Feeling really disillusioned right now; can you help?

[MerryCatholic]

Honestly, that’s exactly how I feel. I feel like God has abandoned me. I feel like my prayers are not being heard. I have had so many hard crosses to bear in my life, and its not going away.I have had to suffer hunger, homelessness, verbal and emotional physical abuse and ridicule in my life. I feel like everytime I pray for things, (and believe me, I have prayed my heart out faithfully for years) there has never been a solution. I prayed intensely for years and begged and pleaded with God to please help me out, or show me a solution!
or to various Saints for their intercession about praying for my hubby to find a different job so we could leave this rat hole we are in. But no, we are still here, I am bearing crosses emotionally and physically and the suffering is very intense. Yes, I have had counseling in the past and present. (from my priest in the present) but you know what? Nothing is changing. I have stormed heaven for a solution, and to me, it seems like God doesn’t want my pain to end, and He doesn’t want my hubby to find a better job, or a home we can buy some day! our vehicle was repossessed in September, and its been very hard on me physically to get out without it. everywhere we go, doors are slammed in our face. and personally, I am tired of it. I am tired of praying and storming heaven to beg God to hear my prayers. I am not doing it anymore. I am worn out, and there is nothing left to pray for.
God wont hear me. So there is no point in bothering Him.

 

[Fr.Vincent_Serpa]

Dear friend,

There are a lot of reasons to continue praying. But there is more to prayer than just asking for things we want. The first prayer is the prayer of adoration, simply acknowledging the truth of who God is. Then there is the prayer of thanksgiving. Even on bad days it is good to exist and to have our loved ones in our life. But most of all, we have reason thank Him for entering the human race and suffering and dying on our behalf because he loves us so much.

You are in my prayers,

Fr. Vincent Serpa, O.P……Read on:

Reflection on the Passion of Our Lord Jesus Christ +

The agony in the garden was really the agony in His mind. He suffered the passion in His mind before He suffered it in His body—to the point of actually affecting the latter by sweating blood. But from then on, it was His bodily suffering that affected His mental suffering.

At the base of all His suffering was the one thing that human beings dread the most: rejection. He was betrayed by Judas, denied by Peter and abandoned by all the rest of His Apostles; those He had hand picked as His closest intimates. He was most rejected by those who put Him to death. They not only wanted Him dead, they wanted Him to suffer. They not only considered Him to be worth nothing, they considered Him to be worth minus nothing! This significance was not lost on Him. He felt fully the rejection as each physical agony reminded Him.

So we thank Him for joining us on our human journey and actually choosing to experience what we fear the most.

We thank Him for enduring the arrest and the cruelty of the guards and the Sanhedrin. We thank Him for enduring the cruelty of Pilate who allowed Him to be executed rather than risk his own political ruin—and for the cruelty of Herod who wanted to be entertained by having Him work a miracle. We thank Him for all the time He spent satisfying their preoccupation with themselves, just delaying His ultimate death. We thank Him for the anxiety of that night in a cell.

The next morning He was brutally scourged with such intensity and violence that He became as an aged man in a matter of minutes. His multiple wounds bloodied His entire body. The loss of so much blood not only severely weakened Him; it also caused a severe, throbbing headache that remained with Him for the duration.

We thank Him for this and for the mockery He received when they put a purple cloth on His shoulders and pushed a crown of thorns down into His head which intensified His headache. They blindfolded Him and slapped Him, insisting that He ‘prophesy’ who had hit Him. They spat on Him and beat Him.

He stood at the praetorium in utter disgrace according to the attitude of the crowd—while in reality, He stood in utter glory: almighty God, being present to every person who has ever suffered rejection, joining them in their moment of pain. It was there that He was sentenced to death by crucifixion. Physically, He was utterly miserable. He revealed to St. Bernard that carrying the cross was His most painful agony. He was so weak, He could hardly walk. Nauseous and thirsty, He found the weight of the cross on His shoulder almost unbearable. It most likely dislocated His shoulder. It is not surprising that He fell down on the stone streets that were filthy with animal dung—with the cross on top of Him. And He got up each time.

It was only with the help of Simon of Cyrene that He made it to the top of Calvary. There they drove the nails into the carpal tunnels of His hands, causing pain throughout His upper body. The nail in His feet registered great pain through all the sensitive nerves there. When the cross was righted, His up-stretched arms squeezed His lungs and He began to pant for lack of oxygen. So He had to push down on His crucified feet to push His body up in order to fill His lungs with air. This took great effort because He was so weak. Yet He managed to maintain such effort for three hours of agony which increased gradually as He became weaker moment by moment.

By the end of the third hour, His agony was at its peak. He had come to the point where His strength simply gave out and He suffocated. In this eternal moment as He died, He gave us His life. Transcending time, this moment of divine love is present to us in the tabernacles of the world.

Thank you, Lord. We adore you O Christ and we praise you. By your holy cross, you have redeemed the world.

Our crosses are opportunities He has given us to express our love back to Him. Your crosses aren’t accidents. He has heard your prayers–and how He cherishes your love!