Help me love Jesus more

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coolduude

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Hi all,

I have been struggling with Jesus lately. What I mean is that I have many doubts about His divinity. I’m still a believer, but right now it’s blind faith that I’m running on. God doesn’t feel like He’s really in my life. I mean, don’t get me wrong here. I pray every night and pray the Rosary every chance I get. I also get to Mass as much as possible and Confession as much as possible. Yet God (Jesus) seems distant from me. Like He’s just up there looking down at me but not helping or talking back when I pray.

Jesus too is giving me trouble. I feel nothing for Him. How I wish I did… 😦 like I said, I’m having a hard time accepting His divinity. He seems more distant than the Father or Mother Mary. I don’t get it. I’m trying to have a good relationship with Him but I feel nothing. No love, nothing. Even when I sin I feel no remorse for my action. I only go to Confession because I broke the Law (God’s Law) and am held responsible for it. Therefore, I must go to Confession to be set straight with God. But I feel nothing for Jesus. He seems the farthest away of all.

Anyway, I’ve sought some advice (on these forums) regarding feeling remorse/love for Jesus. The responses I got where ‘watch the Passion of the Christ to see what He went through for you’ etc. I have watched it (it’s a great film!) but nothing changes. I feel so drained of God’s love for me. 😦

any advice would be greatly appreciated.

Coolduude
 
Words from one of the greatest saints of last century, St Padre Pio

“Each soul…is a stone destined to build up the eternal edifice…it has to be polished with the blows of hammer and chisel…these hits of the chisel are the shadows, the fears, the temptations, the afflictions of the spirit, the spiritual tremors with some aroma of desolation, and also physical illness.”

“Be certain that the more a soul loves God, the less he feels it…God is incomprehensible…so that the more a soul enters into the love of this Supreme Good…this sentiment of love towards Him seems to diminish, to the point of seeming to love Him not at all…Say rather that you love, and that you wish to love with a perfect and consummate love. This good cannot be obtained in its completion except in the next life!”
 
Wow! Every interesting words! Thank you Trishie for sharing that!😉
Trishie said:
Words from one of the greatest saints of last century, St Padre Pio

“Each soul…is a stone destined to build up the eternal edifice…it has to be polished with the blows of hammer and chisel…these hits of the chisel are the shadows, the fears, the temptations, the afflictions of the spirit, the spiritual tremors with some aroma of desolation, and also physical illness.”

“Be certain that the more a soul loves God, the less he feels it…God is incomprehensible…so that the more a soul enters into the love of this Supreme Good…this sentiment of love towards Him seems to diminish, to the point of seeming to love Him not at all…Say rather that you love, and that you wish to love with a perfect and consummate love. This good cannot be obtained in its completion except in the next life!”
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Many of the saints have written on spiritual dryness, including St Pio, who even when he could see into the souls of others, was clouded regarding his own, and expressed his anguish to his confessor.

Feelings are not indication of God’s presence. It is nice to have warm and fuzzy feelings of God present and to have some sense of closeness to God, but feelings don’t indicate your spiritual relationship with God. In fact, when they appear to disappear, this indicates that you are ready to grow into a deeper faith. Faith is exactly what it says, faith, not feeling. It’s easy to think we believe truly in God when all is going well and we feel good about God.

I know what you mean. I find it hard too those times I don’t feel God is close. I’m not sure we can help the questioning and distress we can feel, but as St Paul said, as first God feeds us with milk, but late, we are obliged to move on to less warm and cuddly food. We have to mature in faith. We want to go back to where we were…and yes, there will be occasions when God ‘feels’ close, but we can’t go back to being small children once we’ve grown, however much we wish. The same can be true of spiritual growth and maturity.

G’day Art! Yes, thank God for the saints who give us clues to what’s happening with us. It’s really tough when we lose that original enthusiasm and warmth. Some people give up because it’s so confusing and painful.]
 
In the presence of God

Eternal God, I cannot see, hear, or feel You, but trust that I am in Your presence.

I gaze at You with faith that sees nothing yet believes. Trust in Your merciful love with hope in Your reality, brings peace even when my limitations and sinfulness barb my human heart.

I am inconstant and selfish, yet unafraid and hopeful, for You rejoice in the sincere, contrite person who comes trustingly before You. I welcome Your forgiveness for my sins and omissions, confident that You will glorify Yourself in me—by being my thoughts, my efforts, my love, my truth, my wisdom, my whole life, prayer, and existence!

As I have no merit of my own, so may You, the more, glorify Yourself in me! Please flood me with Your love, transforming me into Your substance. Thus, even if I remain in seemingly unconverted darkness, I shall be continual offering to You of the perfection of Your own all-creating, all-knowing, all-loving, all-good, harmonious, selfless Love that created me.

Let Your love continually flow into anyone whose life touches mine, so that I am witness and experience of Your love for him or her. I pray, and trust, that You utter within me for others, all prayer that You desire to offer and grant in the love that issues from Your infinite presence.

Thank You God, for although I do not see, hear, or feel You, our God, I know that by Your life in me I am always with You.

