I'm not sure scrupulous 1s feel God is out to get them, but angry at our rebelliousness and following His own rules

[foolishmortal]

One thing I read about the scrupulous is that they fear God is out to get them. Maybe I have a phlegmatic side, but I see God just going by His rules, though angry at my rebeliiousness after all I’ve been given. Here’s where I get melancholic. I feel that He will give mercy but I will not respond to the graces enough at my end and not have salvific grace as a result of not responding, likely due to not asking God’s help, which could come from any source: “God helps those who help themselves”, melancholy, verbally rough parent, any combo of these and/or other things. In any case, you don’t know how responsible you are and, being melancholic and possibly some OCD, you really don’t trust anyone to understand you correctly or to be conservative or easy enough on you to straighten you out (which is a concern present in the situation of confession as well).

 

[nobeerinheaven]

I’m not sure I follow everything you said, but I do know that people with scruples don’t think God is ought to get them, but rather think that they don’t do what they are supposed to do for God properly.

 

[BarbaraTherese]

Scruples I think second guesses itself at every turn and imagines that there is sin or might be sin where there is none.
“Mercy will be granted to the merciful” …and in asking myself will God be merciful to me, I ask myself am I a merciful person - do I forgive those who trespass against me easily, recognizing that I too am constantly in need of forgiveness.

I think scruples is probably either psychological or perhaps often a mixture of psychological and spiritual problems and sometimes only strictly spiritual in origin.

If one is inclined towards a melancholic state or depression and also with OCD this is a dreadful trial, and if I can insight this then for sure The Lord can and looks upon this suffering and the confusions that come in the wake, with compassion and understanding and Mercy…but sometimes sufferers cannot quite convince themselves of this and are constantly in a state of anxiousness - even fear of their own salvation. My own hands are empty and I feel helpless where such are concerned, and hence my prayer comes from an ardent heart that they will be relieved of what they do suffer.

I do think that our priests need to be educated re mental illness in order to know how to advise and counsel in Confession …mental illness is on the increase and it has many grades or levels of affect and effect and mental disfunction, making in many cases sin impossible in the first place.

Any problem in the Confessional is not always with the one who confesses. Some do need great reassurance indeed that Mercy will be granted to those who ask for it and try to be forgiving themselves and most often the Confessional will be the only place the person will receive personal spiritual advice and counselling on some situation or life problem. Mind you, we may not always succeed in the trying to be forgiving, but The Lord looks to the desires of the heart rather than any success or failure, which in the final analysis is in His Hands anyway…over and above this, one needs to understand this spiritual concept of Mercy to the merciful to have a moral obligation under it.

God’s Mercy is even greater and greater still and greater than the above or the fact that if I have not been merciful and forgiving in my life and ask of God His Mercy, then it will be granted to me “This day you will be with me in Paradise” Jesus says on the Cross to a man asking His Mercy who had not lived a reasonably good life at all, rather quite to the contrary, and simply asks Jesus to be Merciful.

And Mercy is exactly what it implies…a forgiving and pardoning attitude to the one deserving just punishment. And every last one of us somewhere or other deserves Justice and just punishment. Mercy transcends any just punishment due and embraces the offender with Love and the Love is greater than any just punishment due…and we call this disposition"Mercy".

Barb

 

[thistle]

One thing I read about the scrupulous is that they fear God is out to get them. Maybe I have a phlegmatic side, but I see God just going by His rules, though angry at my rebeliiousness after all I’ve been given. Here’s where I get melancholic. I feel that He will give mercy but I will not respond to the graces enough at my end and not have salvific grace as a result of not responding, likely due to not asking God’s help, which could come from any source: “God helps those who help themselves”, melancholy, verbally rough parent, any combo of these and/or other things. In any case, you don’t know how responsible you are and, being melancholic and possibly some OCD, you really don’t trust anyone to understand you correctly or to be conservative or easy enough on you to straighten you out (which is a concern present in the situation of confession as well).

You are mistaken. The scrupulous do not think God is out to get them. In fact its the other way round. They feel bad because they think every little thing they do or say is a sin and they are unhappy they are upsetting God.

 

[MarieVeronica]

I feel that He will give mercy but I will not respond to the graces enough at my end

Hi FM Being a somewhat (ok, an enormously) scrupulous soul… I have often had this same worry.

I once heard a good piece of advice, though. When you ask God for grace… be as specific as you can. So… when I pray for grace… my prayer goes something like this…

“Lord, please grant me this day… the graces I need. Please also grant me the intellegence, the courage, the will and the love to recognize Your grace… and to follow through. Amen”.

Hope this helps some. God bless.

 

[foolishmortal]

“I have not the strength to rise again and God does not help me either by His grace, for He does not love me but wants to damn me.” This fatal condition can easily assume the proportion of despair.

This, from Fr. Conrad Hock’s booklet on the 4 Temperaments, online at angelicum.net, is where I got the idea that it was thought that melancholic scrupulous people feel God is out to get them, to which I said that is not the whole picture, though that thought also might come into play at times.

 

[BarbaraTherese]

These links may shed some light:

catholicspiritualdirection.org/scrupulosity.html
Understanding and Conquering Scrupulosity

What does being “scrupulous” mean? A short answer is that somehow our conscience is overly exacting and overly critical of ourselves and we see sins where there are no sins, or mortal sins where there are only venials sins, and this leads to an inner torment of feeling guilty when there is no good reason. It can include

mission.liguori.org/newsletters/scrupanon.htm
“Scrupulous Anonymous” - a Redemptorist publication

Ten Commandments for the Scrupulous and More Information
Ten Commandments for the Scrupulous (Revised)
View the Current Issue of Scrupulous Anonymous
View the Archives
If you wish to have a newsletter mailed to your home, please e-mail us at newsletter@liguori.org with your postal mailing address and the name (or names) of the newsletter(s) you wish to receive.The newsletter is available free of charge.

 

[foolishmortal]

Thanks! God bless you! I was not trying to contradict anyone, but I wanted to show where I got the idea for my forum post, which affected me personally.
I think what I want is a leader on whom I can confidently rely as a spiritual director (I have to check my melancholic nature, but no goofing around with the Mass is one positive indicator and rock music liturgical music and wreckovation are big red flags–otherwise obedient Latin-Mass ones, followed by EWTN kinds, are preferable, but not necessary if reverence is there that says this is about Christ’s sacrifice and not making modern people coming out of the last sense of obligation they have left in them feel comfortable). That’s all I ask.

I know I suck at my Faith and am just a pretty good talker sometimes and I need professional help to keep my melancholy checked and my spiritual life on track. That is why I worry I will not respond to God’s grace before death.

I’m tired of trying to figure out dilemnas created by fallen-away family members and friends on my own because I don’t know who to trust for my soul in these days, except a few (but they don’t live where I am now). All that has made me quite more anxious and bitter, but I was told I worry too much as a child–long before I really believed in my Faith. I know I have gotten close to backbiting if not transgressed it more times than I know and that, as some say, “Puts the fear (of God) in me”. Also, there are other disorders sucked-in anger has manifested as well. Gollum was said as hating and loving himself and therefore, hating and loving the ring. Maybe we have one in ourselves that hates our wimpy side if we’re holding in anger and causes loss of self-control moments. I would never kill myself or leave the Faith, but I can be like Denethor, the Steward of Gondor as well (all’s gone to pot–not seeing the Church as it is, despite its losing its pre-60s days and making a mess of its N.O.–though those who left may actually have been more melancholic than me, though many enjoyed the Latin-Mass atmosphere). In my idealism, I may even feel like Frodo, when I, in my pride (an ego-trip in a plane with broken bathrooms), puts the world on my shoulders.

Even saying all this is likely an ego-trip (though maybe it’ll hit a nerve in another). It is really loving and hating yourself. I do put too much on my shoulders, because I don’t know whose shoulders to put it on. On God’s? Well, that’s the idea, but how do I know f it’s my idea or God’s? The fruits are too-long in coming and second-guessing comes naturally and faster to one like me.

Someone told me about Madonna House in Ontario. There’s an idea, but I’ve had a lot of guilt not being around to help my dad shovel all the snow that feel in our yard in the Midwest, not being there for his retirement or for a good friend of mine and his’s first return in years. Ah, yes…the guilt. Putting the world on your shoulders adds wrong guilt on necessary guilt.