Lost My Faith

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Cymru

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Hello,

This is my fist post on this forum. I have simply lost my Faith. It slowly drifted away. I am a Traditional Catholic who has been attending Mass every Sunday for 20 years. I prayed the Rosary daily. I said my morning and night prayers and did spiritual reading.

The reason I have lost my Faith is that I can’t see how God answers prayers. I have been struggling with an issue for many years. I go to Confession, promise to make amends and then within a few months sometimes even weeks or days I commit the same sin over again. How could I possibly be sincere. I truly believe I am at the time of my Confession but I couldn’t be otherwise I wouldn’t continue doing what I’m doing. I refuse to treat the sacraments in a frivolous manner which is what I believe I am doing by my behaviour I have too much respect for them. Christ said: “Go and sin no more.” Well, that is not possible for me. I have Bipolar Disorder which adds to my problems. My black depressions are the worst and it is at these times in particular that I’m at my weakest. I’m just not strong enough to fight temptations. My “prayers” serve me no good. Therefore, I have lost my Faith. I have no where else to turn. I guess I just one of those who are destined to be lost.

Cymru
 
Dear Cymru,

You haven’t lost your faith. My daughter is bi-polar. Let me assure you that God understands you and I believe that He is not going to judge you because you can’t always live up to what you feel are His expectations.

Unless a person has a family member with this disease they have no idea of the hell the person and their family must go through. But God in His great mercy does.

Persons with brain disorder really have little control over some behaviors. It sounds like you really work at doing the right thing.

I am leaving in a few moments for a workshop on these type of problems. So I must make this short.

If you would like to PM me I would be happy to talk to you about this.

Just know that our Lord has allowed this cross for you and He will reward you when all is done.

I understand completely what your going through and bless you for doing the best you can. There are so many people without this cross that do far less than you to be a good Christian.

Bless you always.

Yours in the Hearts of Jesus and Mary

Bernadette
 
Dear Cymru, I echo what Bernadette has said.
Sometimes Our Lord calls us into the desert to walk with him.
It is so difficult for us to do this especially if we are ill.
I, too, suffer from clinical depression - have done for 45 years.
No-one knows what it is like unles you have been there.
For 50 odd years my life was the Church. I just wanted to be close to Our Lord. It was all I lived for.
11 years ago I woke up one day to find that all my faith had vanished. It was all part of a breakdown I was experiencing. I was absolutely devastated. Didn’t know where to turn, what to do.
I couldn’t go to Mass, tried other churches, but to no avail. Nothing. Just darkness.
It has taken me a long time to recover. I am not the same person now as I was then. My beliefs have been challenged and I have had to think long and hard about some of the things I used to believe.
My one assurance is that I know that God loves me. He has called me to be His child. I will trust in Him even though sometimes the way is dark and I cannot see what is ahead.
I urge you to just trust. Take your favourite scripture verse and meditate on it. Just keep telling yourself that God loves you. You are His special child and He is close to you.
He loves you with an everlasting love.

With prayer that He will make you whole again.
Love Rosemary
 
I don’t think you’re lost. I think you’re just searching and found out a certain path just isn’t yours. 🤷 Then again, prayer is useless without action, so if you performed no action, that would explain your prayer problem.

Keep searching for whatever (or wherever) your truth happens to be. I wish you the best.

Ironically Yours, Blade and Blood
 
I recommend praying the simple Jesus prayer.

“Lord Jesus Christ,
Son of the Living God
Have mercy on me
A Sinner”

Breath in on one line, out on the next.

Also, you might try reading the Psalms. The writer struggles with depression and loss of faith in many of them.
 
Blade_and_Blood said:
I don’t think you’re lost. I think you’re just searching and found out a certain path just isn’t yours. 🤷 Then again, prayer is useless without action, so if you performed no action, that would explain your prayer problem.

Keep searching for whatever (or wherever) your truth happens to be. I wish you the best.

Ironically Yours, Blade and Blood
Click to expand...
That’s something I don’t hear from many agnostics. All I know seem to sneer at how many Christians use material aids in prayer. 'I can find God sitting in a field, not in a Liturgy."

lex orendi, lex credendi.
video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-4323636420857578134
 
Dear Cymru,

You haven’t lost your faith. My daughter is bi-polar. Let me assure you that God understands you and I believe that He is not going to judge you because you can’t always live up to what you feel are His expectations.

Unless a person has a family member with this disease they have no idea of the hell the person and their family must go through. But God in His great mercy does.

Persons with brain disorder really have little control over some behaviors. It sounds like you really work at doing the right thing.

I am leaving in a few moments for a workshop on these type of problems. So I must make this short.

If you would like to PM me and I would be happy to talk to you about this.

Just know that our Lord has allowed this cross for you and He will reward you when all is done.

I understand completely what your going through and bless you for doing the best you can. There are so many people without this cross that do far less than you to be a good Christian.

Bless you always.

Yours in the Hearts of Jesus and Mary

Bernadette
 
Sorry about the double post. I had to leave for that meeting and when I came back it looked like I hadn’t posted it yet.

Bernadette
 
Whenever I get depressed, I always think of how Jesus felt in the days before His Crucifixion. He was so nervous and afraid that He sweat blood (which does happen to people who are very, very upset). Christ found the strength to bear His cross, knowing that His people would be saved through His suffering. My advice would be to continue to pray (never give that up), and offer all your feelings to God. Remember that God never allows anything to happen to us that we cannot handle. It may be extremely difficult at times, but your soul is being purified by fire. Even the saints endured horrible experiences and temptations on earth. Some had medical conditions which caused them horrendous pain, and I know of at least one who vomited blood constantly. Never give up; in suffering you become one with the LORD and the saints.

And, if you do endure until the end, think of how happy you will be in heaven? Our earthly lives last only a few decades, but heaven remains for all eternity. 🙂

God bless.
 
Perhaps some study of the interior life based on a Catholic perspective might help, as long as you can handle something very text book, understanding the spiritual and how it interacts with the mind, and grace can help a person treat his own problems.

Do not give up hope! Rebuild your trust and hope by thinking of all the good gifts God has given you to come so far, and say the rosary so often and go to mass in the past. He would not have given you these great and beautiful graces to let it end so poorly. 🙂

St. Michael and the choirs of angels, orate pro nobis.
 
I don’t know if you have been treated for your bi polar disorder or not. Remember it is a physical medical disease really no different than cancer or diabetes etc. It is very good for you to be able to reach out to God and your faith, but just as if you had cancer you would also need medical help.

I also know of a wonderful organization that is very supportive, it is called Nami. I don’t which state you are in, but if you go on the Web I believe that you can find one close to where you live.

People at Nami understand what you are going through and can give you information where to go for help in different areas.

I live each day one day at a time as when my daughter is having severe problems I need to be there for her and living a day at a time helps replenish my strength. I trust in our Lord and without faith life would be very difficult. I have found that out of what seems like a bad situation, our Lord brings something good if we really look at it with out hearts.

I will keep you in my prayers. If you feel the need of support as I said before, just PM me and if I can be of any service to you it will be my pleasure.

May God be with you.

Yours in the Hearts of Jesus and Mary

Bernadette
 
Some great saints have suffered from clinical depression. St. Tikhon of Zadonsk comes to mind. And St. Mitrophan, Hieromartyr of China (a married priest) likewise suffered from depression.

And the late Mother Mary of Bussy, France, an Orthodox nun, enriched not only English-speaking Orthodoxy but Byzantine Catholicism as well with her liturgical translations, which have become the basis for texts and prayers for both groups. And she also was bi-polar.

I know it’s no fun–but dont’ think that God can’t use you!

I know, because I suffer from clinical depression, myself.

In the mean time, if your bi-polar disorder is managable with medicines, as mine is, then take your meds, and thank God for the provision He has made for you.
 
I have come to think of following the faith and carrying on with life during the dark periods as “flying on instruments.” You aren’t carrying on based on how you feel or how things seem to your senses, even your “common sense.”

Nevertheless, like the pilot of a fog-bound aircraft, I can tell that you know you must fly according to what you have learned will be true no matter what your senses tell you, what you learn back on the ground when the instruments are explained to you. Otherwise, you’re going to fly into the ground or go up so steeply that you’ll go into a stall.

God does not require you to be strong enough to resist every temptation. God only requires that you will not to fail, and that after every failure that you will to get up, ask for and accept forgiveness, no matter how hard it is, and try again.

They say that to learn a foreign language, you have to be willing to make a million mistakes. I think that the spiritual life is like that, too. The only way to learn what you know to get to Heaven is to wade in and make your first million mistakes. There are no sidelines to sit on, no other way to be outfit for the life you were made for.

“Flying on instruments” is extremely tiring. It is exhausting. When it is so hard, when your journey takes you through storm clouds, you need to take that into account, and not try to press on for quite so many miles in a day. No one with any sense would ask you to try to do more than what you can do. If you do that, God will get you there, no matter how slow the going seems to be.

Hang in there, and take this and all advice just so far as it helps you along. The Faith is all you must have. The rest can be left behind, gear that was necessary for someone else’s flight, but not yours. We are all offering it just in case what helped us will fit you, too. It won’t all fit…don’t let that concern you.

PS The psalms are a great place for the dark times, too.
 
I can sympathize with you. I am sorry for what you have to go through; I can very much empathize.

But if Our Lord is one thing, He is merciful. And understanding. Mental illness, fear, and other psychological issues which we have no control over mitigate the guilt due to our sins. You are not guilty in the slightest over the things bipolar disorder puts into your mind. Sin has to be fully chosen.

The fact that you posted your crisis on this forum shows you still have a “mustard seed” of faith. That is certainly enough to grow a tree of faith if you are patient.

I recommend going to daily Mass- there have been times where I’ve struggled with Faith, and the worst times for me are those times where I neglect daily Mass. I simply cannot live without daily Mass.

Good luck and God bless. Expect prayers and a candle to be lit in your honor
 
I, too, am a clinical depressive, and had an absolute Dark Night of the Soul experience from ages 15 to 20 or so. What drew me back to believing there could be a God, and that faith in him was not only possible, but extremely fulfilling on several levels, was the music of the church. Granted, I was an Episcopalian at the time, so found Him again through the beauty of hymns first, but I also attended a Catholic high school, and learned songs such as “You Are Mine”, “On Eagles’ Wings”, etc. which were a great, and more immediately accessible comfort. Besides all of that, I was a lector at the Episcopal church, so read Scripture fairly regularly, and by having to digest its meaning in order to present it spoken with correct emphasis and passion, or subtlety where appropriate, I found some of the passages touched me quite deeply as I read them aloud.
As someone who is still relatively depressed, though I have had my faith back, and have been slowly strengthening it for 5 years now, I find the poetry and other writings of St.s John of the Cross and Teresa of Avila are a tremendous source of consolation and spiritual and emotional bolstering and encouragement for me, though I struggle to understand good chunks of it, still.

Hope at least a bit of this helps,
Julia
 
St. Dymphna, patron of those with Mental Illnesses, hear our petitions and present them before the throne of God.
 
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