How did this happen?

[Memaw]

Well put and I don’t want to be misunderstood - the challenges I mentioned are just that- challenges, but the harder it gets the louder God also gets. He lets me know I am not alone in my walk. I feel incredible blessed and great joy and excitement as I grow in faith. The deeper in faith I grow the more God reveals not only himself but myself to me. This is an incredible experience and my only one true regret is not realizing this much sooner. The love God has to give once we are willing to accept his love, is out of this world! I pray my husband can join me one day soon in this walk, perhaps I would feel less lonely. I know God will work in him and in me if I allow his will to be done.

Keep Calm and Catholic On

HoneyBea, I have been a life long Catholic and am almost 77 years old, (will be in a couple days), and over the years I have had to travel some very difficult roads, the death of my Mother, four siblings, two husbands, and two babies. As well as many other challenging situations, raising 7 children practically alone. And I have found that my Faith has deepened because of all that. We may not see that at the time but looking back I can certainly see that God was with me all the time. I love the poem “Footprints”. And I continually “feel” the arms of Our Blessed Mother around me. I will pray for your husband as both my husbands were Converts and I was sooo very thankful for that. Don’t worry about “regrets,” God has a wonderful way of playing “catch-up”. God Bless, Memaw

 

[LongingSoul]

For someone suffering from a nearly psychotic form of scrupulosity, more is needed than the sacramental blessing, and that is because such a person is convinced that the very experiences or feelings of arousal, envy, anger , or ANYthing similar is inherently sinful. So such a person cannot remain reassured once any such feelings are perceived. He believes himself at fault.

it is my opinion that people prone to this malady are emotionally destroyed ab initio by maternal dysfunction of one subtle kind or another in which their formation and approval is based on artificial standards of something other than good behavior as such. And for evidence of it there are suicides in universities in this country by highly priviledged brilliant young men who don’t think they can meet their parents’ standards, and by workers in Far Eastern countries whose production is below standard expectations. The buildings where they work have fences and barriers installed to prevent suicide by jumping from heights…

Scrupulosity is/can be a cross of immeasurable agony for some, and it affects the most devoted, not the uncharitable!

I tend to agree with you there. I’ve never been despairingly scrupulous, but growing up I did have an inordinate fear of going to hell. In retrospect, I think that never being able to earn my mothers good opinion or acceptance no matter how hard I tried, correlated with the feeling that I could never win Gods approval also. I also found that certain types of religious people in my environment, seemed to innately disapprove of me. The stern types who knew everything possible about the Catholic Church and didn’t really like talk of mercy too much. My faith and hope blossomed on the arrival of Pope John Paul II on the scene. I fell in love with the man immediately on his election. Over the last 30 years if ever I feel any doubts or abandonment, I am reassured that if Pope John Paul believed, then so will I. He seemed to embody the true meaning of mercy and grace. I always strongly encourage people with scruples problems to pray for the intercession of Bl. JP II specifically in finding release and peace from it.

 

[George14]

LS:

Beautiful! I am experiencing a wonderful breakthrough in the Church now with our new Pope, my namesake, Jorge. His true spirit of poverty united to his strict orthodoxy makes for the best of both worlds.

Let’s pray for him to be enabled to reinvigorate the Church’s mandate to teach, on the one hand, and to reestablish the honor of God to His rightful place in society. If the Catholic Church doesn’t stand as the moral authority for the world, there isn’t any. We so badly need a credible and vocal CLARION FOR GOD’S HONOR more thsn at any other time in history , as I see things. He has been excluded from almost every nation on earth; Francis is just the man for the job!

 

[Starrsmother]

LS:

Beautiful! I am experiencing a wonderful breakthrough in the Church now with our new Pope, my namesake, Jorge. His true spirit of poverty united to his strict orthodoxy makes for the best of both worlds.

Let’s pray for him to be enabled to reinvigorate the Church’s mandate to teach, on the one hand, and to reestablish the honor of God to His rightful place in society. If the Catholic Church doesn’t stand as the moral authority for the world, there isn’t any. We so badly need a credible and vocal CLARION FOR GOD’S HONOR more thsn at any other time in history , as I see things. He has been excluded from almost every nation on earth; Francis is just the man for the job!

Beautifully stated–and I totally agree! If anyone needs proof of the Holy Spirit’s actual guidance and presence when a conclave of Cardinals must meet to choose a new pope–well, Pope Francis is that proof to me!!!

 

[Lasting_faith]

A story has a beginning, middle and end, told in a limited amount of time. A storyteller must omit many, many details in order to even tell a story, (otherwise it’s less of a story and more like endless ramblings.) Because of human limitations, no one ever really even knows all the details and may not recognize the importance of some of the details they omit. Stories simply are not able to include all the details.

TV and movies have even less time in which to tell a story. A movie lasts usually only a few hours at most. It seems sometimes the main goal of tv shows is the hold the attention of the viewer so we don’t switch the channel, so they try to keep things exciting, dramatic and suspenseful. The stations that broadcast the shows may not be as interested in telling the story accurately as much as they are interested in capturing ratings.

