R
ready
Guest
You’re welcome, Methodi! And thank you for remembering me in your prayers. That means a lot to me!
- Status
R
ready
Guest
Don’t worry Bataar, this life is just a twinkle of the eye compared to what is being prepared for us for all eternity. All we have to do is return God’s love for us by loving our neighbor as ourself. The next life will be our home and is actually our only true home. We suffer alienation and abandonment and suffering in this life because of our first parents’ original sin. Life became difficult for us. But there is still good, Bataar. There is Someone who died on a cross for us so our sins would be forgiven and gave us Himself in the Holy Eucharist for our nourishing food and comfort, to give us strength to go on when life is dark and miserable. When we fail and lose our state of grace, like our first parents, we have the sacrament of Confession to reconcile us to Him and fill us with hope and love again. If life and people treat you badly, go to eucharistic adoration and talk to Jesus about it. Talk to people about it too. Develop a relationship with your Mother, the Blessed Virgin Mary and pray the rosary, which has great promises associated with it. You have friends on this forum. Turn to them when you need assistance and always ask our prayer warriors for prayers when you need them. Even though you may not experience God’s consolations, he loves you more than you or anyone could love you. Jesus suffered in his life, like you do, and on the third day was resurrected. You’ll suffer pain too in this life. Find God operating amid your suffering conforming you to His Son, blessing you and giving you opportunity to bear sufferings like His Son, Jesus and WITH Jesus for the redemption of souls like Jesus did, only you’ll be suffering WITH Him - He did it all alone with His Father. The more you resemble Jesus crucified in this life, the more you will resemble Him in glory in the next. God is preparing you for glory. He will keep calling you to draw closer to Him, to tell Him your sorrows, to depend on Him completely. He wants you not to suffer alone but with Him. He wants you to unite your sufferings to His and offer it up to Him for your salvation and for the salvation of souls - for the Kingdom. You will gain much merit and will be doing a great and beautiful thing for all souls who need those graces for their conversions.
I’ve tried all that or at least most of it. I used to make Holy Hours to a chapel with Eucharistic adoration at least once a week but stopped after a while because I didn’t feel like I was getting anything out of it. I have the intellectual knowledge about Jesus and Mary and the saints, but that’s it. No emotional connection or anything like that. Because of my aspergers, I don’t form emotional connections with anyone/thing unless they/it provides useful which, I’m sad to say, never seems to come from anything spiritual.
I go to Mass pretty much because you have to. I don’t feel like I get anything out of it. It’s hard to love God when he’s so unresponsive and doesn’t seem to provide me with anything helpful. Heck, even when I pray for strength to avoid certain sins, I don’t even get that. You’d think God would at least respond positively in someway to that. I’m not saying God doesn’t exist or anything. Like I said, I have the intellectual knowledge, but no emotional connection or passion to back it up. And believe me, I’ve prayed to have passion too.
D
DebChris
Guest
You do not need to answer this question publicly. Have you found a social support group?
How much scriptural reading do you do? Don’t worry about the emotional attachments at this point. I know those are difficult. Simply set aside a certain amount of time each day to read. I would think with your Asperger’s you would more than likely simply sit down and start reading. Instead of reading the Bible in one sitting, just read 3 chapters a day. That will take about 15 minutes. Then stop. In one year, you will have read the Bible from cover to cover.
Many people, even those without Asperger’s, go to Mass simply out of obligation. From your post I gather that you want more. That is a good thing.
Are you praying for yourself alone, or have you asked others to pray for you as well? Again, this is a question best left unanswered, at least publicly. Take your concerns into the confessional the next time that you go.
Have you learned how enter into centering prayer? It will not be easy letting go of thoughts, but it will allow the emotions to be activated more than focusing only on the cognitive.
Do you ride a horse? This can help reshape the brain to improve instinctive communication patterns.
What I am saying is to use the natural resources at your disposal. These too are provided in answer to prayer. It is just not the instantaneous response that members of our society expect. Some things do take time.
No, I don’t have one. I don’t like talking about issues verbally. I need time to see a question/issue and formulate a response. It’s really hard to do that in a social environment where you have to come up with responses on the fly without having time to think things through.
I’ve read the entire New Testament and most of the Old. I don’t read it regularly because I’ve already done so. I can’t cite chapter/verse, but I know the stories, key points, etc.
I just want it to be meaningful. It’s hard to participate in anything if it doesn’t seem meaningful.
I’ll ask family members to pray for me, but I don’t give them any kind of specific details about anything. I know my mom prays for me on a regular basis (she prays for everyone in the family on a regular basis), but I’m not sure if anyone else does.
