How to Cope with Anger after Daily Mass Disappointments?

[ethereality]

Who are you to criticize God’s ways?

I was criticizing what you wrote, not God’s ways.

This is the third thread on this topic that you have posted in 3 weeks.

No, actually, this is the first time I have asked this question. That we tend to discuss the same topics is because of your responses. I create a new thread for each distinct question. The question for this thread, as is clear, is how to cope with anger after Daily Mass.

You make a lot of assumptions about me that I think are incorrect, e.g. that I’m not paying attention to what people are saying, or that I’m not grateful for the blessings I have. I mentioned reading The Hiding Place by Corrie ten Boom. This book is giving me examples of what I have already told my mother several times, that of course life can always be worse. (In this book, Corrie shares painful events in her life with accompanying life lessons.)

Why are you *trying *to work until bedtime? No wonder you are having trouble; this is an unbalanced way to live. You’re in Japan, for goodness sakes!

You’ve just answered your own question. I am in Japan, where a godless nation literally lives to work, because they have no other reason to live. The same is expected of me, although I do keep a more balanced schedule. To explain the matter further: Dawn here approaches 4 am during the summer time (they have only one time-zone and refuse to follow the sun), and I try to keep in touch with family and friends around the world and save electricity. So here are two more reasons to wake up early and have my social time at the start of the day, and then work the remainder of it (keeping to my university’s work schedule).

Your other suggestions about “getting out there and doing stuff” are offensive but your ignorance isn’t to blame: I am poor. I cannot afford to do anything. My American student loan interest is accumulating at about $30 per day, and I don’t even have enough income to meet this debt (I am struggling to get more part-time employment to subsidize my scholarship). I therefore cannot afford any social events, which all cost money.

Again, as I said, which you seem to refuse to accept, God could be helping me out a lot more than He is.

As for your retort concerning glasses, you’ve missed my point. I was not complaining about wearing them, although that is a burden. The hurt I mentioned was trying to bicycle in the rain to church, even to Mass, where rain makes the glasses wet so it’s difficult to see, difficult and uncomfortable to make the journey, in order to go see God who refuses to communicate with you other than the appearance of bread and wine. It’s like God torturing me on the way, and then not giving me the promised relief afterward. If you still don’t get it, oh well.

Perhaps one other point of clarification would be good, so you can understand a bit more of my suffering:

no gratitude for the beauty you can still see!

Although I am in fact grateful for the beauty I can still see, I wish to point out that scars floating across and in front of my field of vision makes it in fact difficult to see the beauty for which I am grateful, when it’s not too blurry to see.

 

[ethereality]

Padster, I think I can relate to your frustration and anger, and I’m tempted perhaps similarly to lash out at many of the responses here for the problems many of them contain. But I hope I can give you some advice, perhaps from a fellow sufferer, although yours may be worse than mine.

What I am going to say is from the perspective of faith; of course it’s easy to contradict it from the perspective of materialism (atheistic naturalism); but consider it from a Christian perspective:

1. Do not think of yourself as not being useful to society until you are able to accomplish some earthly goals. If you endure your suffering and offer it up in union with Jesus, that is being of more use to society than my attempts at cancer research, or even successful cancer research, etc. The point of us being here is to build our characters (ours and others’) in preparation for eternal life, heaven: One reason we’re born from the uterus and start out in development there is to give us an analogy to understand our current situation here on earth. Our existence here is like being in the uterus, death being the means of birthing us to eternal life. Our experiences shape our personality and our actions shape our wills. This is how we develop as people, and at death our will is fixed (since there is no longer this universe’s timespace to change them in), and our fate decided (according to our personality, i.e. life’s work) for either heaven or hell, with God or without God.

So the point is to prepare for that life, not to cure cancer, or end poverty, etc. We are to do earthly tasks towards this end, not as ends in themselves.

1. In my experience, suffering can be defined as being blinded from seeing God. When I suffer, I am tempted to think God does not exist. When I do not suffer, I can see more clearly both the evidence of God’s existence and can more easily believe that I have a real relationship with God, that He hears my prayers, answers me in the Bible and my rational thinking. So to suffer is to not see God. It makes sense, then, that the Church says that heaven – bliss and joy and all that – is union with God. Of course, it also matters how one understands God; hence Jesus has revealed Him as a loving Father.
2. As Fulton Sheen says in the compilation Finding True Happiness, and as Corrie ten Boom demonstrates in her book The Hiding Place, happiness is something internal, and cannot depend on external circumstances. We must choose to celebrate good things, and love others, and to be happy and focused on God even when there are no good things to celebrate,* nothing earthly to love, and when we can’t see God. I am finding out now, still gaining experience, perhaps even for the first time not long ago, that one can choose to be happy even when miserable. Yesterday, when bicycling in discomfort (and sometimes pain) back to work after God refused to heal me, I was able to thank Him for the lack of rain, the pretty color of a building, the bicycle I had to use and the ability to use it, the warm clothing I had to wear, and the quiet time I was able to spend sitting in the church. I was also miserable (in physical discomfort and suffering) and sad that God didn’t heal me, and anxious about why He wasn’t doing as He promised, how my interpretation could have been wrong, but I chose to focus on those positive things, and insofar as I focused on them, I was able to create within myself some small feeling of happiness, and at the same time not feel as if God had abandoned me. It is the hardest thing I have ever tried to do, and I don’t know how successful I’ve been so far, but apparently it can be done, and should be done, or even must be done, if we are to grow as people and be successful in life (i.e. make it to heaven, to be prepared for what God wants to give us). So suffering and happiness is apparently a both/and situation, not either/or.
3. Until someone can point out a problem with my understanding of the Bible, I do think we should continue asking to be healed and believing that we will be, together with meeting the other prerequisite conditions for healing (e.g. seeking first the kingdom, avoiding sin, asking for good things; see my other thread listing some 17 conditions). Those who try to discourage us from believing we will be healed, calling this belief an ‘unreasonable expectation’ without good reason, are I think doing as Jesus’ disciples who tried to silence the beggar on the side of the road crying out to Jesus (cf. Luke 18:35-43). See also 2 Timothy 3:1-9, noting verse 5.

• However, there are always good things to celebrate, although this is hard at first to see. I think St. Augustine is correct in his Confessions when he points out that everything that exists is good; hence life is a gift, since we are made from nothing. The evil of our situation – i.e. when we lack what we ought to have – this evil can overwhelm the good that we can perceive, but good things are still there for which we can be grateful.

 

[Padster]

I mentioned reading The Hiding Place by Corrie ten Boom. This book is giving me examples of what I have already told my mother several times, that of course life can always be worse.

‘Life could always be worse’ is a ridiculous statement. It is on a par with stating that achieving or doing a particular thing is ‘half the battle’. Well, losing is half the battle too. So if life could always be worse, it stands to reason that it could also be better.

Do not think of yourself as not being useful to society until you are able to accomplish some earthly goals. If you endure your suffering and offer it up in union with Jesus, that is being of more use to society than my attempts at cancer research,

How is my senseless suffering of more use to society than your cancer research?. Suffering helps no one. Your cancer research may one day save lives.

The point of us being here is to build our characters (ours and others’) in preparation for eternal life, heaven

There is not adequate space here to deal with the subject of eternal life. What I will say is that the laws of nature and the cosmos, together with the perpetual advance-decline-advance nature of human civilisation, suggest that eternal life is simply not a possible or plausible concept. Even the ‘Great Spirit’ itself is subject to these laws of birth death and rebirth, which is why every so often throughout history it has to enter a human being who then meets a violent death so that the Spirit can be reborn. The Gnostics and the Knights Templars seemed to have understood this very well.

We think we are advanced as a civilisation. But in fact we have nothing on ancient Greece, and our ‘democracy’ is a pale imitation of theirs. Were eternal life a reality, we would not have declined from that state of advancement.

as Corrie ten Boom demonstrates in her book The Hiding Place, happiness is something internal, and cannot depend on external circumstances.

