Questioning God and faith

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As many of you know I have had a huge struggle with the church, faith and God. This has not been any easier and in many ways has become more difficult. I had at the end of 2005 decided to be done with it all, I attended one last mass, with a different parish. The homily asked a simple question How close are you to God?
My answer about as far as you can get. One of my major problems is I have to understand, dissect and digest everthing before I can either accept or deny it. My problem is I can’t find anything to accept these.

I was recently told that I must just accept them and stop dissecting them. I am having alot of trouble doing that, I am failing miserably, how does one accept the unknown? I can’t see him, I can’t touch him, is he real or just part of our imaginations? Faith is just that not something of substance, it is an ideal. Has anyone esle had this problem or am I sitting out in left field. I should add that I have to do this on my own without an church or priest (name removed by moderator)ut, their choice not mine.

scared
 
I will say a prayer for you at Mass today. May I suggest 2 things? 1) Look for someone near you that you can talk to. Somone to bounce things off of. A spiritual director. 2) Pray. Pray that God will make Himself real to you.
 
I think that most of us have experienced this situation in our lives sometime or another. It is hard believing in something that we can’t touch or see. Like St. Thomas he did not believe until he touched and viewed Jesus. I think you need to stay the course, pray to our Blessed Mother, and keep attending mass. I know this will help.
God Bless.
 
Many people’s journey to Faith has begun with a simple,“God, if You are really out there, help me.”
Many people have ended their journey, when like the man hanging off the side of a cliff holding tightly to a fast loosing sappling, don’t like the answer God gives them. In this story the man twice called out for God’s help and twice was told, “You are Mine,let go and I will save you.” Rejecting this good advice as bad, the man cries out a third time,“Is there anybody else up there?” Of course there isn’t, but there are many false gods who will pretend to you that there is another option.
You might want to read God’s offer to Job to apologize to Job if Job could only answer one of a long list of questions. It might inspire you as it has others to realize that God’s wisdom will always outshine our ability to grasp it.
I am intrigued by the signature ‘scared.’ If you are truly scared, let go, pray and start trying to digest what I am sure people have been trying to tell you. Try to take it in as you would eat a very large elephant. That is bite, chew, swallow and digest it slowly one bite at a time.
I will pray for you and I encourage you to pray the rosary as suggested and spend as much time as you can before Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament listening for His voice in your heart.
After all Faith is just that, faith or trust in someone greater than yourself. Although faith is not always self evident, logic has led many to believe in the logical existance of faith.
 
5 Proofs for the Existence of God

Trying his best to silence the voices of doubters and atheists, Thomas Aquinas, a 13th century scholar, proposed five lines of thought each proving the existence of God. They are as follows:

#1. Because things are moving, (planets, stars, the wind, etc.) there has to be a mover. Things don’t begin moving by themselves.

#2. There is a cause for everything. Do you remember when you were a child you used to play the “why” game with your parents? Every time they gave you a “because” you asked again, “Why?” The “end of that line” either ends up with A. “I don’t know.” B. “Because I said so.” Or C. “God made it that way.” we can say that the ‘Big Bang’ made the universe, but - what put all the pieces of the puzzle together to make that possible?

#3. Then there is the “necessity argument.” It goes like this. Things can either be or not be. Things cannot always be. Therefore the things that are at sometime or other were not. If they were not it is evident that things that are not cannot generate anything or themselves. Thus there has to of necessity be a God because things are.

#4. Things have qualities of being more or less. We speak of something being the finest. But to do that we need a standard of perfection by which to proclaim something to be the best. That standard of “est” or being the most of something, is God.

#5. We see brainless objects acting according to patterns and designs. Because they are brainless they could not order themselves to follow those patterns therefore there is an intelligence that directs them, or made them to follow the pattern they follow.

Well, there they are. The five proofs for God’s existence.

Read the opening statements of the Catechism of The Catholic Church. Seek Him and you will Find Him: ask, dissect, question, probe to your hearts content. God can take it. He gave us a mind to question with, and encourages us to use it. We declare a REASONED faith - not a blind one. Faith comes from God, like everything else - you gotta start somewhere. Read, study, pray, meditate on Him…you will get your answer if you honestly seek to know.

Peace

John
 
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John-the-Seeker:
Many people’s journey to Faith has begun with a simple,“God, if You are really out there, help me.”
Many people have ended their journey, when like the man hanging off the side of a cliff holding tightly to a fast loosing sappling, don’t like the answer God gives them. In this story the man twice called out for God’s help and twice was told, “You are Mine,let go and I will save you.” Rejecting this good advice as bad, the man cries out a third time,“Is there anybody else up there?” Of course there isn’t, but there are many false gods who will pretend to you that there is another option.
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Have you been inside my head? This has been my experience. I went off with those false gods.

It can be hard, Scared, believing in the Invisible God. There are so many much more tangible things we can attatch our lives to. Work, wealth, fame, power - even gods who seem to be a lot less stringent in their demands. In the end, though, none of these things are ultimately fulfilling. Their promises are empty and their gifts are fleeting.

