...my desire for the Eucharist is all I am holding onto right now

[CB_Catholic]

Esther Rose,
I took care of a patient today (I’m a nurse) that had a little hole in her hip area over a two month old surgical site. She put a dressing on it and let it go until she saw her surgeon. Then she showed it to him. He squeezed it and all kinds of nasty stuff came out. He took her to surgery as soon as he could, because under that little hole was a nasty infection. He had to open up that wound and clean all that infection out, or it would have spread further and possibly cost her her life. Now that reminds me of what is happening to you. All those bandaids have to come off and all those wounds have to be cleaned out before they are going to heal. Otherwise they will just sit there and fester. And, like any surgery, it is going to hurt. When we expose our wounds to the Great Physician, He is going to do the same thing that surgeon did. He is going to cleanse them so they can heal.
Please get some professional help and get this stuff out in the open and let God heal it. God works through people. Find a good counselor. It is definitely going to hurt, but don’t be afraid, trust Jesus. You have too much living to do–don’t let it be miserable. Continue to pray and seek Jesus, and hold on to your faith, but get some help–the Lord will guide you in this. You are in my prayers.

 

[PatienceAndLove]

ER:
Read “Hinds Feet in High Places”. I reread it this week and it made me think of you.

 

[Neophyte_Rose]

Saturday was Imbolc, or a day when I formerly would’ve lit a candle in every window and done many other things to worship my once patron goddess. Instead, Saturday morning at daily Mass I renounced her. I went to evening Mass, too.

But I gave in on Saturday night, and did a small spell to distance myself from all of my suffering. I’ve been hurting so much lately, from depression and whatnot. I’m sort’ve getting used to feeling nothing, alternated with an odd sort of panic over my life.

Later at night, a very good friend of mine called me and prayed a rosary with me. I am so thankful for her.

I went to confession Sunday morning, and though I didn’t really have contrition I did have what my confessor called “attrition”. He said the prayer of absolution over me, and I went to Mass.

After Mass, I was told to meet outside with the other students at my school. We gathered around, and some people were crying.

Then they told us that there had been an accident. A group of our friends had been driving to a nearby town on Saturday, and they went through the ice on the river.

Two made it out, two weren’t found. They found their bodies today.

We’re a small school, and we’re all hurting from this. We’re concerned and worried about the two who made it out; we know they’re in the best hands, but we miss them. We’re grieving for the two we lost, and taking comfort in the fact that no two people at this school were more “ready”, or solid in their faith.

Then today, I find out two people I love very dearly are going in to be tested for cancer.

Part of me is thinking, does God hate me? Is this punishment somehow? Or maybe, maybe it’s the goddess I denounced in my heart and in prayer, on Saturday, maybe she’s taking vengance.

I know it’s crazy. And I’ve spoken to my spiritual director.

I won’t lose my faith. All I have to do is remember how I felt at Easter, and I know that I belong to a God who loves me.

Just… sometimes it’s so tempting to give in, and sometimes everything is just way too much.

We are having a movie night tonight though, to help create a sense of “normal” for us and to bring us together. I’m going there now.

Just keep me, and all my schoolmates, and my two dearest of friends, in your prayers. Please.

Pax Christi,
Esther Rose

 

[Feedmysheep]

Dear Ester,

Briefly, please look at and consider praying all the prayers on this website:
catholicwarriors.com/pages/warfare_prayers.htm

specifically, this one:
*Prayer for a Spiritual Canopy

Dear Lord Jesus, please forgive me for all the times I have not submitted to you. Forgive me for all sinfulness and for agreeing with the enemy and his lies. I now submit to you as my Lord, dear Jesus. Now I break every agreement that I have made with the enemy.

Lord Jesus, please have your warring angels remove and bind to the abyss all demons and their devices that had access to me because I believed their lies. I now ask you to establish a hedge of protection around me, over me, and under me, and seal it with your blood, Lord Jesus Christ.

I now choose to put on the full armor of God and ask that you cleanse me and seal me, body, mind, soul and spirit, with your blood, Lord Jesus Christ. Please have your warring angels bind up and remove all demons, their devices, and all their power from within this protective hedge and have them sent to the abyss.

