My struggle - anyone share it?

[Gottle_of_Geer]

reen12:

Hi, Gottle of Geer

quote: Gottle of Geer

An interesting analogy, thinking of God as a novelist.

Of course, God revealed Himself at Sinai, formed the
Covenant with Israel, spoke to His people through the prophets.
Then, too, there was the Ark of the Covenant [the Shekinah?]
and the Holy of Holies in the Temple.

These, too, were ways in which “limited man can meet
the limitless God.”

Best,
reen12

The reason for concentrating on Christ is that He is:​

• Personal
• not a fact of the past only

• whereas, the giving of the covenant at Sinai is not a present fact: the God Whom it reveals, very definitely is.

And given that there are so many veils between us and God, the encounter with the God-Man that comes by faith, heart to heart, was the most nearly immediate I could think of. For Jesus shows Who God Is - He is the human face of the God of Sinai: Moses could not see the Lord face to Face (Exodus 33.20 makes clear why), whereas, for Christians, to see Jesus, is to see the Father (John 14).

 

[J.W.B]

I suffer from much distress since I became a Christian. Like I have said I have such a beautiful peace but a GREAT GREATER saddness. Because of all the “do not do this” and “do not do that” I am constanotly worried that I DID do something. I am worried that I AM doing something. The doctors say I have OCD (Obessesive Compulsive Disorder) and because of that I am parinoisd, especialy since I am now Christian. I just do not know what to do. Sometimes I’ll read the Bible and a voice within me is saying “all of this is not for you because you are dammed.” And it makes me mourn and misrable I do not really want to say the things that bother me but I wish I could just live my life with God peacfully. But NO I CANNOT!!!

One day I’ll be persecuted and I’ll have hateful feeling toward that person and so I’ll imaged that I killed him and then my mind says “Oh see, you murdered him and you know its true because REMEMBER that hateful feeling you had. Now you must turn yourselve in and if not then God will not forgive you.” Or I’ll remember a girlfriend I had in the past and and I’ll image that I married her or I’ll have a lustful thought pass through my head of a woman in the present and imagine I married her and that voice within me says “Oh you must leave your wife your with now because you know in the past you have already gotten married and so you’re now in an adultery state and will go to hell if you die.” I JUST CAN NOT STAND IT. I do not know what to do. Nothing helps me, people, medicine, nothing! I am so sick of feeling the way I do. When I feel fine then I pray more and stay away from sin with such ease. But so much of the time I have these concerns and I just do not know what to do. Every single day is a struggle. I just wish God would appear to me or send a Saint or an Angel to tell me the truth so I can LIVE!

 

[enanneman]

I am Catholic because the Catholic Church states it is the church that Christ founded and the tens of thousands of dissenting denominations have never been able to disprove this claim.

Peace and God bless!

Eric

 

[Lux_et_veritas]

I have a cousin who is an intellectual and also has struggled with her Catholic faith on and off.

Here is what I told her and she is in her late thirties while I am 43.

1. We need to realize just how shoddy our “Jesus Loves Me” Catechism was and work to fill in lots of blanks with things like the Catechism of Fr. John Hardon, who was a good theologian that wrote several catechetical books. He has since passed, but fondly remembered by many.

amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/038508045X/ref=pd_bxgy_img_2/104-2887445-3279107?v=glance&s=books

1. Faith is about trust - trust in what Jesus passed on to us through the Church he established - the Catholic Church. This means few will actually be able to “see” him after his death as the apostles did. Remember what he said to doubting Thomas who just had to stick his hand in the side of Jesus.

“Because you have seen me, you have believed; blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed” (John 20:27-29)

What I suggested to my cousin is to consider faith this way and in this order.

1. Know the teaching
2. Obey the teaching
3. Seek to understand the teaching through prayer and research.

Why does obey come before understanding it? Because we have to trust that the Holy Spirit has worked through the Church and its teaching institution.

We cannot profess trust in the Holy Spirit without professing trust in the Papacy and the Magisterium. To do otherwise, is a significant conflict of faith.

Therefore, to have faith, we must show trust.

I have found that whenever I struggled with grasping something intellectually and praying for understanding, that it eventually comes. It could be in hours, days, weeks, months, or many years. It will happen on His terms, never ours. Of course it helps when we ask questions and look things up in sanctioned material. But, many of the understandings I’ve gained, came suddenly in a moment of prayer or even standing in line at a grocery store. If such understandings are validated through church doctrine then they are authentic understandings. If they conflict with church doctrine, then it is a problem.

