T
tessi
Guest
No.
- Status
T
tessi
Guest
9 years of trying are not enough?
D
distracted
Guest
well, you are far from alone there… No one likes to be ill… so i doubt anyone is good at it…
I hope you are offering your sufferings, in union with those of Christ, for conversions (and expiation and the souls in Purgatory). If it weren’t for all that… that Catholic stuff
I wouldn’t be able to handle suffering…O - i guess you say that in the next line… How did i miss that? (I’m old, that’s how…
)… I don’t feel old… but i probably am…What do you do instead? The reason i ask is that i am always trying to DO something and sometimes i think God gets a little irritated with that… its like He’s telling me to “take a chill pill” or something… (that’s probably an out-dated saying but whatever…:whacky: Anyway, i just think sometimes God wants us to pray far more than we do… far more than we tend to think we should. I was always kind of “punished” as a child for not doing more… (I like to read a lot…)…
i had to stop and think for awhile to figure out what you meant by that… and when i did, i laughed… not sure why…:hypno: but anyway…
Yeah, that was a real cross… because i had this very strong attraction to him but he didn’t “act right”… so i just had to let go…
I just get one cross after another… but se la vie…
at least i know… what Jesus felt… somewhat…
P
Pug
Guest
I wish I could give you an answer to how much God wants us to pray. I suppose I could go with how spiritual writers tell us to make everything a prayer, like even doing the dishes can be a prayer. But, I don’t do that, so I can’t help much there. I suppose my sloth is showing a bit here. Why don’t I make doing the dishes a prayer? Well, it is like I just cooked lunch for my husband half an hour ago, but I was so busy with doing that right that it never crossed my mind to turn it into a prayer. I mean, I do sort of know how to make it so that I am in the presence of God during the time I am cooking, but I didn’t even think to try today. Maybe I should make it a resolution to try for this week or something. But then, I’ll forget again after this week. <>
About “doing” stuff, I think you are saying that prayer doesn’t feel like “doing” to you? Or, at least, you have a childhood specter that hangs over you, telling you to go outside and do something more active than reading or praying. I think prayer is doing a lot. After all, it can be tiring, so much so that I want to turn to something more simple, or with a lower energy requirement. Surely that is an indication that it is an active type of activity. Though, sometimes it is the desire to do something more interesting that gets me away from prayer.
I don’t know if I answered your question. Sometimes I read a novel or sometimes I play a video game or sometimes I study for my field or sometimes I study my faith or sometimes I sit around on CAF. When I am at my best mentally, that is when I take the time to study. Otherwise, it is pointless for me to study, so I turn to something requiring less acuity.
B
BarbaraTherese
Guest
It can happen that discernment and discerning is not at all clear and God’s Will is an unfolding matter. Once we have clearly discerned what our vocation and state in life is - and God’s overall call to us, God’s Will goes on unfolding as we live out that vocation and state in life. Sometimes God’s Will can indicate that that initial call and vocation is to change.
Sometimes we can find it very difficult indeed, most obscure, to understand to which vocation and state in life God may be calling us, and this can most often happen, I think, in the single state when the single state is not embraced as being God’s Call and vocation for one’s life. As with young people starting out in life and seeking what their vocation and state in life is to be.
There is a very comforting and consoling hymn at Night Prayer “the night is dark and I am far from home, but lead me on. I cannot see the road ahead, but Thou lead me on. I was not ever thus, nor prayed that Thou shouldst lead me on, but now Thou lead me on”.
With my own discerning on any point, as long as the answer is not clear to me, then I do not make a decision…I go on consulting my director, researching and praying until the answer is quite clear…then I make my decision and stick to it no matter what. That anyway is my ideal…carrying through can be another matter entirely and if I do fail in my ideal, then I simply start again.
Be all the above as it may, to have a spiritual director is pure gold in the spiritual life…it is a treasure and wonderful gift. Very often we are not at all good at being objective about our own selves, whereas a spiritual director is in the position to know us most intimately and to be objective in advising one. If one cannot find a spiritual director per se, then a regular Confessor, who can get to know us intimately, is a very good move, for Confession is also the place of spiritual direction. Confession is the place where we can pose questions and ask advice.
