Lukewarmness: How do we rid ourselves of it

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roccoangelo

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Greetings,

I recall the scripture verse where God says He will vomit us out if we are lukewarm… how do we avoid lukewarmness?.. and if we are lukewarm (which I consider myself to be) how to we work it out of ourselves?

Pax Domini,
Rocco
 
The short answer, I think, is that the “how to” of getting rid of lukewarmness is between the individual and God. Everyone who is lukewarm in their faith is lukewarm for one reason or another. For some it’s spiritual laziness (which has been the case for me in the past), or it can be more a case of the individual becoming disenchanted with the Church or God.

Before I converted to Catholicism I used to look down on Catholics who just went through the motions - not understanding what they did at Mass or why they did it. During and after my conversion I realized that in Catholicism there is a greater danger of simply “going through the motions” - because there are more motions to go through. However, the task for the faithful Catholic is to try and prayerfully always keep in mind why he is doing what he’s doing. Sure this is harder than simply clapping along in an individualistic protestant worship service, but let us not forget that the Catholic Church is the one true Church. It is harder, but for whom much is given much is expected. I don’t necessarily think that every time you dip your finger in holy water and cross yourself upon entering a church you have to meditate deeply on your baptism (though I certainly wouldn’t begrudge it). I simply think one has to keep the reasons behind things in mind - and if you don’t know please ask.

Sorry, that was a little off subject - bit of a soapbox moment for me. Anyway, I think the main thing to consider - especially when one is aware of one’s lukewarmness, is to pray pray pray. God will not forsake or ignore you. Consult your priest. Ask the Blessed Mother for intercession to build in you a fire for God. Go to confession and receive our Lord in the Eucharist whenever possible. Expose yourself to God and His Church as much as you can.
 
You are correct to be concerned about being lukewarm in your faith, it is not pleasing in the eyes of God. It reflects laziness and unconcern for God, and leads one easily to sin. One must burn for the love of God, and wish to please Him above anything else, and that is only accomplished through prayer. We must make prayer central to our lives. Even when it seems rote and uninspired (and uninspiring) we must persevere in prayer. It helps to read as much as possible, always spiritual reading. Read about the Saints - that always helps stir up my Catholic zeal! Learn to despise the world and worldly things. Go to confession often, try to attend Mass on weekdays and not just on Sunday, spend time before Our Lord in the Tabernacle. He will hear you and be pleased. Make every action of your day an offering and prayer to God. Pray always! And if you do not already attend the Traditional Latin Mass, find one. Nothing is more conducive to lifting one’s heart and soul to God than the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass.
 
laudamus te,

The advice that you gave me sounds excellent but I have some questions to ask you:… How do we make prayer central to our lives? how do I pray always? and how or in what ways do we learn to despise the world and worldly things?

At this time in life I am a full-time student earning my level 1 cirtification in automotive mechanics, and I am also engaged to be married next year. As for my prayer life, my typical daily routine consists of 1 to 2 rosaries (depending on how tired I feel) as I drive to school in the morning and drive home after school (though there are cirtainly those days when I don’t pray it at all). I also attend weekly Mass and goto confession usualy every week or second/third week (depending on where/how I think/can tell I’ve sinned). Every so often I will goto a parish close by and spend some time before our Lord in the Tabernacle. I typicaly pray a four fold prayer after each meal I eat (which includes the St. Michael prayer) and I fast from meat on Fridays.
I would absolutely LOVE to attend the Traditional Latin Mass but unfortunately it is not legitimately offered in our city. Having said all that though, I admit that I haven’t been spending nearly as much time in solitude talking with our Lord because my current engagement is long distance, and so I’m usualy up late with my fiance because of the time differences between our cities (about 2hrs). Also, I don’t realy do many corporal works of mercy either but I do offer my daily physical and other sufferings up to our Lord in prayer (I am a cancer survivor and I have a mild form of depression and scruples).

The main things that seem to be dominating life for me right now are college and the time I spend with my fiance. As for worldly things, I admit that I own a nice little collection of movies and (even at age 32) I cirtainly enjoy my videogames (though I’m fasting from the games for lent). I also have a good collection of catholic books and my fiance and I study scripture and the Catechism together when we can. Ultimately, like eveyone else, I know that Christ is calling me to grow in holiness and be a saint, I just hope I’m doing all I can do please Him the capacity I able to.

Dominus Vobiscum,
Rocco
 
I don’t know about others, but it doesn’t sound like you are lukewarm to me.
 
