Impotence and Infertility

[BuphiloCatholic]

Get out and create a life for yourself. When you lose more of the weight get involved with volunteering and so forth. Set some goals. Plan to run a marathon.

Holy Orders is not the second prize for someone who loses and doesn’t get marriage as the first prize. Either God calls you for one or the other or he doesn’t.

That’s exactly what worries me. If he doesn’t then I live alone in anguish and die with no assurance whatsoever, and only a very slim hope, of a better life to come.

Who exactly are you blaming for those college loans?

umm…no one…there is no one for me to blame. I took the loans so that i could get a college education. And I did. I only brought them up to point out that because I have to repay them, holy orders are off the table. So the religious life is not an option.

You need to keep up with the work God has started in you and stop worrying about what your future holds.

Easier said than done.

Focus on the here and now. You obviously are a man who doesn’t like himself very much . I imagine a lot of that has to do with the self abuse. Give yourself some to time to heal.

I like myself. But I am honest about my lot. And I know I am alone.

You clearly need spiritual and perhaps mental health counseling to work on your self worth issues.

Too bad I haven’t got the money for it.

 

[BuphiloCatholic]

Dear Commrade… The National Socialist have just passed a health care bill that your…ooops…my Grandchildren will pay for… You may not have assurance to get to heaven, but you certainly will have insurance for your medical…

Just another Lemming…

how is that funny? Is another person’s being all but destitute an occasion for levity where you come from Jeff?

 

[kage_ar]

Too bad I haven’t got the money for it.

Your priest won’t charge you a red cent. Catholic Charities will step in and do sliding scale for what is outside the spritual needs.

 

[NEWCATHOLICJEFF]

how is that funny? Is another person’s being all but destitute an occasion for levity where you come from Jeff?

No, however every single attempt to reach out has been turned away… Humor no…but healthcare will be abvailable… OP needs to take some of the advice given, people care, but he is refusing…Not much else can be done it is up to him.

 

[Just_Lurking]

Most schools with a counseling program will have a free clinic for the counseling graduate students to practice on at least the student population.

 

[BuphiloCatholic]

Your priest won’t charge you a red cent. Catholic Charities will step in and do sliding scale for what is outside the spritual needs.

thanks for the practical advice…I’ll look into the cost for a consult.

 

[BuphiloCatholic]

Most schools with a counseling program will have a free clinic for the counseling graduate students to practice on at least the student population.

yeah, but the trouble is I have to work in the same building as the counseling clinic at my school and I don’t what anything I say finding it’s way down the hall! Catholics Charities might be better and more discrete if I can afford their rates.

 

[Moscati]

I live on 12K a year. And in a few months my health insurance runs out. I have no family in this city. I have a few “close” friends. And my education is dross. It means nothing to me. I also know that I am utterly alone in this life and that no human being loves me for who I truly am. I pray to God. and I trust God. But as you just said I have no assurance. I was not the one who brought up suffering. it was someone else who said that if I was to be alone and unhappy my whole life then so be it i should offer that as sacrificial suffering to God. My only point was, that as far as we humans can know, that suffering is not making us any holier at all.

Well . . . I live on 6K a year, if you want to play that game.

I think we can know what holiness is, and whether we’re moving closer to it or farther from it. If we couldn’t objectively know whether or not we were getting better at denying sin and being faithful to the Gospel, we’d be in big trouble, no? We wouldn’t know right from wrong.

Please give counseling a try! It helped me a lot.

 

[BuphiloCatholic]

Well . . . I live on 6K a year, if you want to play that game.

I think we can know what holiness is, and whether we’re moving closer to it or farther from it. If we couldn’t objectively know whether or not we were getting better at denying sin and being faithful to the Gospel, we’d be in big trouble, no? We wouldn’t know right from wrong.

Please give counseling a try! It helped me a lot.