Story tellers also tell stories from a perspective. If that perspective is a bias against the Catholic Church, (recognized or not) their story somehow will reflect that bias. They show the Catholic faith in negative light because that is how they view it.

And then…there’s the whole other side of storytelling—listening, reading, or (in the case of tv,) viewing. Did the reader/listener/viewer understand the story correctly? Did they miss some critical element of the story that would aid in their comprehension of the story teller’s message? Movies move–they move quickly and work with visuals that can be subtle. Viewers may miss some key elements of the story.

I didn’t watch the show. .I don’t know anything about it except what you shared here. The tv story you shared may not be* entirely* fictitious, but certainly some details were left out. I can tell you, practicing the Catholic faith will* not* drive a perfectly normal, healthy man off the deep end into despair and obsession.

I’ll also say, that tv character may have been Catholic, but he lacked faith. Catholics should believe our confessors when they say, “Your sins are forgiven.” We should follow the instructions at the end of Mass, “Go in peace.”

I don’t know if this story will have a update, maybe, but how could we try to avoid this situation? When a fellow Christian suffer from what ever he/she suffer from we should be there, should we not?

 

[Contra_Mundum_1]

I don’t know if this story will have a update, maybe, but how could we try to avoid this situation? When a fellow Christian suffer from what ever he/she suffer from we should be there, should we not?

Yes, of course. But the problem is that nothing you say will help the scrupulous because their panicking about sin is not helped by stating church teaching, talking about God’s love and mercy, etc. I have seen some seriously bad cases of scrupulosity here on CAF and nothing people say makes a difference. Some of these sufferers have spiritual directors but even that is not always enough. I don’t think that ‘being there’ for such a person is the solution. They need professional help.

 

[Lasting_faith]

But in this case, real or no, faith was NOT the cause of decline. The mental illness was.

True. Faith did not cause this situation but faith should have been able to avoid it, and I don’t mean the poor guy’s faith but the faith the RCC have. What I mean, at some point he must have been talking with a priest, and he should seen what is going on. Maybe he did not so let us not blame him. However, somewhere at some stage of this road to total decline someone should have seen that everything is not right. This was treated as a “religious” problem, not mental. This chap did find some peace talking to a protestant pastor, not enough, still, I think we all need to take a closer look if we seen someone who seem unable to cope. If I would be a priest I think I would at some point begin to wonder if the same person do confess venial or sins that is not sins over and over and take some time to talk with him/her.

However, I can’t blame anyone, what ever did happen, and how, is a good lesson though. It show how easy it is for someone to go from devoted Catholic and Christian to a wreck full with fear and hopelessness. God do not abandon a person in that situation, but how to make a person understand it? And maybe it is not lack of faith that may cause a situation like this, no, too much faith can also do it. It could be anyone of us, if we think about it, and that is pretty scary. The RCC teach us what is right what is wrong and explain also the reason, maybe, once again maybe, it could be easier to just teach what is wrong, not why. If we think of the Ten Commandments there are no explanation to why not kill someone. Yet again, as my son says, “keep it simple”. Think about this thing: we tell our kids not to touch a hot oven because he can burn him self. Simple isn’t it? No “and the fact that you will burn your self is because the oven get hot when we turn it on and if it is not turned on…”, just because the kid will not understand the rest. Do we need to understand why we do things the way we do? In my mind no. Relevant is that we know what is wrong, not why. With age we grow wiser (I hope) and we learn also why something is wrong, yet the reason why it is wrong does not matter, not to me anyway. To me it is enough that I know it is wrong, or right. And what is wrong can not be right, not even “almost”, it is and it remain wrong till the end of time, that is what God want, and I can’t see a reason to complicate it by a long and hard to understand list of “if’s” and “but’s” and “he did write this and he did say that year something”. Just a simple “no” or yes" is enough, Christ did teach that if I remember right, or was it in some St.Pauls letters, but reckon you get my point? The RCC is teaching what is right and what is not, but in a very complicated manner. Maybe that is what is wrong? I can confess to you that even if I would understand book’s like you do I am not smart enough to make sense out of long explanations, I am very happy with a “no” and “yes” answer.

 

[George14]

Yes, of course. But the problem is that nothing you say will help the scrupulous because their panicking about sin is not helped by stating church teaching, talking about God’s love and mercy, etc. I have seen some seriously bad cases of scrupulosity here on CAF and nothing people say makes a difference. Some of these sufferers have spiritual directors but even that is not always enough. I don’t think that ‘being there’ for such a person is the solution. They need professional help.

The scrupulous person also tends not to trust professionals, seeing them as “non-believers” who they believe see and interpret behavioral things without moral significance. They feel mental health professionals excuse bad behavior because OF “mental illness,” that they excuse things of which we are really guilty, so it is a vicious loop of agony.

I am of the opinion that God alone can (and will, as we pray) reach, in His own time, those so afflicted. For the record, I have three close family members with serious mental health problems, all three of whom are or have been hospitalized and/or receiving on-going professional mental health services, and who require medication, without which there is no telling what would happen. The medical record of one mentioned “suicidal and homicidal tendency”. Their problems are not scrupulosity as we speak of it here, but they are of a related disorder.