More than anything else, lukewarmness is about failing to struggle in the interior life.

I’ve found a lot of St. Josemaria’s thoughts on the question to be very helpful. If you click on this link, it should pull up a whole series of points to ponder.

A blessed Triduum to all, and a joyful Easter. I myself should now resume the struggle and get off the computer until next week…

Margaret
 
roccoangelo said:
laudamus te,

The advice that you gave me sounds excellent but I have some questions to ask you:… How do we make prayer central to our lives? how do I pray always? and how or in what ways do we learn to despise the world and worldly things?

At this time in life I am a full-time student earning my level 1 cirtification in automotive mechanics, and I am also engaged to be married next year. As for my prayer life, my typical daily routine consists of 1 to 2 rosaries (depending on how tired I feel) as I drive to school in the morning and drive home after school (though there are cirtainly those days when I don’t pray it at all). I also attend weekly Mass and goto confession usualy every week or second/third week (depending on where/how I think/can tell I’ve sinned). Every so often I will goto a parish close by and spend some time before our Lord in the Tabernacle. I typicaly pray a four fold prayer after each meal I eat (which includes the St. Michael prayer) and I fast from meat on Fridays.
I would absolutely LOVE to attend the Traditional Latin Mass but unfortunately it is not legitimately offered in our city. Having said all that though, I admit that I haven’t been spending nearly as much time in solitude talking with our Lord because my current engagement is long distance, and so I’m usualy up late with my fiance because of the time differences between our cities (about 2hrs). Also, I don’t realy do many corporal works of mercy either but I do offer my daily physical and other sufferings up to our Lord in prayer (I am a cancer survivor and I have a mild form of depression and scruples).

The main things that seem to be dominating life for me right now are college and the time I spend with my fiance. As for worldly things, I admit that I own a nice little collection of movies and (even at age 32) I cirtainly enjoy my videogames (though I’m fasting from the games for lent). I also have a good collection of catholic books and my fiance and I study scripture and the Catechism together when we can. Ultimately, like eveyone else, I know that Christ is calling me to grow in holiness and be a saint, I just hope I’m doing all I can do please Him the capacity I able to.

Dominus Vobiscum,
Rocco
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Rocco,

I, myself, am still working on the questions you ask, especially making prayer central in my life. I have great difficulty with not letting my prayers become routine, particularly the repetitive ones which I say daily. I have tried to get past the temptation to forego certain prayers because of the fact that I feel a little mechanical with them, because I do believe it is a temptation from the devil. I have learned from a priest that once we begin giving up in little things, it easily leads to giving up the bigger, more important ones.

I think the ideal is to do everything for the glory of God, that is how you pray always. Offer all of your actions of each day to God, and keep this in the forefront of your mind all day. It is not an easy thing to do; we have so many distractions all around us. We must know that everything that we do which is good is only because of God’s grace and not due to any personal merit. Conversely, everything that we do which is not good is from ourselves.

We must desire to be saints. That is something I remember a priest saying in a sermon many years ago, and it has stuck with me. That we are all called to be saints, and we need to pray to God to help us become saints. Reading about the saints, learning about their lives and sufferings, is very inspirational and helpful.

Despising worldly things is simple on the face of it, but difficult in practice! I am working towards making a Consecration to Mary, becoming a slave to Jesus through Mary. One thing that is required is to despise worldly things. Attachments to things, even holy objects, should be avoided. We need to instill in ourselves a love of poverty, in imitation of the Holy Family. The virtue of humility, the opposite of the root of much sin, Pride, is so important to cultivate in our lives.

I hope this is helpful to you, though you seem to be on the right path and I doubt that I’m saying anything that you don’t already know.
 
Thanks so much to all of you. Little by little your responses are helping to shed some light on this for me.

laudamus te,

When it comes to prayer what I find is that some of my prayer is scheduled/routine and some of it it is reactionary. I know what your saying about how prayer at times feels mechanical. What I do in order to take the mechanical feel out of it is to pray as if the prayer wasn’t pre-written and more ‘off-the-cuff’. So, for example, when I pray the Hail Mary I pray it as if our Lady was standing in front of me and I’m just simply telling her something out of respect, honor and love for her. I try to take the pre-writteness out of it so that I make it more personal and from my own heart. I also allow my prayer to be spontanious and reactionary to events happening around me.

Deep down inside I know that I desire to be a saint. The problem I find though is that that desire at times weakens or fades, and then at other times it becomes stronger.

Like you, I also find it hard at times to despise and detach myself from worldly things. I’ll be the first to admit that as much as I detest secularism and hollywood, I seem to have no problems with collecting movies (some of which have numerous instances of verbal blasphemy) and I enjoy playing realy violent videogames. But I guess in saying those things I have to ask a simple question, and that is that as a future husband and father, to what degree and/or how am I to live a holy life which will be worthy of sainthood? I understand that people who choose consecrated religous life are called by Christ to a deeper life of prayer, solitude and contemplation than the average layman, but in what ways are laymen called to be saints? How do we make it to heaven (aside from offering our day to day stresses of family life)?

Dominus Vobiscum,
Rocco
 
Rocco,

The fluxuations in your desire to be saintly is very normal. Even the great saints had this problem. The good thing is knowing that you want to combat the weak moments, rather than simply give in to them. I’m really not the one to give advice about this. All I can do is recommend good reading, and I won’t hesitate to recommend reading about St. Therese of Liseux, and especially her own writings. She was very humble, but such a “normal” person in so many ways. Her “little way” is not too hard to imagine putting to use in our own lives.

I hope you won’t mind my saying, but I think you ought to put aside the attachment to movies and video games, at the very least the movies which are in any way counter to Catholic values (which is most every movie of our generation, and many of the older ones as well), and games which are violent. These things are too often roadblocks to sanctity and purity of thought.

It is certainly possible to lead a life of sanctity as a married man. If that is what God is calling you to, you accept and embrace it just as a priest does the religious life. It is an awesome responsibility when you think of the souls which, God willing, will be entrusted to your care. You will work out your salvation, in part, by how you treat your wife and raise your children. There is a very good book called The Holy Man of Tours, about the life of Leo Dupont who was instrumental in establishing the devotion to the Holy Face. I think you might like it:
tanbooks.com/index.php/page/shop:flypage/product_id/322/category_id/39/
 
I recommend frequent Confession (weekly), frequent reception of the Eucharist (at LEAST once a week), and daily recitation of the rosary. Also set aside some time every day for the reading of Scripture and/or Catholic literature (lives of the saints are always a good choice). Regular private visits to the Blessed Sacrament in the tabernacle should also never be overlooked – it transforms lives.
 
roccoangelo said:
Deep down inside I know that I desire to be a saint. The problem I find though is that that desire at times weakens or fades, and then at other times it becomes stronger.
as a future husband and father, to what degree and/or how am I to live a holy life which will be worthy of sainthood? in what ways are laymen called to be saints? How do we make it to heaven (aside from offering our day to day stresses of family life)?
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Back again, and it isn’t even Easter yet… 🙂

Your words really jumped out at me, Rocco. I belong to Opus Dei, and our whole “thing” is reminding people of the universal call to holiness. I know Opus Dei isn’t everybody’s cup of tea, and that’s totally fine, but I was hoping that some of the things I’ve learned in it might be helpful to you, because they are pretty much directed towards any of the laity.
On the contrary, you must understand now, more clearly, that God is calling you to serve Him in and from the ordinary, material and secular activities of human life. He waits for us every day, in the laboratory, in the operating theatre, in the army barracks, in the university chair, in the factory, in the workshop, in the fields, in the home and in all the immense panorama of work. Understand this well: there is something holy, something divine, hidden in the most ordinary situations, and it is up to each one of you to discover it… There is no other way. Either we learn to find our Lord in ordinary, everyday life, or else we shall never find Him. That is why I can tell you that our age needs to give back to matter and to the most trivial occurrences and situations their noble and original meaning. It needs to restore them to the service of the Kingdom of God, to spiritualize them, turning them into a means and an occasion for a continuous meeting with Jesus Christ. (St. Josemaria, Passionately Loving the World.)
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The best explanation I’ve read of “how to do this in real life” is a piece written several years ago by a philosophy prof. named Michael Pakaluk. You can read it here at EWTN.

Daily Mass, mental prayer, the Rosary and spiritual reading are some “pillars” that help support the struggle to remain close to Jesus throughout the day.

Lastly, spiritual direction is invaluable for anybody, anywhere, who is serious about holiness. Depending on where you are and who you know, finding a good director can take some doing. But these kinds of questions about overcoming lukewarmness are ideally addressed in direction, either in the context of confession or separately.

Hope this helps, gotta run,

Margaret
 
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