I hate to say it, but the priests in my area are pretty much jokes. Half the time, I’m not even sure if the confession is valid because there’s things they don’t say, or certain things they do, like telling me to walk around the school playing field (because God is just as present there as he is in the church, his words.) and that it’s more important for me to forgive myself than it is for God to forgive me.
I’ve never even heard centering prayer.
Unfortunately, no.
I know, but I don’t consider 15 years instantaneous. I have no passion about anything, no friends, no real relationships, I don’t like being around people, but don’t like being alone all the time. I’m not really happy about anything, don’t have any kind of discernable (is that word?) vocation and no matter how much I pray for things to change or for guidance or to know God’s will, nothing changes at all. Which makes me believe that this must be God’s will which is even more depressing.
D
DebChris
Guest
When I mentioned a social support group, I meant one specifically for individuals with Asperger’s. My grandson really liked the book All Cats Have Asperger’s. I wish I could afford therapeutic horseriding for him.
I don’t quote scripture chapter and verse most of the time. I will quote what I know mostly from reading the Bible more than once and hearing continually through listening to the readings at Mass.I have read several different translations. Monks practice Lectio Divina in which they meditate on a single scripture verse throughout the day. My spiritual director had me use the single verse as the beginning line in my daily journal (which I do not do everyday).
It is true that God is everywhere, not only in the Church. It may be that the priest was simply trying to tell you to find a quiet place. This quiet place can be a small corner of a room or a bench in the part.
Does that distract from the sacredness of the Mass? Absolutely not. The Eucharist is the source and summit of our faith. God also made nature and we can marvel in what God has made.
My grandson often adds a caveat when he describes a good experience with “there was just one problem…” This focusing on problem, no matter how slight, gives that problem or perceived issue greater weight than it deserves.
Yes, you do need to forgive yourself. The Lord’s Prayer asks God to forgive us as we forgive others. When we fail to forgive, we give that person power over us. When we fail to forgive ourselves, we allow guilt, which is not from God to control our lives.
The second great command is Love your neighbor as you love yourself. If you fail to love yourself, it is difficult to love anybody else. Part of loving yourself is forgiving yourself.
The Epistle of John says you cannot love the God you have not seen if you do not first love the brother you have seen. Love, therefore, begins with loving ourselves which in turn allows us to love our neighbor and leads to our loving God.
We love because God first loved us.
It is typical for a individual with Asperger’s to put all his energy (Aspies are more often male than female) into one subject. My grandson will play with his Legos for hours. His interest for a long time was Medieval History. He is now into everything Irish, or Celtic. Are you between interests? Again, you need not answer, but are you looking for something to catch and hold your interest? Don’t allow this period of seeking to draw you into depression.
I don’t quote scripture chapter and verse most of the time. I will quote what I know mostly from reading the Bible more than once and hearing continually through listening to the readings at Mass.I have read several different translations. Monks practice Lectio Divina in which they meditate on a single scripture verse throughout the day. My spiritual director had me use the single verse as the beginning line in my daily journal (which I do not do everyday).
It is true that God is everywhere, not only in the Church. It may be that the priest was simply trying to tell you to find a quiet place. This quiet place can be a small corner of a room or a bench in the part.
Does that distract from the sacredness of the Mass? Absolutely not. The Eucharist is the source and summit of our faith. God also made nature and we can marvel in what God has made.
My grandson often adds a caveat when he describes a good experience with “there was just one problem…” This focusing on problem, no matter how slight, gives that problem or perceived issue greater weight than it deserves.
Yes, you do need to forgive yourself. The Lord’s Prayer asks God to forgive us as we forgive others. When we fail to forgive, we give that person power over us. When we fail to forgive ourselves, we allow guilt, which is not from God to control our lives.
The second great command is Love your neighbor as you love yourself. If you fail to love yourself, it is difficult to love anybody else. Part of loving yourself is forgiving yourself.
The Epistle of John says you cannot love the God you have not seen if you do not first love the brother you have seen. Love, therefore, begins with loving ourselves which in turn allows us to love our neighbor and leads to our loving God.
We love because God first loved us.
It is typical for a individual with Asperger’s to put all his energy (Aspies are more often male than female) into one subject. My grandson will play with his Legos for hours. His interest for a long time was Medieval History. He is now into everything Irish, or Celtic. Are you between interests? Again, you need not answer, but are you looking for something to catch and hold your interest? Don’t allow this period of seeking to draw you into depression.
R
ready
Guest
Sorry, Bataar, that I couldn’t respond to your post any sooner than this, as I was away on retreat this weekend. What I can say to you is as long as you try to keep the commandments of Christ, and I mean with your whole heart, mind and soul trying to love the Lord (despite your falling into the same sins or not feeling any affective consolation); as long as you go to Confession whenever you fall seriously into mortal sin; and as long as you worthily receive the Eucharist then you’re set on heaven and don’t have to worry about not feeling the affective closeness with God. He’s actually very close to you and is sustaining you at every moment with His love. There exist holy nuns who do not experience any of the consolation the Lord grants to his other souls. You are suffering from Aspergers, which might make you feel cut off, but none of that is really important to God. He just wants you to be faithful to Him and to keep seeking Him despite the Aspergers. He wants you to keep seeking His will and loving Him with the knowledge that He loves you too and has taken you this far in your life giving you good things, though He may not let you feel it. You are gaining more merit in suffering the way you do in life while trying to obey the commandments than if you were receiving holy feelings of closeness to God without really being faithful to Him. Christ was given suffering and gall to drink in this life - God is conforming you into the image of his Son, Jesus. Like I said in my earlier post, “The more we resemble Christ in this life, the more we will resemble Him in glory in the next.” So if you keep falling into the same sin and feel you are not receiving the graces necessary to break out of them, know that the Lord is allowing this to serve a purpose. He wants you to see how utterly helpless you are without His grace. He wants you to see a good confessor who might be able to discern if you are in a bad habit or something else and will instruct you on how to break free from habitual sins. I’ve read that it takes 3 months for a person to break out of a bad habit by living a life completely free from anything that would be instrumantal in pulling one in the wrong direction. Maybe you’re not in a bad habit, maybe it’s OCD or something - or maybe you are just being tested (Will you persevere or just give up on your relationship with God?) - you just need to seek out the right priest to help understand yourself. I think you should seek out a good priest for spiritual direction and let him help you understand your situation better. God is allowing this sin to repeat for you to learn and because he has given you free will. Use your free will to please him. Understand that He is allowing this sin to repeat for a purpose, for your good. Serve Him in everything at all times, despite the feelings of desolation. I promise you, if you remain faithful to God, He will remain faithful to you.
A
afriendofGod
Guest
A. This is exactly right. No one really wants to die. Some people are simply overwhelmed by evil, whether illness, calamities, or worse, evil heaped upon them by the members of the Church, even priests. This last evil is often the last straw before a person begins to pray for death. Fortunately, God always listens! It is unconceivable that the Good Father ignored such person’s cry!
R
ready
Guest
Yes.
Part o fme just feels like a complete hypocrite at church. Like I said earlier, I only go because I have to. I find it excruciatingly boring, I hate the 70s era folk music they play, I hate the priests homilies where he regales us with stories about growing up on the farm or how everyone goes to heaven and that kind of heresy. I would honestly be surprised if more than a couple of priests at local churches actually believe in the true presence of Christ in the Eucharist. With that in mind, I’m usually not in the best frame of mind at church because I’m so irritated.
My mother, on the other hand, goes to Mass at least 3 times a week. She just loves it. Sure, she gets as irritated as I do at some of the liberal stuff that goes on, like telling us not to kneel after the consecration or after receiving communion, but just receiving the Eucharist is enough for her. For me, it might as well be a cracker. Even if I’ve just made a good confession and I know I don’t have sin on my soul, I still don’t “get anything” out of it. With that in mind and the fact that my prayers seem to be like leaving voicemail messages that are never returned, it makes it very hard to love God.
Again, it’s not just God. Because of my Asperger’s, it’s hard to say I love anyone other than my mother. For me, any kind of relationship I’m in as to be mutually beneficial. I know a lot of people believe that you should love your family just because they’re family. I even have a hard time doing that. Just to be clear, just because I don’t “love” someone doesn’t mean I wish bad things on them, it just means I’m ambivalent towards them. If people don’t give me a reason to want to have a relationship with them, I probably won’t have a relationship with them. Unfortunately, that’s kind of how I feel about God. It seems that it’s a one way thing.
That’s why I say I wish I wasn’t born. I know a lot of people live life striving to get to Heaven and are very thankful for the opportunity. Me, I just don’t want to go to hell. Life experience has taught me not to hope for too much, especially things that seem big so the goal of pursuing Heaven seems almost too big to be possible. And let’s face it, a live being lived with only the fear of hell as a driving force isn’t much of a life at all.
As far as spiritual advisers go, again, that’s kind of hard in this area where the vast majority of priests are basically aging hippies. I don’t mean to sound disrespectful, but it’s true. I honestly wouldn’t be surprised if one of them told me that I’d be happier outside of the church and that if I would be happier outside of the church, maybe God is calling me somewhere else.