God loves an obedient heart and I have not found him to deny me understanding thus far when I’ve requested it. But, he may put us to the test to see if we will follow the law, command, teaching or doctrine that we struggle with to see if we trust him.

Obedience out of knowledge is good. Obedience out of pure trust in the Holy Spirit, in the absence of knowledge is far more precious to the Lord.

Make sense? I hope it works for you as it seems to be working for her.

 

[mark_a]

Mijoy2:

As I read through the threads in these forums, I discover the majority of people who frequent here appear to be of a strong unwaivering faith. Either people here do not struggle as I do or they chose to keep thier doubts and doubtful moments to themselves.

I struggle no longer with the Church, but with faith. I must admit my faith weakens when life is smooth, so I especially try to pray at these times. Prayer is at the top if my priority list when times are tough.

My struggles are unceasing. I have come to believe that I will always suffer with them to the same degree I struggle with them today. The reasons for this, I feel, are intellectual ( I didn’t say intellient I said intellectual). It seems the more I study, the more questions I encounter. I feel answers to these questions
are never fully satisfying. They simply lead to the next round of questions.

Its like you read my mind.

Let me attempt to state it this way. The simple fact that apologetics are necassary, or purhaps better put, exist at all, I find troubling. It is simply an infinitly long struggle of people trying to convince people they have the truth. We (Catholics, Evangelicals, Muslims, JW, Atheists…etc)
all use the same tools to make our point(s). It becomes a battle of wit and intellect. This alone is deeply disturbing to me.

If you have a New St. Joseph Sunday Missal, check out page 520 (20th Sunday in ordinary time).

I have to ask why would God give us such a confusing revelation

In my humble opinion, God gave us authoritative leadership.

that the entire world is in vast disagreement as to how to interpret this revelation.

Then men tried to take authority upon themselves.

This post doesn’t come from a person who is not trying to understand. In fact, it has become an obsession. While pondering what is Truth, I go to Mass twice a week, say the rosary fairly often, have brought my family to the church, and read the bible nightly, have read dozens of books by dozens of wonderful authors. . I’d do more if I wasn’t away from home 60+ hours a week making a living. Yet I ramain unsatified.

Sounds like you are right on track. It is hard to to be satisfied with an unsolvable mystery.

I find, when praying, I am always praying with a certain despondence. I pray with mixed emotion, wanting desperatly to believe someone is hearing me, yet feeling a bit the fool
for even hoping. When praying the rosary I am constantly interupting my prayer and asking forgiveness for not fully believing anyone is listening.

Sometimes it helps to pray for someone that has passed to the next life. That to me is a large part of the hope that God puts in us, that we will one day be with all our loved ones. I personally am not sure of the value of an afterlife without that hope.

I don’t know how to bring this struggle to an end. I fear I never will.

I hope God places some value on the faith we cling to through persistent doubts.

Thanks. Answering your questions to myself has some therapeutic value.

 

[Catholic_Logger]

Mijoy2 –

I share your problem . A book composed of a selection of Padre Pio’s letters to his spiritual directors entitled “Secrets of a Soul” (Pauline Books and Media, 2003) has helped me immensly .

The letters reveal the temptations and struggles this Saint went through. I find he was not too much different from the rest of us (except he had the stigmata, could prophesy, could bi-locate, could work miracles, oh, yeah, and he was a saint, etc… )!!

“My Father, how difficult it is to beleive!”, he exclaims in one letter. My gosh, if Padre Pio had difficulty sometimes beleiving (and look how he turned out ), I guess I should’t stress too much about occasional feelings of lack of faith . I just pray to Jesus to increase my faith, and continue persisting in my walk with him – leaving the “increasing faith part” up to Him to work on.

“My God! – Even going to the altar, I feel such assaults! But Jesus is with me, what can I possibly fear?”, Padre Pio also said. This pretty much says it all. If Padre Pio was even tempted AT THE ALTAR, surely I should not flip out about my comparatively minute temptations . “Jesus is with me, what can I possibly fear?”

My advice is this: even if you don’t have faith, pray to Jesus for faith and continue perseverance in good works, acts of charity and mercy, and fighting temptation. Jesus will take care of the rest.