“Do not grieve…that you were born in a time when you can no longer see God in the flesh. That privilege was not taken from you. As Jesus says, ‘Whatever you have done for the least of my little ones, you have done for me.’” Saint Augustine.
 
coolduude said:
Jesus too is giving me trouble. I feel nothing for Him. How I wish I did… 😦
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The fact that you long for Him shows how you love Him. People don’t miss people they don’t care about. You miss Him because you love Him and can’t feel His presence.

Song of Songs 5

5
I rose to open to my lover,
with my hands dripping myrrh:
With my fingers dripping choice myrrh
upon the fittings of the lock.
6
I opened to my lover-
but my lover had departed, gone.
I sought him but I did not find him;
I called to him but he did not answer me.
7
The watchmen came upon me
as they made their rounds of the city;
They struck me, and wounded me,
and took my mantle from me,
the guardians of the walls.
8
I adjure you, daughters of Jerusalem,
if you find my lover-
What shall you tell him?-
that I am faint with love.
coolduude said:
like I said, I’m having a hard time accepting His divinity. He seems more distant than the Father or Mother Mary. I don’t get it. I’m trying to have a good relationship with Him but I feel nothing. No love, nothing. Even when I sin I feel no remorse for my action.
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This resembles how the watchmen came and struck Jesus’ lover when she sought Him without finding Him. This is part of the development of the mystical life. When we don’t feel God, it is because He is causing us to learn to trust in Him on faith. You said it yourself, that you are being forced to rely on “blind faith.” Faith without sight, or feelings, is a spiritual virtue that God develops in His lovers after He introduces Himself to them. He has introduced Himself to you. You have experienced Him deeply and personally in your life and He is now drawing you closer. It is a trial, and I know it is deeply painful. I went through a very bitter trial of feeling God’s absence for months when I was your age too, along with other horrible trials simultaneously. I kept seeking and seeking, and eventually God made His presence known to me and freed me from the trial. If you read the Song of Songs passage I brought up, you’ll see that eventually, the Bridegroom shows Himself to the Bride again. The passion of a romance deepens when the lovers are tested and remain true.

You are doing the right things. You are seeking Him and longing for Him, even while you receive no consolations to your feelings. If you did not deeply desire Him, you would not have posted the very painful post you just submitted. The fact that you did this proves that you deeply love Jesus with a love far deeper than sensory feelings. Keep seeking Jesus and He will make Himself known to you again. It’s only a matter of time, His time, and your faith and perseverance. He will never fail you, though He tests all His followers with trials.

What He said to His disciples applies to you and His other followers as well, at times in their spiritual lives.

John 16:16-22 said:
16"In a little while you will see me no more, and then after a little while you will see me."

17Some of his disciples said to one another, “What does he mean by saying, ‘In a little while you will see me no more, and then after a little while you will see me,’ and ‘Because I am going to the Father’?” 18They kept asking, “What does he mean by ‘a little while’? We don’t understand what he is saying.”

19Jesus saw that they wanted to ask him about this, so he said to them, "Are you asking one another what I meant when I said, ‘In a little while you will see me no more, and then after a little while you will see me’? 20I tell you the truth, you will weep and mourn while the world rejoices. You will grieve, but your grief will turn to joy. 21A woman giving birth to a child has pain because her time has come; but when her baby is born she forgets the anguish because of her joy that a child is born into the world. 22So with you: Now is your time of grief, but I will see you again and you will rejoice, and no one will take away your joy.
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There is a time of grief, of Jesus’ absence, but He returns to us and joy comes with the restoration. Part of unity with Christ is that we go through these deaths and resurrections in our lives. There is a kind of spiritual death of feeling God’s absence and going through other trials, and then there is the restoration of life when Jesus reveals Himself. Because of the trial, we love Him more than ever.

You do love Him deeply and that is clear from the deep pain in your post. You will not endure His absence forever. He will return, in His time and His way.
 
I think your problem is one that many people suffer from these days. People often confuse the fact that, while Jesus is our older brother that we need to love, he is still the Son of God, fully present in all persons of the Trinity. The God that bore himself on the cross for our sins is the same one that punished the Israelites for their sins in the Old Testament.

The way I see it, there are two parts to God.
A) The fundamental nature
B) The persona

The fundamental nature is that which is accorded to him in the Old Testament, and which human reason is capable of coming to recognize the existence of God. God is truth, peace, love, beauty, perfection, order, justice, way, life, being. These are all different ways of expressing the Divine Nature of the One True God.

The persona is the one that we need given to us by Divine Revelation. It is that God is made manifest in the three Persons of the Holy Trinity. That while each is their own individual person, within each lies the potential to be the others, and so are One. It is in the persona, that we come to know God as the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. It is in the Son that we find peace from our elder Brother, it is in the Father that we find protection from all our enemies, and it is in the Spirit that we find life in the breath of God.

Remember that while we are told to love God with all our hearts, we are also told that one of the gifts of the Holy Spirit is fear of the Lord, because, after all, he’s still God, capable of creating and destroying all things. If you do not feel that fear in his power, then you are not coming to terms with reality.