Blessings and regards…Barb
B
BarbaraTherese
Guest
Hi Pug…This is why The Morning Offering can be so important:I wish I could give you an answer to how much God wants us to pray. I suppose I could go with how spiritual writers tell us to make everything a prayer, like even doing the dishes can be a prayer. But, I don’t do that, so I can’t help much there. I suppose my sloth is showing a bit here. Why don’t I make doing the dishes a prayer? Well, it is like I just cooked lunch for my husband half an hour ago, but I was so busy with doing that right that it never crossed my mind to turn it into a prayer. I mean, I do sort of know how to make it so that I am in the presence of God during the time I am cooking, but I didn’t even think to try today. Maybe I should make it a resolution to try for this week or something. But then, I’ll forget again after this week. <>
About “doing” stuff, I think you are saying that prayer doesn’t feel like “doing” to you? Or, at least, you have a childhood specter that hangs over you, telling you to go outside and do something more active than reading or praying. I think prayer is doing a lot. After all, it can be tiring, so much so that I want to turn to something more simple, or with a lower energy requirement. Surely that is an indication that it is an active type of activity. Though, sometimes it is the desire to do something more interesting that gets me away from prayer.
I don’t know if I answered your question. Sometimes I read a novel or sometimes I play a video game or sometimes I study for my field or sometimes I study my faith or sometimes I sit around on CAF. When I am at my best mentally, that is when I take the time to study. Otherwise, it is pointless for me to study, so I turn to something requiring less acuity.
Oh My Jesus, I offer to you through The Most Pure Heart of Mary, all my prayers, works, joys and sufferings of this day for all the intentions of Thy Divine Heart. (I also add a short prayer that my day will be pleasing to Him…all my prayers, works, joys and sufferings).
The Church tells us that “a general intention suffices”. In other words, if and very sadly, I do not think of The Lord or any sort of prayer for the whole day after my Morning Offering, The Lord is His Loving Generous Mercy applies my morning intention to my whole day. We do not have to say the Morning Offering off rote…we can simply say some short aspiration: “Dear Lord, this day is yours for your intentions, help me to live it well”.
Sometimes my day opens on a miserable note for some reason and most all the day is spent what could be called “in laziness” or other failings. I do not distress myself over this. The Lord well knows that I am His most weakest and most imperfect of creatures…and loves me equally with His greatest saints…and loves each of us in that equality. So when I remember I offer to The Lord my weakness and imperfections and ask Him to grant me pardon and humility.
St. Teresa of Avila, whom I think you quote in your signature, advised her nuns to “make a virtue of necessity”. So if due to my impoverished and miserable self, due to having a lousy day, I do not live it well at all, then I make a virtue of necessity by asking The Lord to help me to be humble and know that after all I am His lowly and weak, imperfect, creature. I rest in Him as a parent would lovingly hold and attend to a child who is weak and sickly.
Leisure and relaxation, celebrating things, are important to the human psyche and I try to remember to offer these too to The Lord and this is an acceptable offering to Him since He has created us with a necessity for them.
It should never be our faults and failings and the extent of them that is a surprise to us and of distress “sinners were we conceived” (Psalms) and what can be the nature of sinners, but to sin and we are assured God’s Loving Mercy is always present if we ask for it - ALWAYS WITHOUT FAIL NO MATTER THE FAULT, IMPERFECTION OR SIN INVOLVED… rather it should be our victories that are a surprise to us and a cause of much gratitude and humility for the overcoming of God’s Grace in us of our own nature as sinners who are most prone to sinfulness.
Blessings and regards…Barb
B
BSHoop96
Guest
I heard she had to stay in the French villa by herself while Brad went off to see his buddies for a day or so. Poor Ang.Angie and Brad??
Actually, I have come to admire them in some ways. All those kids and all their humanitarian work.
B
BSHoop96
Guest
I think all of Europe has become pretty secular.Yeah…I’m familiar with all that. Still, why would the CC be ‘rubbish’ in England? That means ‘garbage’, right?
B
BarbaraTherese
Guest
Dear Tessi…lack of motivation and interest in life can be a sign of depression which could need medical treatment. Such depression when treated medically is most often easily overcome and life has ‘color’ again and motivation and interest renewed, so much so that one cannot understand at all how for 9 years one was in such a state of “just keep on breathing”.
