I feel like I'm doing bad things all the time?

[jeanne71350]

Hi there,

Well, lately I’ve been getting these feelings that I’m doing bad things all the time. Like if I get frustrated with my friends or my parents and get angry with them, or if I say “oh I’m so sick of my assignments, I wish my teacher would give us a break.” I say a lot of unkind things that I really don’t mean. It’s just my mouth.
This Lent, I’ve been giving up masturbation (and I’ve been succeeding! yes! ) and I’ve been so alert to every little thing in my life that I’ve been doing wrong. Every time I get angry I just want to cry because I feel like I’m offending Jesus. I don’t know if I’m being scrupulous, but it really hurts my heart when I say bad things. My goal in life is whenever I die, I want Jesus to look at me with a big smile, and say “Welcome home.” I just want to radiate with His love. And I feel like my human nature is just getting in the way of everything. I pray all the time for God to make my heart and soul so big, that it overcomes my human nature. But, we’re not all perfect. I want to try to be, though. I try to go to Confession often, mostly once a month. Lately I’ve been going more (because I’ve been giving up masturbation. I’ve been clean since the day before Ash Wed)

Can someone help me? Am I doing something wrong?

-Jeanne

 

[Trishie]

Jeanne you try very hard, perhaps too hard sometimes, and therefore you’re bound to get stressed out and discouraged sometimes.Getting angry is a symptom of your level of stress, I think. Being truly holy, truly and utterly Christian is a life-time task.

Your desires…remember that St Therese said in her autobiography about God not giving us desires He won’t help us to fulfil! I’m sure it will be as you hope, sweetheart. And that your repentance touches Jesus’ heart each of the many times it seems necessary. I’m sure He smiles at even that.

Translate me into Your own terms

Dear God, I desire to love You truly and to allow You to love and serve others through me. I want to live Your dream of me fully, but I may misinterpret Your will and inspiration as it refracts through my emotions and mental processes. Please nevertheless fulfil all that You desire through my life and prayer.

Flood Your love to others though all my efforts and errors. Grant me faith, fidelity, wisdom and prayer. Recreate me in the fullness of Your will and fill me with Your love, for sake of Your honour and delight, and for salvation of souls.

Let me be the person who You dream me to be, so that Your desire for Yourself and for each soul You place in my care or influence is generously fulfilled.

Translate me into Your own terms as I come contritely and gropingly before You in humble trust, with my imperfect efforts. I know that You have mercy on good intentions even if these are misguided. Yet please let me know Your will—for You have said, “I will instruct you, and teach you the way to go; I will watch over you and be your adviser.” (Psalm 32: v. 8)

 

[Trishie]

Woman, behold your Child

Dear Mother, please intercede with the Father that I may grow in worthy fraternity with Jesus, for this kinship was His dying wish. So deep was this astonishing desire, that He bridged earth to heaven for me by the racked sufferings of His soul, mind, and body.

As His humanity strained to shattering point, He knew even then my sins and faults, which He understood and forgave even as He suffered. He knew that I do not comprehend the heinousness of offence against God or against others whom He lovingly created. He knew that I could not grasp the greatness of His act of incarnation and immolation, of His redemption of us, of me. For selfishness and worldliness dims the human soul’s limited perception regarding truth and love.

He, this suffering Being subject to all human vicissitude and weakness, was aware—with pain that deepened His own—of the anguish that filled your being and drenched your face with unconscious tears of love and distress as He died for me. He knew the depth of your pain—poignant with memories of the best of sons, of the greatest of men—loving, wise and innocent, compassionate, beloved, and vibrantly human.

Disfigured beyond recognition, He died for me in apparent failure and disgrace, yet He still asked your maternal love for me, inviting me to loving fraternity. Your love, transcending all, accepted me wholly.

Lovely Lady, pure crystal of divine glory, I humbly slip my hand in yours with obedient trust. I feel unworthy, sinful, wondering and hopeful. Why has He, this wonderful, promising, intelligent young man allowed Himself to be degraded and destroyed, emptied in loving endurance that escalates throughout indescribable torment—piercing your soul?
Why has He done this for one such as me, who am so insignificant and sinful! Yet He draws me into His household and gives me His own Mother and His divine Father.

Gentle Mother, most blessed, you were chosen from amongst all women to cooperate in the incarnation of the only begotten of the most high God! You were entrusted with His nurture, His moulding and protection from conception until the beginning of His public ministry. Now your suffering eyes are filled with love and pity that calm the shame, confusion and discouragement that might otherwise overwhelm me.

Mother, intercede that what He has done, and all that He promises, be fulfilled in me and in everyone for whom I pray. Please lead me to love your Son and our God as He has loved and to cherish others with such love. Lead me to give my paltry all to Him in humble, obedient, creative service. Let this small gift be blessed in your maternal love for me and in the intercession of the entire heavenly household. Thus may I live for His glory, offering atonement, gratitude and petition for us poor sinners—so that His joy and delight in me, and yours, is as great as His suffering for me, and yours.

Mother as gift to Him for such undeserved love, please obtain of the Father, that whenever Jesus looks upon me He knows only gladness, finding in me for Himself…the pleasure of an innocent child…the love and nurture of Nazareth with you…the intimacy and repose of a perfect Bethany. Let Him know with thrilled awareness, that His blood and torment, and your tears, are not wasted to me nor to souls whom His salvation reaches through me. September 29, 1981

There you go! I too have such hopes…and battle on the best I can manage, much older than you though I am!

 

[Trishie]

Becoming as little children
Jesus says, “I tell you solemnly, anyone who does not welcome the kingdom of God like a little child will never enter it.” [Luke18: 17]

Therese of Lisieux elucidates how to live as child before God. “The only way to advance rapidly in the path of love is to always remain very little” “‘Remaining little’ means—to recognise ones nothingness, to await everything from the goodness of God, to avoid being much troubled at our faults; finally, not to be worried about amassing spiritual riches.” “There is but one means of compelling God not to judge us, and it is—to appear before Him empty-handed…spend your treasures as you gain them…All my earnings [merits] are spent immediately on the ransom of souls…Our Lord is justice Himself, and if He does not judge our good actions, neither will He judge our bad ones.”

In response to a novice who was discouraged by her faults, Therese said, “You make me think of a little child that is learning to stand but does not know how to walk. In his desire to reach to top of the stairs to find his mother, he lifts his little foot to climb the first step. It is all in vain, and at each renewed effort he falls.” “Well, be like that little child. Always keep lifting your foot to climb the ladder of holiness, and do not imagine that you can mount even the first step. All God asks of you is good will. From the top of the ladder, He looks lovingly upon you, and soon, touched by your fruitful efforts, He will Himself come down, and taking you in His arms, will carry you to His Kingdom never again to leave Him. But should you cease to raise your foot, you will be left for long on the earth.”

To another, Therese said, “You want to climb the mountain, whereas God wishes you to descend it. He is awaiting you in the valley of humility.” “It seems to me that humility is truth (honesty).” “If the greatest sinner should repent at the moment of his death, and draw his last breath in an act of love, neither the many graces he had abused, nor the multiplied crimes he had committed, would stand in his way. Our Lord would see nothing, count nothing, but the sinner’s last prayer, and without delay He would receive him into the arms of His mercy.”
…quotes from her sister Celine’s book “Counsels and Reminiscences”

 

[Trishie]

When Therese, as her novice mistress, warned Celine what form her spiritual struggle would take, she might have been speaking any of us. “You must never believe, when you don’t practice virtue, that it is due to some natural cause like illness, time, or grief. You must draw a great lesson in humility from it and take your place among the little souls, since you are able to practice virtue only in such a feeble manner.”

Therese added, “What is necessary for you now is not to practice heroic virtues but to acquire humility. For that, your victories must of necessity always be mixed with failures, so that you cannot take any pleasure in thinking about them.”

Celine wrote of her struggle “with the faults that constantly kept me in a state of humiliation, for, due to my impulsive temperament, I often had little outbursts with the sisters that afflicted me a great deal on account of my self-love. I thought my exterior was deceiving, that I was better than I appeared to be: from that, I developed a certain frustration at not being judged at my true worth.

Then my little sister endeavoured, by her penetrating instruction embellished with symbolic stories adapted to my circumstances, to make me love the shame I was in.” “She made me find my joy in believing that I was a ‘very little soul’ whom God constantly had to support because it was nothing but weakness and imperfection.”

Same source

 

[Trishie]

Dear Celine! Even seven months before her death, she sent a note to a Sister whom she feared she had disedified, “‘Oh! How you touched me last night by your kindness, your meekness, your affection; me, who showed myself so headstrong; I humbly ask your pardon’.” She signed it by the name sometimes used amongst her sisters during childhood, “little repentant Celine.”

Towards the end, she wrote, “If I consider where I am, I notice that I have not gone forward but backward…And there is astonishing peace even though it exists in darkness. I take as my own this passage from a prayer of Saint Thomas Aquinas: ‘At distant intervals, Lord, You draw me out of my lethargy, but alas! They are only passing visits. I do not know if You love me or I love You…I do not even know if I live by faith! I find only infidelity in myself, only random beginnings…and yet I long for You!’”

“Oh! Yes, I too, but I am not discouraged; and for many years have taken comfort in this verse of Psalm 63… “Oh God, my God, for You I long, for You my soul is thirsting. My body pines for You like a dry weary land without water. So I gaze on You in the sanctuary to see Your strength and Your glory; for Your mercy is better than life.” “I feel this so deeply that, in my imperfection, although I regret it, thrill with happiness at the thought that God’s mercy is better than life. Perfection, the possession of virtues, spiritual consolations, is what I call ‘life’. ‘Death’ is the state in which I am now, in that dry weary land without water. This state does not prevent me however, from approaching God with assurance, as if I were perfect, because I know it and feel it that ‘His mercy is better than life.’…Yes, I rely only on God’s mercy and on His compassion; I want to arouse His compassion by my poverty, for I know that is how I will have gained all.”

Jeanne, please take courage, be at peace and just continue to try, and to trust in God’s love, and God’s time.

All quotes from Celine’s book

 

[Trishie]

Therese’s “little way” of spiritual childhood was summarised by her Carmelite sisters, Celine and Pauline. It is the way of unselfish love, recognising that the “indescribable condescension” of Jesus is open even to the poorest of souls. It is the way of “joyful humility, passionate trust in Merciful Love, total abandonment to the divine will.” It is in “hidden sacrifices full of love and fidelity to every-day duties” with a “deep and experiential understanding of the Fatherhood of God.” It is in “zeal for souls.” It is lived with trust in our loving God. Such simplicity of heart is not of a childish nature, but childlike in its trust.

“It is love alone that counts,” wrote Therese. “And love is total abandonment, the blind trust of a little child in its heavenly father, which cannot work without a profound humility and which becomes, without anyone suspecting it, a natural virtue as it is in all little ones.”

On the fiftieth anniversary of Therese’s death, the Pope sent Celine the following message regarding the little way of spiritual childhood. “Many think that it is a special way reserved to the innocent souls of young novices in order to guide them in their first steps, and that it is not suited to already mature individuals who need much prudence because of their great responsibilities. That is to forget that our Lord Himself recommended this way to all children of God, even to those who have, like the apostles He formed, the greatest of responsibilities, that of the care of souls."

 

[Trishie]

Saint Therese rightly asserted that individual souls are different, with small simple souls scattered amongst great souls contributing towards making a glorious and colourful garden.

“I wondered for a long time why God has preferences, why all souls do not receive an equal amount of graces. I was surprised when I saw Him shower extraordinary favours on saints who had offended Him. For instance Saint Paul and Saint Augustine…I was puzzled at seeing how our Lord was pleased to caress certain ones from the cradle to the grave…helping them with such favours that they were unable to soil the immaculate beauty of their baptismal robe. I wondered why poor savages died in such numbers without ever having heard the name of God pronounced. Jesus deigned to teach me this mystery.

He set before me the book of nature; I understood how all the flowers He created are beautiful, how the splendour of the rose and the whiteness of the lily do not take away the perfume of the little violet or the delightful simplicity of the daisy. …If all flowers wanted to be roses, nature would lose her springtime beauty, and the fields would no longer be decked out with little wild flowers. And, so it is with the world of souls, Jesus’ garden. He willed to create great souls comparable to lilies and roses, but He has created smaller ones and these must be content to be daisies or violets destined to give joy to God’s glances when He looks down at His feet. Perfection consists in doing His will, in being what He wills us to be.” (Story of a Soul)

It’s okay to be a daisy or a buttercup in the fields. What a glorious display a such little flowers make!

 

[St_Francis]

Hi there,

Well, lately I’ve been getting these feelings that I’m doing bad things all the time. Like if I get frustrated with my friends or my parents and get angry with them, or if I say “oh I’m so sick of my assignments, I wish my teacher would give us a break.” I say a lot of unkind things that I really don’t mean. It’s just my mouth.
This Lent, I’ve been giving up masturbation (and I’ve been succeeding! yes! ) and I’ve been so alert to every little thing in my life that I’ve been doing wrong. Every time I get angry I just want to cry because I feel like I’m offending Jesus. I don’t know if I’m being scrupulous, but it really hurts my heart when I say bad things. My goal in life is whenever I die, I want Jesus to look at me with a big smile, and say “Welcome home.” I just want to radiate with His love. And I feel like my human nature is just getting in the way of everything. I pray all the time for God to make my heart and soul so big, that it overcomes my human nature. But, we’re not all perfect. I want to try to be, though. I try to go to Confession often, mostly once a month. Lately I’ve been going more (because I’ve been giving up masturbation. I’ve been clean since the day before Ash Wed)

Can someone help me? Am I doing something wrong?

-Jeanne

It’s Lent, and that happens to me every Lent. I think that’s why God made Lent for us…

St Terese of Lisieux has the wonderful way of putting things in her Little Way, in which we become littler rather than bigger. With frustrations, offering it up is so helpful, and with obedience… well, doing things out of obedience is more pleasing to God than doing them because you want to (because then you are doing it only to please Him rather than getting something out of it for yourself).

There are lots of great saints’ books online (as well as books you can carry around with you). Some are Introduction to the Devout Life, by St Francis de Sales; Spiritual Combat by Fr Scupoli; Uniformity with God’s Will by St Alphonsus di Liguori; Story of a Soul by St Terese of Lisieux. (You might be able to find all these and much more here; I linked Spiritual Combat because of the sections on impurity as well as other faults, and his general attitude of not being too upset with oneself when one falls.)