Holiness is not just denying sin or “being faithful to the Gospel”, those are empirical actions and we can see them. Holiness is the process of God’s grace inwardly sanctifying us. That’s not empirical, and that we cannot see. The whole show, as far as any living human being knows, is all in our minds. To say “I’m getting holier!” is the sin of presumption, only God knows who he is making holy and who is deluded.

 

[TedDC]

Seatuck…

So then the impotent are simply out of luck…destined to be utterly alone and unloved (in the marital sense)?

So then, why does God not concomitantly free them from the need for marital love?

Seems like a rotten state of affairs to me.

Remember, God didn’t make that law - man did. It’s a particularly vile doctrine, and one of the things which affirmed my decision to leave the Church.

 

[PaulinVA]

Buphilo - my oldest son was born in a persistent vegetative state. He lived for three years. HE was dealt a terrible situation.

You, however, are despairing over external things. Over nothing, in the grand scheme of things.

The opposite of presumption is despair, and you are certainly tipping in that direction. Way over. Embarrassingly so. Stop even considering presumption as a problem.

We are allowed to hope that we are going to heaven. We are encouraged to desire to get to heaven. We should order our lives to get to heaven and take as many people as we can with us.

You are loved. God loves you. I love you as a brother in Christ - I am sorry you are hurting and seeing your life ahead as less than fulfilling. So? Change things. Help others. Pray for people you meet once you get home. Intercede for those that persecute you.

An inward change will have positive outward results.

 

[BuphiloCatholic]

Buphilo - my oldest son was born in a persistent vegetative state. He lived for three years. HE was dealt a terrible situation.

You, however, are despairing over external things. Over nothing, in the grand scheme of things.

The opposite of presumption is despair, and you are certainly tipping in that direction. Way over. Embarrassingly so. Stop even considering presumption as a problem.

We are allowed to hope that we are going to heaven. We are encouraged to desire to get to heaven. We should order our lives to get to heaven and take as many people as we can with us.

You are loved. God loves you. I love you as a brother in Christ - I am sorry you are hurting and seeing your life ahead as less than fulfilling. So? Change things. Help others. Pray for people you meet once you get home. Intercede for those that persecute you.

An inward change will have positive outward results.

Hi Paul…

Sorry to hear about your son, my condolences.

Who doesn’t hope they’ll go to Heaven? Or desire Heaven? My only point is that according to the Church not one of us can, in this life, ever know that we are going to Heaven. And since we can’t know, and since in fact very few will go (the narrow gate and all that…), it’s pure hubris and presumption to even think that we are. In which case the talk of embracing your suffering and offering it to Christ because by doing so you are getting holier, is sheer presumption. You might deluded and not getting any holier at all. Only God knows.

So far no one has shown me anything in the CCC or elsewhere that contradicts my position.

 

[davidv]

Hi Paul…

Sorry to hear about your son, my condolences.

Who doesn’t hope they’ll go to Heaven? Or desire Heaven? My only point is that according to the Church not one of us can, in this life, ever know that we are going to Heaven. And since we can’t know, and since in fact very few will go (the narrow gate and all that…), it’s pure hubris and presumption to even think that we are. In which case the talk of embracing your suffering and offering it to Christ because by doing so you are getting holier, is sheer presumption. You might deluded and not getting any holier at all. Only God knows.

So far no one has shown me anything in the CCC or elsewhere that contradicts my position.

Based on the following excerpt from an article “Assurance of Salvation” on this website, you are wrong. The Church does not teach as you describe.

One can be confident of one’s present salvation. This is one of the chief reasons why God gave us the sacraments—to provide visible assurances that he is invisibly providing us with his grace. And one can be confident that one has not thrown away that grace by simply examining one’s life and seeing whether one has committed mortal sin. Indeed, the tests that John sets forth in his first epistle to help us know whether we are abiding in grace are, in essence, tests of whether we are dwelling in grave sin. For example, “By this it may be seen who are the children of God, and who are the children of the devil: whoever does not do right is not of God, nor he who does not love his brother” (1 John 3:10), “If any one says, ‘I love God,’ and hates his brother, he is a liar; for he who does not love his brother whom he has seen, cannot love God whom he has not seen” (1 John 4:20), “For this is the love of God, that we keep his commandments. And his commandments are not burdensome” (1 John 5:3).

 

[BuphiloCatholic]

Based on the following excerpt from an article “Assurance of Salvation” on this website, you are wrong. The Church does not teach as you describe.

This hinges on what is meant by “confident of one’s present salvation”. I’m certain the Catholic teaching is that we cannot know, but can only hope, that we are saved. So confidence of one’s present salvation cannot mean assurance of one’s present salvation, it can only mean then, that we can confidently hope that we are presently being saved. But once more, who doesn’t hope they are being saved?

Does the CCC use this “confident in one’s present salvation” language anywhere? If not, then using the language in this article is at best ambiguous and at worst misleading.

 

[kage_ar]

So far no one has shown me anything in the CCC or elsewhere that contradicts my position.

Have you read the documents I provided to you?

 

[davidv]

This hinges on what is meant by “confident of one’s present salvation”. I’m certain the Catholic teaching is that we cannot know, but can only hope, that we are saved. So confidence of one’s present salvation cannot mean assurance of one’s present salvation, it can only mean then, that we can confidently hope that we are presently being saved. But once more, who doesn’t hope they are being saved?

Does the CCC use this “confident in one’s present salvation” language anywhere? If not, then using the language in this article is at best ambiguous and at worst misleading.

I don’t know. Have you looked?

 

[NEWCATHOLICJEFF]

Remember, God didn’t make that law - man did. It’s a particularly vile doctrine, and one of the things which affirmed my decision to leave the Church.

Not vile…but fact and you can look it up… (Genesis 2:24; Mark 10:6-10; Matthew 19:5-6; Ephesians 5:31-33).

 

[BuphiloCatholic]

I don’t know. Have you looked?

The very same article you quote above (from Catholic Answers) contains this passage:

---

The same is true of us. We can, if our lives display a pattern of perseverance and spiritual fruit, have not only a confidence in our present state of grace but also of our future perseverance with God. Yet we cannot have an infallible certitude of our own salvation, as many Protestants will admit. There is the possibility of self-deception (cf. Matt. 7:22-23). As Jeremiah expressed it, “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately corrupt; who can understand it?” (Jer. 17:9).***

This is precisely my point. We could always be deluding ourselves.

 

[PaulinVA]

And since we can’t know, and since in fact very few will go (the narrow gate and all that…), it’s pure hubris and presumption to even think that we are. In which case the talk of embracing your suffering and offering it to Christ because by doing so you are getting holier, is sheer presumption. You might deluded and not getting any holier at all. Only God knows.

Ah, they are two different things.

Increasing in holiness through self denial and good works and embracing suffering is a stand alone practice of virtue. By doing doing these things and increasing in holiness (you can’t help but increase) you hopefully are working out your salvation.

But, frankly, if I get killed 10 seconds after I leave the confessional after I’ve made a good confession, and my salvation is not assured, what is there left?

I don’t go around thinking, “My salvation is assured, my salvation is assured”. I place myself before Christ and hope for his mercy, and live my life, hopefully, in a way that I am open to His grace.

 

[davidv]

The very same article you quote above (from Catholic Answers) contains this passage:

The same is true of us. We can, if our lives display a pattern of perseverance and spiritual fruit, have not only a confidence in our present state of grace but also of our future perseverance with God. Yet we cannot have an infallible certitude of our own salvation, as many Protestants will admit. There is the possibility of self-deception (cf. Matt. 7:22-23). As Jeremiah expressed it, “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately corrupt; who can understand it?” (Jer. 17:9).

This is precisely my point. We could always be deluding ourselves.

The only way one deludes themselve is to wallow in sin. When one participates in the sacraments humbly, one’s eyes are opened and one’s heart is softened. In this state all deception will be recognized.