Newly Confirmed Catholic; so why do I feel so weird?

[jamieileana]

Sort of a long story here but here goes and I hope no way gets bothered by this: When I was somewhere between 11 and 14 (i’m now 54) a friend of mine and me did some seance with a candle and gave our souls to the devil A year or so later i was 'saved" in a basement of a Christian coffee shop having forgotten all about the soul thing. A few years after that the movie the Exorcist came out and i’ve been haunted by the images of that movie every since! It also reminded me of what I had done when I was younger.

I’ve always felt that even though I had been baptized Lutheran in 1987 that maybe it didnt stick or work and that the selling of my soul is over ridden cause I did that before I ever was saved.

So since September i’ve been in classes to become a catholic. I’ve had a lot of ups and down during this time. I’ve had a lot of doubt, anger and frustration about the whole thing of having to take these long classes just to become a catholic while when I became a Lutheran they immediately accepted me into the church with little preperation which I think was good!

So now today I was received and confirmed and had the Holy Communion. I was happy about it all and I was so happy to get the seal of the Holy Spirit! So what happened? I had a nagging thought today about that dang deal with the devil I made and it through me into a literal panic attack that i was bawling my eyes out to my husband about what I had done with I was younger.

So all day i’ve been ruined with thoughts of that and unable to enjoy mynew Catholism instead., excuse my spelling please, sorry.
So I wonder if some of this feeling is because maybe I should of went with my gut and not became catholic because I do not like all their “rules” and what you have to go through and the fact that several people I know that are catholic are not very nice people including my aunto growing up, she was thee most bitter person i knew of and she was thee most religious person i knew and introduced me to the catholic church when i was young yet we went to bible school at a lutheran church with friends and I considered myself lutheran growing up although we were supposedly baptized Catholic when we were little but no records of it exist.

I had my kdis baptized too in 1987 as Lutheran and myself as well. Maybe I feel some sense of loyalty to the lutheran church for being there for me and none to the catholic because of how i’ve felt about others being catholic and all that you have to do to become a catholic.

I dont know what is wrong with me. I should be beaming from ear to ear instead I am feeling so angry and apprehensive as if i did a bad thing. I cant help but think that maybe cause of what I did with my soul that I dont have it any more and he really does have it and even becoming baptized and or catholic cannot get it back or I would not feel this way, right?

I pray someone can shed some light on this for me. i just wanted to be so blessed with the Holy Spirit and be so happy but instead i feel awful about everything. can anyone help with what i am saying? I am so praying someone can and many many thanks for anyone who reads this.

 

[Fr.Vincent_Serpa]

Hi,
The best thing to do when one is feeling down about oneself is to turn one’s attention to the Lord, particularly to His Passion. There we see how much he loves us and all that really matters is that we respond with all that we are. He takes care of the rest: all our shortcomings and weaknesses. Below is a reflection to help you focus. Have at it. You are in my prayers.
Fr. Vincent Serpa, O.P.
Reflection on the Passion of Our Lord Jesus Christ +

The agony in the garden was really the agony in His mind. He suffered the passion in His mind before He suffered it in His body—to the point of actually affecting the latter by sweating blood. But from then on, it was His bodily suffering that affected His mental suffering.

At the base of all His suffering was the one thing that human beings dread the most: rejection. He was betrayed by Judas, denied by Peter and abandoned by all the rest of His Apostles; those He had hand picked as His closest intimates. He was most rejected by those who put Him to death. They not only wanted Him dead, they wanted Him to suffer. They not only considered Him to be worth nothing, they considered Him to be worth minus nothing! This significance was not lost on Him. He felt fully the rejection as each physical agony reminded Him.

So we thank Him for joining us on our human journey and actually choosing to experience what we fear the most.

We thank Him for enduring the arrest and the cruelty of the guards and the Sanhedrin. We thank Him for enduring the cruelty of Pilate who allowed Him to be executed rather than risk his own political ruin—and for the cruelty of Herod who wanted to be entertained by having Him work a miracle. We thank Him for all the time He spent satisfying their preoccupation with themselves, just delaying His ultimate death. We thank Him for the anxiety of that night in a cell.

The next morning He was brutally scourged with such intensity and violence that He became as an aged man in a matter of minutes. His multiple wounds bloodied His entire body. The loss of so much blood not only severely weakened Him; it also caused a severe, throbbing headache that remained with Him for the duration.

We thank Him for this and for the mockery He received when they put a purple cloth on His shoulders and pushed a crown of thorns down into His head which intensified His headache. They blindfolded Him and slapped Him, insisting that He ‘prophesy’ who had hit Him. They spat on Him and beat Him.

He stood at the praetorium in utter disgrace according to the attitude of the crowd—while in reality, He stood in utter glory: almighty God, being present to every person who has ever suffered rejection, joining them in their moment of pain. It was there that He was sentenced to death by crucifixion. Physically, He was utterly miserable. He revealed to St. Bernard that carrying the cross was His most painful agony. He was so weak, He could hardly walk. Nauseous and thirsty, He found the weight of the cross on His shoulder almost unbearable. It most likely dislocated His shoulder. It is not surprising that He fell down on the stone streets that were filthy with animal dung—with the cross on top of Him. And He got up each time.

It was only with the help of Simon of Cyrene that He made it to the top of Calvary. There they drove the nails into the carpal tunnels of His hands, causing pain throughout His upper body. The nail in His feet registered great pain through all the sensitive nerves there. When the cross was righted, His up-stretched arms squeezed His lungs and He began to pant for lack of oxygen. So He had to push down on His crucified feet to push His body up in order to fill His lungs with air. This took great effort because He was so weak. Yet He managed to maintain such effort for three hours of agony which increased gradually as He became weaker moment by moment.

By the end of the third hour, His agony was at its peak. He had come to the point where His strength simply gave out and He suffocated. In this eternal moment as He died, He gave us His life. Transcending time, this moment of divine love is present to us in the tabernacles of the world.

Thank you, Lord. We adore you O Christ and we praise you. By your holy cross, you have redeemed the world.