Please have your warriors destroy all demonic, occult, or witchcraft assignments directed against me including all backups and replacements. Please have your warriors remove all trafficking people and send them back to their own bodies and seal them there with your blood, Lord Jesus Christ. Please have your angels stand guard over me and protect me from all the attacks of the enemy.*

I, too, am a Catholic convert from a pagan past, and these prayers really helped me release a lot of very negative bonds that I didn’t even realize were still connected to me.

PM me if you need to.

FMS

 

[PatienceAndLove]

Did you pick up the book I recommended?

 

[Muzhik]

Esther;

“God perceives the imperfections within us, and because of his love for us, urges us to grow up. His love is not content to leave us in our weakness, and for this reason he takes us into a dark night. He weans us from all of the pleasures by giving us dry times and inward darkness. In doing so he is able to take away all these vices and create virtues within us. Through the dark night pride becomes humility, greed becomes simplicity, wrath becomes contentment, luxury becomes peace, gluttony becomes moderation, envy becomes joy, and sloth becomes strength. No soul will ever grow deep in the spiritual life unless God works passively in that soul by means of the Dark Night.”

Saint John of the Cross

(Believe it or not, I found this on a strongly Protestant web site!)

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[Belle10]

All of these things cover up some extremely deep, extremely old and quite likely infected wounds. Spiritual wounds that have been ignored, because the pressure of all these bandaides helps me to function normally and forget about the pain. Helps me to just not feel it at all.

Hi Esther Rose :hug1:
You’ve shared some important things here. All the old habits (paganism and such) as you said, cover up those old wounds. Paganism and Wicca bilnded you, numbed you to feeling the pain, and that’s why you embraced them so strongly. They didn’t make the pain go away, they just hid the wound, but they weren’t even band-aids: band-aids protect a sore from getting more germs in it and getting worse. Wicca was like a funnel for the germs, giving them easy access to the hurts you didn’t know how to heal.

My “bandaides”, so to speak, are all gone.

Good! You don’t need band-aids when you have the Divine Healer, our Lord Jesus Christ, to bring you back to health.

I want to hide from my own pain, my own issues.

Don’t hide. The pain you’re feeling is there for a reason. Pain let’s us know that something is wrong and that we need to do something about it. If touch something hot it hurts so that you’ll move your hand away from danger. It’s the same here: your pain is there to motivate you to get the help you need. Get to a counselor, a Catholic one if possible. See if that person can meet with your spiritual director too – a unified approach to dealing with the many issues you’ve mentioned would be the most successful I would think.

I’m an easy target for spiritual attack right now, because God has stripped away all my bandaides. He’s getting to the wounds, and they’re tasting air and it stings. It hurts.

You have stripped away the things that were keeping you from God. A few of the old germs of Wicca are still there - you’ve cleaned away as many as you could on your own, and now it’s time to get help to get the rest of them out of there.

Please, please keep praying. Keep praying the Rosary, the chaplet of Divine Mercy, and any other prayers - even just informal ones. Prayer is powerful - one of the best weapons we have in fighting the evil one. Please read this, Ephesians 6:10-20:

10 Finally, my brethren, be strong in the Lord and in the power of His might. 11 Put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil. 12 For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this age,[c] against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places. 13 Therefore take up the whole armor of God, that you may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand.
14 Stand therefore, having girded your waist with truth, having put on the breastplate of righteousness, 15 and having shod your feet with the preparation of the gospel of peace; 16 above all, taking the shield of faith with which you will be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked one. 17 And take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God; 18 praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit, being watchful to this end with all perseverance and supplication for all the saints— 19 and for me, that utterance may be given to me, that I may open my mouth boldly to make known the mystery of the gospel, 20 for which I am an ambassador in chains; that in it I may speak boldly, as I ought to speak.

Remember, draw near to God and He will draw near to you (James 4:8). YOU CAN DO THIS WITH THE HELP OF JESUS - HE IS ALWAYS WITH YOU. :hug1: