Obsession with the Church, spiritual gluttony

[brigid12]

On reading from St. Catherine’s Dialog, this morning I read about Our Lord requesting that Catherine meditate on the Passion ( most of the Saints I’ve read about talked about this as being their strongest recommendation). It would seem to me that such meditation, over and over, would break any spiritual gluttony, as you describe.

 

[Monica4316]

Sorry to pollute this forum with a second thread today - I’m not a big poster so I’ll do my worst

My problem is: That I love reading books about the Church, lives of the saints, encyclicals, spiritual books, the ‘ask an apologist’ section of this here forum, watching DVDs of catecheses, listening to podcasts, etc., but I VERY rarely find the concentration or will to pray or to read scripture. I feel like a spiritual glutton, eating up the entertaining and juicy bits and avoiding anything that involves self-sacrifice or the slightest bit of patience. I get paranoid about this, and feel guilty doing any of the aforementioned things, while they are not bad in themselves. I get so paranoid that I also feel guilty when experiencing any spiritual ‘sweetness’ whatsoever, whether that be a particular moment in the mass or fraternising with other Catholics or singing the psalms with my wife.

Is this normal? Is there anyone here with a similar experience, and if so what do you do to combat it? Here I am procrastinating again when it’s probably an issue of will… your help is appreciated.

Peace.

Hi, I think that all these things exist to nurture us in our faith. They are not in themselves important, but rather the fruit they’re supposed to produce in our soul. If you find yourself being too interested in them for their own sake, maybe you could consider giving them up for Lent and focusing more on self sacrifice, penance, and patience. and then afterwards, get back to all the readings with new appreciation for them. Try spending more time in prayer, especially before the Blessed Sacrament.

God bless.

 

[LynnGM]

OP, thank the Lord for your curious mind and your love of reading.

I love reading about spiritual things. Sometimes, I did read spiritual stuff so that I could be a “know it all”. NOW, thank you Jesus, I read them to learn and become inspired.

I like to read, so I started researching the Holy Grail stories. I printed out study guides from the internet. I also finished two versions w/ commentary on Beowulf. And, I’m going to conquer Anglo-Saxon petry and the lais of Marie De France. There are Christian overtones in many of these works- they are “academic” enough for me to feel “smart”.

Just sharing my experience. Take what you like and leave the rest!