R
ready
Guest
Dear Bataar,
I understand.
I was hoping God would put some good and holy people in your life. At least you have your mother - praise God. I’m sure if you met just one very holy person other than your mother who is beaming with God’s love that you would be able to experience a lot more of heaven on earth (God and His charity and love). Perhaps at a monastary of Carmelites you would find a good, loving and holy priest, true to our faith, who would be the perfect example of Christ and His love for you. You could have your spiritual director as a role model and father to help you love along your Christian journey and to help you deepen your spiritual life. I know that unless God puts people in your life to love and be loved by, especially good priests, who take his place, things become very difficult. I will pray to the Holy Spirit to get you to a monastary where you can ask for a holy loving priest true to the Magisterium to help you. I think this will make the biggest difference for you. It is rough to be around so many liberal priest and not to feel God’s love, but I assure you, God loves you so much that He even died His ignominious death on a cross so your sins would be forgiven and you would be justified. Even if He doesn’t let you feel His love, he wants you to keep trying to love Him, despite your inablity to feel Him. This life is just an eyeblink compared to eternity, where you will be rewarded for all your troubles on the earth that were born patiently and lovingly for the Lord and for souls. Write to the Bishop about the liberalism you encounter, give names and examples; make it your duty to travel to find a holy parish; love your neighbor as yourself; pray, even when their is dryness; still be faithful like you are and get to Mass; talk to Jesus and tell him all these difficulties and how you wish He would intervene and grant you abandonment to His will; know that I am your friend and am available to offer you support and some light to help you get to heaven. You need friends. Know that you have me and CA Forum’s people as friends along with the most excellent friends in Chrsit already up in heaven: Mary, Joseph, your guardian angel and all the other saints and angels. Pray to them and make your life one big living Gospel for others to read and find Christ in - for their edification and instruction and so they can see the love of Christ in action living in you and through you. You will be helping others get to heaven. The best thing you can do for others and for yourself…and for the Lord.
I understand.
I was hoping God would put some good and holy people in your life. At least you have your mother - praise God. I’m sure if you met just one very holy person other than your mother who is beaming with God’s love that you would be able to experience a lot more of heaven on earth (God and His charity and love). Perhaps at a monastary of Carmelites you would find a good, loving and holy priest, true to our faith, who would be the perfect example of Christ and His love for you. You could have your spiritual director as a role model and father to help you love along your Christian journey and to help you deepen your spiritual life. I know that unless God puts people in your life to love and be loved by, especially good priests, who take his place, things become very difficult. I will pray to the Holy Spirit to get you to a monastary where you can ask for a holy loving priest true to the Magisterium to help you. I think this will make the biggest difference for you. It is rough to be around so many liberal priest and not to feel God’s love, but I assure you, God loves you so much that He even died His ignominious death on a cross so your sins would be forgiven and you would be justified. Even if He doesn’t let you feel His love, he wants you to keep trying to love Him, despite your inablity to feel Him. This life is just an eyeblink compared to eternity, where you will be rewarded for all your troubles on the earth that were born patiently and lovingly for the Lord and for souls. Write to the Bishop about the liberalism you encounter, give names and examples; make it your duty to travel to find a holy parish; love your neighbor as yourself; pray, even when their is dryness; still be faithful like you are and get to Mass; talk to Jesus and tell him all these difficulties and how you wish He would intervene and grant you abandonment to His will; know that I am your friend and am available to offer you support and some light to help you get to heaven. You need friends. Know that you have me and CA Forum’s people as friends along with the most excellent friends in Chrsit already up in heaven: Mary, Joseph, your guardian angel and all the other saints and angels. Pray to them and make your life one big living Gospel for others to read and find Christ in - for their edification and instruction and so they can see the love of Christ in action living in you and through you. You will be helping others get to heaven. The best thing you can do for others and for yourself…and for the Lord.
D
DebChris
Guest
The O.T. reading for today was from the Book of Tobit, when Tobit and Sarah pray for death and God hears each of their prayers and sends Raphael to help them.
Wednesday Mass is held in the back of the local Franciscan book store. I wrote down the name of a book that I found there that might be helpful, but I seem to have misplaced the piece of paper with the book’s name and author. When I find it, I will repost. I think the title is The Mass: Learning to Love it. I have not read it, but you might find it helpful.
Wednesday Mass is held in the back of the local Franciscan book store. I wrote down the name of a book that I found there that might be helpful, but I seem to have misplaced the piece of paper with the book’s name and author. When I find it, I will repost. I think the title is The Mass: Learning to Love it. I have not read it, but you might find it helpful.
It’s not that I want to die, it’s just that I don’t care if I live. I’m 30 years old and feel like I have absolutely nothing to look forward to in this life (and haven’t for several years) and that each day is completely pointless and meaningless. I’m not the kind of person that can just “believe” things will somehow get better, I need evidence. Some people call me a pessimist, but I prefer to think of myself as a realist.
E
Earnest_Bunbury
Guest
This seems to be antithetical to the virtue of hope. A strong belief in our faith sees hope from a “realist” point of view also. Hope is real because we are united with the source of hope, God.
An openness to God’s grace in the sacraments gives power in the form of “fuel” for the supernatural virtues and is the source of our true happiness. Separating ourselves from God by our intellect and will being opposed to God’s revelation, brought to us by the Church, is the source of our lack of hope.
A pointless and meaningless life is one that is separated from the power of God. The saints who lived in caves with nothing but God were united to the source of their true happiness and saw any of their sufferings as united with Jesus for their own and others redemption. This is known through faith, known because faith is a power that truly animates and livens those open to receiving that power. Loss of hope is the beginning of despair. Humility is opposed to the self-love that is the cause of despair. Open yourself to the humble acceptance of God’s grace in the sacraments, as despair is, as Jesus says, a sin that won’t be forgiven, This is because it is not open to wanting to be forgiven. I wish you the best.
An openness to God’s grace in the sacraments gives power in the form of “fuel” for the supernatural virtues and is the source of our true happiness. Separating ourselves from God by our intellect and will being opposed to God’s revelation, brought to us by the Church, is the source of our lack of hope.
A pointless and meaningless life is one that is separated from the power of God. The saints who lived in caves with nothing but God were united to the source of their true happiness and saw any of their sufferings as united with Jesus for their own and others redemption. This is known through faith, known because faith is a power that truly animates and livens those open to receiving that power. Loss of hope is the beginning of despair. Humility is opposed to the self-love that is the cause of despair. Open yourself to the humble acceptance of God’s grace in the sacraments, as despair is, as Jesus says, a sin that won’t be forgiven, This is because it is not open to wanting to be forgiven. I wish you the best.
R
Robert_Sock
Guest
Food for thought and faith
***Reading 1
1 Kgs 19:4-8
Elijah went a day’s journey into the desert,
until he came to a broom tree and sat beneath it.
He prayed for death saying:
“This is enough, O LORD!
Take my life, for I am no better than my fathers.”
He lay down and fell asleep under the broom tree,
but then an angel touched him and ordered him to get up and eat.
Elijah looked and there at his head was a hearth cake
and a jug of water.
After he ate and drank, he lay down again,
but the angel of the LORD came back a second time,
touched him, and ordered,
“Get up and eat, else the journey will be too long for you!”
He got up, ate, and drank;
then strengthened by that food,
he walked forty days and forty nights to the mountain of God, Horeb.***
***Reading 1
1 Kgs 19:4-8
Elijah went a day’s journey into the desert,
until he came to a broom tree and sat beneath it.
He prayed for death saying:
“This is enough, O LORD!
Take my life, for I am no better than my fathers.”
He lay down and fell asleep under the broom tree,
but then an angel touched him and ordered him to get up and eat.
Elijah looked and there at his head was a hearth cake
and a jug of water.
After he ate and drank, he lay down again,
but the angel of the LORD came back a second time,
touched him, and ordered,
“Get up and eat, else the journey will be too long for you!”
He got up, ate, and drank;
then strengthened by that food,
he walked forty days and forty nights to the mountain of God, Horeb.***
N
NoWhereMan
Guest
Sometime, people like You & me & a lot of others who are on the pessimist side are really in tune with the way things really are, a lot of times the optimist are fooling themselves, not that it`s not good to be an optimist
M
Matrix_Refugee
Guest
I wouldn’t say it’s wrong, but I think it would be a waste of one’s prayers, since we are all going to die at some point, the question is when. Plus, there’s so many other things that one could pray for, like an end to the wars in the Middle East, or the prevention of child abuse, or a cure for AIDS or cancer, or for people with mental health problems to be more accepted by other people, or for people to make wiser decisions in using natural resources, or for an end to surgical and chemical abortions…
C
chapassist
Guest
Actually you cannot honestly say that praying for death is a sin when ones in the Bible has done so such as Job and 2 others. Even Christ himself found himself in a state of depression and stated so to his disciples this ““My soul is overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death.”
So no praying for death for any reason is not sinful but only God’s will can be done you need to pray To the Almighty Lord to give you guidence and eternal peace
- Status