I would guarantee you that if you switched places with someone half way across the globe that what you call normal would not be. I don’t know which country you live in on this earth, but here in the US what constitutes as paranormal or spiritual is generally scoffed at. Seriously, I think that’s a mistake. Mind you, I am totally aware of psychology and mental illness factor playing in… I’m also aware that there are things that cannot be explained in which those two things are not a factor.
That sort of thing you said about convulsing at the mouth and having hallucinations… that’s again a rather broad brush to be painting of people… even really spiritual people. Even though your illustration there is extreme, not all people who are spiritual or religious have even come close to having that sort of experience or even desiring it. I’m actually kind of a bit offended by that, wondering now if people whom i tell that I go to church every morning think I self flagellate or froth at the mouth having insane visions of saints. I don’t even particularly hold those sorts of things as specific indicators of a religious or saintly person. The church doesn’t either.
So I don’t understand where this question is coming from. Those things you note here about having a normal job, stressed… etc. etc… you can be holy and do those things.
I would say though that if a person doesn’t
feel holy, it might just be that they are not getting enough time to be nourished in prayer, OR they have a certain sin that is blocking them from God, OR that God is strengthening them in that time by various trials. But the intent to become ‘perfect as our heavenly father is perfect’ and the intent to ‘follow Christ’ must always be the first and foremost goal. …even if someone doesn’t desire it…* to be holy. * Its the first requirement of it, at the very least. The notion of feeling holy is kind of a non issue too… a person can still be holy and feeling like they having done enough… Scripture says something about that too.
And even at that, none of us get to measure holiness in another. The deal with the elevation of people to sainthood is something different. When they were here on earth they weren’t treated any differently than anyone else. Scripture says of the prophets they were murdered by the very people who touted they were close to God and stood for God… so ponder that for a bit. I’d doubt anything has changed since then.