CL

 

[reen12]

Dear J.W.B.,

quote: J.W.B.,

I suffer from much distress since I became a Christian. Like I have said I have such a beautiful peace but a GREAT GREATER saddness. Because of all the “do not do this” and “do not do that” I am constanotly worried that I DID do something. I am worried that I AM doing something. The doctors say I have OCD (Obessesive Compulsive Disorder) and because of that I am parinoisd, especialy since I am now Christian. I just do not know what to do. Sometimes I’ll read the Bible and a voice within me is saying “all of this is not for you because you are dammed.” And it makes me mourn and misrable I do not really want to say the things that bother me but I wish I could just live my life with God peacfully. But NO I CANNOT!!!

Please have peace of heart, my friend.
I, too, have OCD, and my life has been a misery to
me for more years than I can count - until recently.

There are two things that I found helped me:

1} Make a clear distinction between what I DO
and what I THINK.
2} What I THINK or IMAGINE is the stuff of cotton candy!
It has no more *moral *reality than a feather-weight

Two professionals in psychology/psychiatry have worked
with me for years, pointing out the distinction between
thought and action.

Say a picture of doing something sinful “pops” into
my mind. It seems to go round and round in a loop.
But, I don’t want the thought or image there…it’s just
THERE.

The question is: What have I DONE?

Well, actually, I may have been chomping on a
peanut butter and jelly sandwitch, when the thought
“popped” into my mind
.
The REALITY is: What I did was eat my lunch.

What is UNREAL is the thought…it affects no-one,
since I didn’t want the thought, and I didn’t ask the
thought to pull up a chair and have a chat!

---

I was reading in a book on Judaic thought the other
day, and the point was not only made, but stressed,
that it is not helpful, to walk around, considering myself
‘sinful’, if I try my best and ask God for forgiveness
for any *real *wrong *action *that I have done.
Why?
Because the exhaution and feeling of worthlessness
that comes with continually “feeling” sinful makes me
feel less energy to do positive work in the service of God.
That thought made me feel such relief.

---

So, the next time I actually DO what I am having
a thought or image about, I’ll repent.

If these are just thoughts and images, they are of no
more significance than pesky flies at a picnic!

[Oh, there’s Mrs. so and so, with her walker, at the
picnic. Forget the “flies” [thoughts] and I’ll go help
her make her way to the picnic bench!]

---

No, it’s not as simple as this, I know. When the
thought-loop starts: I’m not worthy, all this is
for them, not for me…as much as you can…relax,
cherish the reality that God loves you very much,
and that He doesn’t want you to suffer in this way.

With you in the struggle, and I am so sorry that you
are suffering with this,

reen12

 

[Other_Eric]

Lux_et_veritas:

What I suggested to my cousin is to consider faith this way and in this order.

1. Know the teaching
2. Obey the teaching
3. Seek to understand the teaching through prayer and research.

Why does obey come before understanding it? Because we have to trust that the Holy Spirit has worked through the Church and its teaching institution.

We cannot profess trust in the Holy Spirit without professing trust in the Papacy and the Magisterium. To do otherwise, is a significant conflict of faith.

Therefore, to have faith, we must show trust.

I have found that whenever I struggled with grasping something intellectually and praying for understanding, that it eventually comes. It could be in hours, days, weeks, months, or many years. It will happen on His terms, never ours. Of course it helps when we ask questions and look things up in sanctioned material. But, many of the understandings I’ve gained, came suddenly in a moment of prayer or even standing in line at a grocery store. If such understandings are validated through church doctrine then they are authentic understandings. If they conflict with church doctrine, then it is a problem.

God loves an obedient heart and I have not found him to deny me understanding thus far when I’ve requested it. But, he may put us to the test to see if we will follow the law, command, teaching or doctrine that we struggle with to see if we trust him.

Obedience out of knowledge is good. Obedience out of pure trust in the Holy Spirit, in the absence of knowledge is far more precious to the Lord.

Make sense? I hope it works for you as it seems to be working for her.

Hi Lux_et_veritas!

Isn’t some basic form of understanding implicit in the ability to obey in the first place? Say, for instance, that God asks me to build for Him a particle accelerator. I know what God wants me to do but I cannot do it unless I understand how. Consider the directive to be chaste. An improper understanding of this teaching may lead an overly scrupulous person away from any human contact which could lead to despair, a sin against the Holy Spirit.

Perhaps what you mean is that understanding the reasons behind a moral directive follows obedience to it. This is different from understanding what, exactly, the directive asks of us in the first place.

 

[juancross]

Keep moving forward towards Jesus dont look left nor right or backwards we all share these struggles prayer for a stronger faith is good advice.
God Bless
:gopray: :gopray: