I feel i am losing faith

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[Take this advice with a grain of (blessed) salt.] I think fearing a loss of faith implies that there is some doubt you need to face head on, and it’s an opportunity to strengthen your faith. In order to strengthen it, you have to accept that you might lose it, and you have to take that risk. I see it as an analogy to what Jesus said about losing our life in order to find it — let go of what we are clinging to so we can be open to new and better things in life. Another analogy: at times we have to let our faith “die” so it can rise again with renewed vitality, purified of weaknesses that were limiting it; I think it’s an essential part of spiritual growth. I think St. Teresa of Avila said something like this in The Interior Castle.

God bless you
 
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Don’t worry, sometimes the illusion of “losing faith” may be a side effect of a bad mood or a little deppression. Do you have a hobby?
 
What is faith?
“Faith is that which gives substance to our hopes, which convinces us of things we cannot see” Hebrews 11:1
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Quick! Make haste as Mary did! Get before our Lord in the Blessed Sacrament. Slow down. Sit down. Pipe down.

Pray. Read. Contemplate Him. Even though He already knows, tell Him your doubts, fears and anxieties. Then, and this is crucial (crucial comes from ‘cross’), be as patient with the Lord as He has been with you.

And, as Fr. Benedict Groeschel, C.F.R. (RIP) teaches us:
“When you become aware that He is there, you will be changed.”
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Is sin looking attractive?

Is “I’m losing faith” shorthand for “I’d rather just go sin than have to bother any more with God stuff and rules”?
 
Just don’t do what your faith is teaching you not to do and this is still keeping faith.
Otherwise we cannot always win in front of thoughts (which are temptations in many cases).
Jesus said those who love Him will keep His commandments. So He was interested more in what we do than having a certain good feeling passing through our body and mind.
Praying for you! 🙏
 
theCardinalbird said:
I don’t know why, but I feel like I am losing my faith. I don’t know what to do. I feel anxious and sad and really worried. What should I do?
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I recommend a really good book by Father Benedict Groeschel called Arise From Darkness.
 
Think of your spiritual life as a journey and there is light but there is also shadow.

A lot of people have already given you good advise so I won’t repeat it.

I will pray for you. We know the journey and life can be difficult.

Read psalm 27. It can fortify you.
 
I am regularly plagued by intellectual skepticism regarding our articles of faith. Many times the articles of the creed are an occasion for doubt. And things like the Eucharist and the Resurrection evade me intellectually.

At those times I remember that my faith is in Christ, that he has personally entered my life, turned it upside down, and filled it with joy, peace, love, and has called me to love. There is nowhere else to go but Christ. Without Christ my life wandered aimlessly and without meaning or purpose. Christ is more real and more true than anything else.

In times of doubt I try to keep Christ in the center and trust that the rest of it will fall into place according to God’s will.
I have come to believe that God allows my skepticism so that I don’t become complacent in articles of faith.
 
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FWIW

When this happens to me, I head back to my apologetics books.
Handbook Of Christian Apologetics by Peter Kreeft
Mere Christianity by CS Lewis

🙂:pray:t2:❤️
 
theCardinalbird said:
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Vico:
Are you doubting the authority of the Catholic Church?
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For some reason I am finding it hard to believe in God at the moment. I’m trying to understand where this is coming from. It’s caused so much distress and confusion for me. Christ has every right to be believed, so I don’t know what my deal is 😟
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Faith is a gift of the Holy Spirit that is present with sanctifying grace. If that state has been lost then there can be a loss of belief. Then God is replaced with “strange gods”.

Baltimore Catechism
Q. 1142. How may we, in a sense, worship strange gods?
A. We, in a sense, may worship strange gods by giving up the salvation of our souls for wealth, honors, society, worldly pleasures, etc., so that we would offend God, renounce our faith or give up the practice of our religion for their sake.
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You can trust that we’re all praying for you.
It’s no accident that you’re part of Christ’s Church, and the devil is INTIMIDATED and will do anything to stop us, but we must not let him. I recommend praying hard, and maybe going to Adoration, where Jesus is present in a very real way.
Stay strong, my friend!
Your reward will be far greater than anything you face at the moment in Heaven!
(Btw, hey I’m Canadian, too! :canada: 😉:canada: )
 
Let me add that my confessor knows about my struggle with skepticism and he cautioned me not to be alarmed or anxious in the face of it, but to accept it prayerfully and find God’s grace in it.
There is a purpose to God’s ways, and some good comes from my skepticism. So I don’t fight it or worry that it’s “leading me to hell” or something. Anxiety about your spiritual state causes anxiety, which causes anxiety… you get the idea.

I have come to the conclusion that God is blessing me thus:
“Don’t become complacent in intellectual certitude, look deeper for me. Move forward in love and trust.” And those are things I also struggle with
 
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Everyone has doubts at some point. It is called a desert experience. So you keep the essentials of your devotion and continue on until the dryness alleviates. Faith is like a life line. No matter how rough the current or waves of life get you are anchored to one of the pillars Jesus or Mary.
 
Tell God. Pray to him by just talking to him as you would to a person and voice your concerns.
 
Another suggestion, OP, is to look at why you feel anxious and to ask yourself if it if a matter that you couldn’t have expected as a person of faith. For instance, I had a friend who had a new pastor who, following a string of pastors who easily adjusted to the parish, was a rather bad match for it. Neither side was really “wrong,” but their personalities were worlds apart and unfortunately things were handled so there were a lot of hurt feelings and even people who had been very involved for a long time leaving the parish. My friends said she suffered a “crisis of faith” until she realized that these things happen, because of course priests aren’t perfect, parishes certainly aren’t perfect, personality clashes happen, and over-reactions are something people do. This helped her to see the situation was not one that called for doubting God but for relying on God to help them through it.

I’ve suffered from anxiety, and I can tell you that specifically reflecting on what was causing the anxious feelings, what ways I had to respond to them and what help I wanted from God to cope with the situation really did help. It is all in the Serenity Prayer, you know? (Which is a prayer that I think deserves to be well-known by everyone in this world, not just those with identifiable substance addictions).

God grant me the serenity
To accept the things I cannot change;
Courage to change the things I can;
And wisdom to know the difference.

Living one day at a time;
Enjoying one moment at a time;
Accepting hardships as the pathway to peace;
Taking, as He did, this sinful world
As it is, not as I would have it;
Trusting that He will make all things right
If I surrender to His Will;
So that I may be reasonably happy in this life
And supremely happy with Him
Forever and ever in the next.
Amen.
Reinhold Neibuhr (1892-1971)
 
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This is why belief is a choice.

Our feelings lie to us.

Make the choice to believe, as was advised above “Lord, I believe. Help my unbelief”.

Fr Phillipe’s little book “Searching For and Maintaining Peace” is priceless.
 
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TheLittleLady said:
This is why belief is a choice.

Our feelings lie to us.

Make the choice to believe, as was advised above “Lord, I believe. Help my unbelief”.
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Feelings do not “lie” any more than a smoke detector “lies” or our eyes “lie.”
Our emotional life is a poor master, but a very good servant and even a trustworthy friend. Emotions are our intuitive sense of what is going on in the world, both inside ourselves and in the world around us. They are physical senses, they really are. Like our eyesight, however, we are wise if we don’t take whatever they tell us without question. We need to take it in whole with all that we know.
 
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