Whenever you have problems like this, take a moment and stop thinking of Christ as merely a human being like so many protestants do, and read the Old Testament, in which God exercises his power over mankind, as the loving Father who tells his children the rules, and spanks them when they get out of line.

Archistrage
 
coolduude said:
Hi all,

I have been struggling with Jesus lately. What I mean is that I have many doubts about His divinity. I’m still a believer, but right now it’s blind faith that I’m running on. God doesn’t feel like He’s really in my life. I mean, don’t get me wrong here. I pray every night and pray the Rosary every chance I get. I also get to Mass as much as possible and Confession as much as possible. Yet God (Jesus) seems distant from me. Like He’s just up there looking down at me but not helping or talking back when I pray.

Jesus too is giving me trouble. I feel nothing for Him. How I wish I did… 😦 like I said, I’m having a hard time accepting His divinity. He seems more distant than the Father or Mother Mary. I don’t get it. I’m trying to have a good relationship with Him but I feel nothing. No love, nothing. Even when I sin I feel no remorse for my action. I only go to Confession because I broke the Law (God’s Law) and am held responsible for it. Therefore, I must go to Confession to be set straight with God. But I feel nothing for Jesus. He seems the farthest away of all.

Anyway, I’ve sought some advice (on these forums) regarding feeling remorse/love for Jesus. The responses I got where ‘watch the Passion of the Christ to see what He went through for you’ etc. I have watched it (it’s a great film!) but nothing changes. I feel so drained of God’s love for me. 😦

any advice would be greatly appreciated.

Coolduude
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I’m sure that God sees your efforts and that you want to feel love for Him, even though you’re struggling with that. Sometimes I go through that and it really upsets me too… what I do then, is I pray for humility… last time I prayed to St Padre Pio for humility, and he really helped. The reason is that when I feel humbled before God, it is easier to love Him, to be repentant, to worship Him, etc. I only realized this recently, and it surprised me, because it’s not what I expected. Humility is really different from feeling a lot of guilt or feeling like you’re a horrible person; - true humility isn’t even focused on self, but on God, and on His greatness. I don’t know… maybe you could try praying to St Padre Pio or another Saint 🙂

Another thing, - how do you pray? I’ve found that our prayers are better when we really pray them with the heart, - and I’m not talking about feelings here… but when we pray with a lot of faith, humility, a realization that we need God and that we are sinners, but having confidence in Him, etc, - He really blesses those prayers. But these things don’t come from us, but from the Holy Spirit. Maybe it might help to just STOP TRYING 😉 - and I don’t mean stop praying and doing your daily devotions and going to Mass - definitely keep on doing all that - but at the same time, try to just surrender to God and tell Him that you CAN’T believe, or love Him, on your own… that you really need His help, and try to open up to Him that way. Give Him all of your concerns, and all your misery. Maybe if we open our hearts to God more, we would receive more of His graces and be able to love Him in a fuller way? Give Him all of this and then try to be open and receive His grace.

Love for God (or love in general) is not an emotion… if you’re trying to avoid sin, that’s already an AWESOME grace and it’s love too. The fact that you care about God and sin, even if with just your will, that already shows that God is working in your life and you are responding. But I know what you mean… sometimes this is a trial, and other times it’s our fault. If it’s our fault, it might help to just completely open up to God but accepting that we can’t do anything, and ask Him to take control.

It might also be, as other posters have said, that this is a trial that God is putting you through to make you more reliant on faith rather than feelings… to make you love God for who He is, and not just for what He gives you . Whether it is this, or whether this is something that resulted from your own spiritual life, - I can’t say, of course. Do everything you can, but in the end, leave it to God, - say to Him - “not as I want, but as You want, O Lord, let it be done unto me.” That’s a very powerful prayer and is very pleasing to God…ESPECIALLY when it’s said in times of dryness or suffering. I’ve read that often, it’s our prayers during dry times that please God more than our prayers when we feel close to Him. (because the feelings, are ultimately, for us. They don’t make our prayers better or worse, they just are. But when we love without feelings, that is true love, it’s selfless and holy. Try to love God with all you will during this time).

God bless
 
Hi cooldude,

I know how you feel. Jesus can seem very distant in your life. It’s kind of like watching a celeberity on TV…you know who they are, and the good stuff they’ve done…but “what have they done for me?”

Have you seen the film The Passion by Mel Gibson? If you haven’t seen it, or haven’t seen it recently, I recommend getting a hold of it. I watched it recently, and it really gave me a greater understanding of Christ’s passion, and everything he did for me. It made me appreciate and love Him more. It’s not an easy film to watch, and it’s not entertaining. But it has a great truth to it.

I also reccomend praying the Stations of the Cross.

I reccomend going to Adoration and going spend time with Jesus. It may seem very hard. I’ve been physicially in pain during Adoration before, but it will get better. Just sit down and say “Hey Jesus, I’m here because I want to get to know you a little bit better. I love you so much. Please come in to my heart, mind and soul.” If it dosen’t work…keep praying.

Someone told me that whenever the good feelings are taken away from God, He’s brining you in with longing. Your faith is maturing.

God Bless

-Jeanne
 
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