Medicine is God’s Gift to mankind in our fight against suffering of all kinds. It is every much a Grace of God as is any other Grace - Grace being a free gift of God undeserved and unearned…Blessings and regards…Barb
D
distracted
Guest
trying to do something “right” for someone you love, especially if done as though doing it for Jesus, is a form of prayer… (one i wish everyone practiced on a regular basis)… It is probably the best “prayer” there is, really…
I hear you about how difficult it can be to pray while doing work - esp housework… my least favorite activity… :yawn: but there is one prayer that is very easy and takes no concentration… I am preaching to myself here because i don’t do at as often as i should… but just saying the name of Jesus… and turning our thoughts to Him just for a minute is VERY helpful…
god bless…
D
distracted
Guest
Sometimes we can find it very difficult indeed, most obscure, to understand to which vocation and state in life God may be calling us, you are a master of understatement…
B
BarbaraTherese
Guest
Quoting Distracted
Blessings and with my regards…Barb
God’s blessings with your potential spiritual director.
Code:
You are carrying quite a cross with PTSD! I hope that you will be able to overcome your trust issues with your potential director and find much reward in seeing one.
I suffer Bipolar and with my previous director, who knew nothing about mental illness of any kind whatsoever, my first task was to tell her all about Bipolar and the implications.........and inform her as much as possible about my illness and journeying through life with mental illness generally. This way she could insight fully "where I am coming from".
P
Pug
Guest
Barb,
Thanks for your encouraging post.
I’m going to try to remember that about a general intention. I tend toward a temptation to avoid the morning offering (ha, yes, incredibly silly of me) because I have trouble *meaning *it when I say it. But lately I’ve prayed for the ability to mean it as a way around that problem.
B
BarbaraTherese
Guest
…Barb,
Thanks for your encouraging post.
…God’s every blessing on your efforts…Deo Gratius
Wikipedia has a good entry on the Morning Offering:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morning_offering
S
Shoshana
Guest
Code:
We have had the best of both worlds! But if something happened to DH, I would not even bat an eye in going into a convent. (that is if I could let go of my already grown children, and 12-year old grandson…
)
D
distracted
Guest
For sure… one aspect of my cross is that people don’t understand my “ways” … my over-cautiousness, etc… They think i should just snap out of it… They think that since something happened quite awhile ago… i hsould be over it by now… For one thing, i have not experienced just ONE truama, but many… It seems that as soon as i get healed of one thing, some other weird thing happesn… but i don’t want to sound like i am pitying myself too much because i really do try to overcome my issues… and become more healthy. The thing that helps the most is being with Jesus in the Real Presence…
Thanks so much for your conceren…
B
BarbaraTherese
Guest
I know someone with PTSD and it seems to me to be a particularly cruel form of mental illness. It is a great blessing that The Real Presence can bring you a relief. I will be keeping you in prayer and that the persistent traumas will cease…Blessings and my regards…BarbFor sure… one aspect of my cross is that people don’t understand my “ways” … my over-cautiousness, etc… They think i should just snap out of it… They think that since something happened quite awhile ago… i hsould be over it by now… For one thing, i have not experienced just ONE truama, but many… It seems that as soon as i get healed of one thing, some other weird thing happesn… but i don’t want to sound like i am pitying myself too much because i really do try to overcome my issues… and become more healthy. The thing that helps the most is being with Jesus in the Real Presence…
Thanks so much for your conceren…
K
KingAlfred
Guest
Is there any hope for its reconversion to Catholicism?
D
distracted
Guest
nice to know someone understands the seriousness of this “problem” (hate to call it that… it is more part of who i am at this point… than an actual “problem”… although, it is both…).I know someone with PTSD and it seems to me to be a particularly cruel form of mental illness. It is a great blessing that The Real Presence can bring you a relief. I will be keeping you in prayer and that the persistent traumas will cease…Blessings and my regards…Barb
The Real Presence…
that is what helps me the most…I used to keep thinking i needed to get over this and get over that and try to be “normal” and all that… but when i am with Jesus He kidn of “indicates” to me that PTSD is not a sin… & He loves me just the way i am…
people don’t but o well, they are just people… they don’t understand… and i don’t understand them either… so we’re equal…
God bless…
D
distracted
Guest
about as much as there is for the U.S.
- Status