I absolutely agree. Which is why both of us aren’t going to be healed physically.

Until someone can point out a problem with my understanding of the Bible…

The problem with the Bible is that we simply can’t understand it. Outside of the common sense of the Ten Commandments and the collected sayings of Jesus, the Bible is a mystery, and to be honest, it is weird at times. We have Jeremiah denigrating people for worshipping the Queen of Heaven (a concept which is very much still with us), Solomon who gives up trying to understand God, and Paul apparently quoting parts of The Bacchae. We have elements of Pagan religion interwoven into the Old Testament, and even Pagan phrases being uttered (e.g: ‘kicking against the goads’). Then we have the problems of translation. I understand that there are two languages prevalent in the Bible: Hebrew and Koine Greek, and this has lead to some mistranslation occurring. Then we have the very real problem of Jesus expecting the end of the world during his own lifetime (in his words: ‘in this generation’.) Couple this with the fact that His own family thought He had gone out of his mind at one point, and you begin to understand why the Templars were driven out of existence for their beliefs.

Best wishes,
Padster

 

[St_Francis]

I was criticizing what you wrote, not God’s ways.

I wrote that you need to find out how God is communicating with you. You wrote “That is hardly a good way to communicate with someone.” If you have a problem with what I wrote, could you state it more clearly so I can clarify?

No, actually, this is the first time I have asked this question. That we tend to discuss the same topics is because of your responses. I create a new thread for each distinct question. The question for this thread, as is clear, is how to cope with anger after Daily Mass.

And in each case, you bring up your “disappoinment” that God has not performed the miracle you desire. Could there be some relation between the problem you express and your continual “disappointment”?

You make a lot of assumptions about me that I think are incorrect, e.g. that I’m not paying attention to what people are saying, or that I’m not grateful for the blessings I have. I mentioned reading The Hiding Place by Corrie ten Boom. This book is giving me examples of what I have already told my mother several times, that of course life can always be worse. (In this book, Corrie shares painful events in her life with accompanying life lessons.)

You’ve just answered your own question. I am in Japan, where a godless nation literally lives to work, because they have no other reason to live. The same is expected of me, although I do keep a more balanced schedule. To explain the matter further: Dawn here approaches 4 am during the summer time (they have only one time-zone and refuse to follow the sun), and I try to keep in touch with family and friends around the world and save electricity. So here are two more reasons to wake up early and have my social time at the start of the day, and then work the remainder of it (keeping to my university’s work schedule).

Your other suggestions about “getting out there and doing stuff” are offensive but your ignorance isn’t to blame: I am poor. I cannot afford to do anything. My American student loan interest is accumulating at about $30 per day, and I don’t even have enough income to meet this debt (I am struggling to get more part-time employment to subsidize my scholarship). I therefore cannot afford any social events, which all cost money.

I am very sorry for my comments which did not take into account that you are a student in Japan with an unusual schedule. I thought you were there working. I apologize.

Again, as I said, which you seem to refuse to accept, God could be helping me out a lot more than He is.

As for your retort concerning glasses, you’ve missed my point. I was not complaining about wearing them, although that is a burden. The hurt I mentioned was trying to bicycle in the rain to church, even to Mass, where rain makes the glasses wet so it’s difficult to see, difficult and uncomfortable to make the journey, in order to go see God who refuses to communicate with you other than the appearance of bread and wine. It’s like God torturing me on the way, and then not giving me the promised relief afterward. If you still don’t get it, oh well.

I get it. I’ve been there. That’s why I keep telling you all this stuff.

Perhaps one other point of clarification would be good, so you can understand a bit more of my suffering:
Although I am in fact grateful for the beauty I can still see, I wish to point out that scars floating across and in front of my field of vision makes it in fact difficult to see the beauty for which I am grateful, when it’s not too blurry to see.

You sound like someone saying, “Thank you for this really lousy thing.”

Do you have three things you are unqualifiedly grateful to God for?

 

[CompSciGuy]

You’ve just answered your own question. I am in Japan, where a godless nation literally lives to work, because they have no other reason to live. The same is expected of me, although I do keep a more balanced schedule. To explain the matter further: Dawn here approaches 4 am during the summer time (they have only one time-zone and refuse to follow the sun), and I try to keep in touch with family and friends around the world and save electricity. So here are two more reasons to wake up early and have my social time at the start of the day, and then work the remainder of it (keeping to my university’s work schedule).

Your other suggestions about “getting out there and doing stuff” are offensive but your ignorance isn’t to blame: I am poor. I cannot afford to do anything. My American student loan interest is accumulating at about $30 per day, and I don’t even have enough income to meet this debt (I am struggling to get more part-time employment to subsidize my scholarship). I therefore cannot afford any social events, which all cost money.

Wait, you are an American student living miserably in Japan on a student loan? What’s keeping you there? Is there some reason that you are putting yourself through all this? I understand the desire for some students to study abroad, but in your case, since you can’t seem to afford it, it seems like the misery of having to work constantly is canceling out any of the positive experience that would normally be associated with studying abroad. I don’t mean to be harsh, but it sounds like a lot of the sufferings you are having you have brought upon yourself. (minus the physical ones, not sure what those are?) You chose to study abroad, let alone in a country that you can’t afford to live in without working your life away, you chose to use a student loan you can’t afford to do this, and now you are blaming God for your troubles. Maybe it is not the will of God that you be in Japan?

A lot of people have mentioned gratitude. And you yourself have mentioned that you know that things can be worse than they are. I am afraid that you put God into a genie lamp, you think that you can rub the lamp and have God give you whatever it is you are asking for. There are saints who have offered their sufferings up to God in times of hardship and many miracles have been attributed to them. Remember, we are here to serve God, not God to serve us. God is the source and sustainer of our lives. It is not for us to demand things of God. The people who lash out at God and abandon Him when the going gets tough often have a hard time with gratitude… and unsurprisingly, life does not get better for them after they abandon their faith in God. They become more bitter, more angry, and more miserable then before. It’s even sadder when they won’t admit their misery, because even then their misery is so pungent that it infects everyone around them. Just ask yourself, is that the way you want to end up?

 

[CompSciGuy]

Suffering helps no one. Your cancer research may one day save lives.Padster

Well, technically it may one day prolong earthly lives. Those people are going to die later, perhaps many years after their cancer treatment, or perhaps the next day in an accident, who knows. So even the fruits of something great like cancer research may only offer a temporary fix for a greater problem. Offering up your sufferings, uniting them with the passions of Christ, this can have eternal consequences. That is what he was saying.

 

[Padster]

I understand where this young man is coming from. It seems that the more you do for God, the worse your life gets. Whether this is reality, I do not know. But it certainly is the perception. I am currently doing a nine-week Novena, and I also play the organ for the Stations of the Cross on a Friday. Since starting this, my practice organ at home has broken down and will probably need scrapping very soon. I simply can’t afford a new (or even second-hand) one, so once it goes that will be it. So I have some sympathy with our friend in Japan. To be honest, I am pig sick of waiting for this ‘golden dawn’ to occur: the idea that if I keep enduring it all, something marvellous will happen. Well, I have found the opposite to be the case. It gets worse, not better. And I am SICK of trying to understand ‘God’s will’.

As the laws of nature and the cosmos tell me that eternal life isn’t possible, I find the idea that I suffer in this life so I can enjoy the next utterly repugnant and stupid. Perhaps It is best just to understand that suffering is part of being human, and if we have to accept pain then we MUST accept pleasure too. You can’t have one without the other. But I do not accept the idea of eternal life anymore. It simply cannot work. Eternal life suggests we existed before we were born, yet we were not conscious and have no recollection of this pre-existence. In other words, like death. Our whole existence is based on birth and death, with only the Great Spirit being reborn.

Best wishes,
Padster

 

[ethereality]

Padster, I had specifically asked you up front to try seeing what I’d written from the perpsective of faith rather than the perspective of atheistic naturalism, yet it appears you did precisely the opposite, immediately responding (critiquing) as-you-read, stopping to respond piecemeal* from the perspective of atheistic naturalism – although, astonishingly, you switch gears at one point to posit some occult/gnostic idea about God “needing” to be reborn through human death … Your profile says “Religion: Catholic”, but it seems more like “Religion: Confused”. Quoting from your latter response where you repeat some of this confusion, so you might do followup reading to sort it out:

the laws of nature and the cosmos tell me that eternal life isn’t possible …] the idea of eternal life …] simply cannot work. Eternal life suggests we existed before we were born …] Our whole existence is based on birth and death, with only the Great Spirit being reborn.

This so thoroughly confused that some of it is “not even wrong” (e.g. “the laws of nature tell me [about existence after death]”).

Honestly, I now have less idea where you’re coming from, but it appears your problem is even more fundamental than your pain: It is your philosophy. (By the way, I am tempted to wonder if you are a Freemason, since some of the things you say, e.g. regarding the Templars, reminds me of a Freemason I know who says similar things, has apparently a similar method of thinking, similar understanding of history and misunderstanding of the Bible and Christianity. If you’re not a Freemason, I suppose it’s just a coincidence, though I wonder what your sources are that led you into such modes of thought.)

Rest assurred that your Biblical questions also have good answers (and not mere excuses). I refer you to Jimmy Akin and more independent research, because I don’t want to engage in the arguing (or bickering) that I think would follow if I tried to answer you directly.

• Please get out of this “internet habit” of critiquing and responding as you read (one I also got into as a teenager): It results in only a deadlock without any new knowledge or perspective being acquired. Instead, read the entire post, reflect on it in its entirety, and then respond. If this is what you in fact did, then I’m sorry for misunderstanding appearances, but do try to “take another step back”, so to speak.

 

[7_Sorrows]

When I joined the Catholic church 6 1/2 years ago it was after a 35 year absence from going to any church or practicing christianity. So when I converted my faith was somewhat immature. I began to realize that I needed to do work on my own part - not just expect God to fulfill every request. He knows I can’t grow that way. I just turned 63. I am just beginning to understand what it means to have a relationship with Jesus. I used to get angry too and I felt being a Christian was one more thing I was going to fail at. You have to perservere in your faith.

 

[Padster]

Padster, I had specifically asked you up front to try seeing what I’d written from the perpsective of faith rather than the perspective of atheistic naturalism,

I am genuinely sorry. I am frankly appalled by what I wrote yesterday. I have been going through a very strange experience during the past 16 months. Confused is a good word to describe it.

I am not a Freemason. I had an experience which led me down lots of strange avenues of research. It’s fair to say that I was beginning to go out of my head, and luckily I realised this and stopped myself. I wouldn’t be so bold as to say for certain that it was the work of the Devil, but now I am beginning to accept the possibility that it could have been. The whole experience threatened to completely destroy my faith. At one point I didn’t know what to believe.

To prove to you that I am not an atheist or a Freemason, and to show you where my heart truly lies, today I purchased an e-book of the life of St. Gemma Galgani and it has already been of benefit to me. I genuinely mean that.

And look! No more internet critiquing!

Best wishes,
Padster
(duly admonished)

 

[the_phoenix]

I understand where this young man is coming from. It seems that the more you do for God, the worse your life gets. Whether this is reality, I do not know. But it certainly is the perception. I am currently doing a nine-week Novena, and I also play the organ for the Stations of the Cross on a Friday. Since starting this, my practice organ at home has broken down and will probably need scrapping very soon. I simply can’t afford a new (or even second-hand) one, so once it goes that will be it. So I have some sympathy with our friend in Japan.

Best wishes,
Padster

Hi Padster,

There is a saint who would seem to agree with your sentiment that it seems the more you do for God, the worse your life gets. A doctor of the Church, in fact.

You’ve heard the story of St. Teresa of Avila, who gets thrown off her donkey into a muddy ditch and injured her leg? She then says to God, “If this is how You treat your friends, it’s no wonder You have so few of them.”

As for the obstacles cropping up in your life as you are making a novena and playing the organ for the Stations of the Cross, it sounds like a spiritual battle to me. So keep right on making that novena and do your best with the organ playing.

Acknowledge God.
Take the next right step.
Be a sign of hope to those around you.

 

[Mystical_Seeker]

You’ve heard the story of St. Teresa of Avila, who gets thrown off her donkey into a muddy ditch and injured her leg? She then says to God, “If this is how You treat your friends, it’s no wonder You have so few of them.”

Yeah, really.

 

[ethereality]

So far, the best answer I’ve gotten from this thread has been one I also came to after consideration, reading Corrie ten Boom’s account, and discussion with my parents: The way to cope with anger after Daily Mass disappointments is to trust in God and be happy about other blessings while discarding the frustrations associated with lack of communication from God and lack of answers to questions. :getholy:

Of course, I am still hopeful for a better answer here.

 

[blueshells]

So far, the best answer I’ve gotten from this thread has been one I also came to after consideration, reading Corrie ten Boom’s account, and discussion with my parents: The way to cope with anger after Daily Mass disappointments is to trust in God and be happy about other blessings while discarding the frustrations associated with lack of communication from God and lack of answers to questions. :getholy:

Of course, I am still hopeful for a better answer here.

Let me ask you this. You’ve posted several threads detailing your frustration, anger, and disappointment with this. Why haven’t you given up?

 

[Mystical_Seeker]

Let me ask you this. You’ve posted several threads detailing your frustration, anger, and disappointment with this. Why haven’t you given up?

It seems the poster hasn’t really heard a way to frame this thing yet, in a way that facilitates letting it go.

The best reason not to have all of those feelings is that it hurts me, rather than the ones whose actions brought me to this state.

So then what to do? One way is to learn to play the game smarter and beat them, but that’s a long term solution and in most cases it’s a long shot anyway. Second is to learn to go ahead and correctly name the moment – that these people did these things, whatever they are – but at the same time be at peace.

Because for example what if there is a fool who is perfectly happy, completely ignorant that he is a fool. Then if I get upset after talking to that fool, then look at the numbers. Why should I suffer because he’s a fool? Surely I will suffer whatever temporal damage the fool brings, but beyond that it is my judgment of that fool and/or situation that causes the realllly bad nasty feelings.

It’s like if somebody burns my house down, then I do suffer the loss of the house, and I am going to do a bunch of stuff to get it repaired or replaced or whatever. And I may or may not be insured, so I may end up with a “net loss” in financial terms, or not. Actually when my house burned down halfway, because of a technicality they put in air conditioning and made the attic into wonderful living space so it turns out it ended up a net gain in my case but anyway I’m messing up my point here. (It must be that old Rom 8:28 again )

But I do have control over how I think about it, and eventually that can modify how I feel about it, and why? Because being upset hurts me but doesn’t fix the situation. Ever since I was a little kid I was told, “I am very unhappy because you did this,” or “that makes me happy” which sounds normal to us but recognize that hides an implicit message that “you control my feelings.”

So we are all brought up to think that we are helpless to our feelings. But the world has a whole lot of problems that aren’t going away any time soon, so if things have to be right – or worse yet if we think we are somehow personally responsible for “making things right” when we can’t control anyone but ourselves – before we get to be happy, we will never experience joy in this life.

So I think Jesus shows us that we can be at peace in our hearts, even while people around us are horrible and doing horrible things to us and to others we care about. It’s a tough standard, but it’s theoretically possible for me to let go the anger, even though one thing after another stays messed up despite me efforts to help.

Another aspect to this business of others controlling our feelings, is that when adults use their own moods as instruments of manipulation they are modeling for us, slavery to the evil in the world. Because if others’ behavior controls our feelings, then we have become the slaves of those people. I think this is just what happened in Judiasm before Jesus appeared. If we have to suffer fools, we might as well be at peace internally while we do it.