It can seem at times that the Lord asks the impossible of us when he asks us to believe in Him. Sometimes we think if He would just give us some direct sign of His reality we could believe.

The truth is that such experiences do not lead to faith. They lead to a craving for more such experiences, and if those don’t come our faith dwindles and we are back where we started and wondering if even that one experience was real.

Faith isn’t something we have, it’s something we do. Faith doesn’t come through wishing to believe or asking for a sign. Faith comes when we choose to trust in God and His promises. When we act on God’s promises, trusting the truth of His word, and find that He is reliable, the seed of faith begins to grow. Acting on God’s word is like rain on the seed of faith.

We can believe all we want, but until we act on those beliefs, they are not faith. It is hard to start from a place of deep doubt and trust in what we cannot see. God reveals Himself to us when we take steps of faith - baby steps. First we must learn to walk with God: a step here, a step there, clinging to the furniture as we begin.

Start with prayer. The Rosary is a wonderful prayer for building faith. It has been a key for me. Even if it feels like you’re talking to yourself in an empty room, keep at it. Some days will be dry, but some days you might feel a small connection.

I will keep you in my prayers.
 
Thank you for the replies.
Bauerice: In the situation I am in rural area, one priest, I don’t have access to a spiritual director. That is the most troubling aspect of this. Yes, I did go to my priest, but because of something I clearly don’t understand, he has said it is better to leave the church, come back when I am healed. How does one heal oneself without help? I don’t have a strong catholic foundation, and what I do have has been rocked and shaken that it may collapse.

Maureen:
I have struggled to stay the course for several months now. I have fought to go to mass, even with the disapproval of my Priest. I am defying his order by attending, it is just not a good situation and no other church to attend. I do attend another church when I am in the city, but to drive is not a reasonable distance. Praying is one very difficult problem and has been for a while. Even the most simple, help me is difficult. I have a couple of times sat with others to try and do it and the change in me when I attempt to do it is so dramatic that they stop with fears that I will loose conscieness from irregular breathing. It is that difficult.

John the Seeker.

Before I began to have serious doubts about God and the church and faith, I have been in situations that I had to believe that God would catch me. Fighting for my life as the doctors feverishly attempted to save me I had to put my hands in Gods and hope that he had granted the doctors the knowledge to save me. They did, my child was lost, but they saved me, had we waited even 15 minutes more, I would have parished.
You are intrigued by my name. It truly is who I am when it comes to God, and it’s ministers. Things have happened that have made me scared, so scared that I shake when I enter a church, so scared that I avoided Priests for a very long time. When I did summon the courage to speak to one, I was told it is best to leave. All that did was make the situation worse and I become more scared each and everyday. Scared that I have been told to leave yet had not offended anyone nor had I caused scandal. At first I accepted it as my cross to bear. It still maybe my cross, only it is heavy now and without spiritual nourishment I am weak and I doubt and finally I am very ready to throw in the towel. I am unable to sit and listen for God at the Blessed Sacrament, how does one have faith when you have basically been told you are not worthy? Yes I that one man is not God, yet he represents God and is the only representative around.

PraRFLEsEkHm

You have given 5 reasons he exists:

1.Because things move there must be a move, it is called graviety, did God create it, you have to believe it did there is no proof he did.
  1. I never played the game, I came from a home that you lived only to survive till the next day, you did not ask questions if you did it very well may have been you last. The only cause I knew was if you caused it there would be an effect.
  2. I simply don’t understand.
    4.The standards by which I judge something is by other things that compare to it. If we use your situation there is no comparison thus we wouldn’t know if God is good or bad.
  3. I have yet to encounter a brainless object. All living things are lesser intelligence than man, but all have matter and form giving them and from what I recall in my biology all have brains, even a simple celled organism
    You are however, very correct I must start somewhere. But where? I am on my own, when I do summon the courage to read something, I don’t have enough catholic background to understand any of it.
    Lapsed:
    I am glad you are no longer lapsed. To tell the truth, I don’t know how to pray the rosary, we were never taught in our RCIA class, it wasn’t deemed essental. The topic was covered when the Priest was absent, but I was so scared in the class I never said anything.
scared
 
Scared,
Code: 
  I have had a similar experience with the clergy, and basicly dropped out of the Church for many years. I hope you do not do that. Recently, having come back, I have also met some wonderful, true shepherds for God's flock. The thing was, I didn't know who was who, or how to find out, or have enough Catholic background to know truth when I heard it.
 Since it looks as tho you have computer access, I would suggest looking up how to say the rosary online. Just do a Google search if nothing else. That has helped me greatly, esp. in knowing that I am not praying by myself, but asking Mary to help with her prayers. It is very simple. Also, you have this resource to ask questions and make contact with others. It has been part of what helped me back in the boat.
 For a while I just hung on by my fingernails, but I am told that that is sometimes when God does some of his greatest work in us, because we can't. I hope you come across a priest who is worth his collar. Is there anyplace like a shrine or retreat house anywhere within an hour or so? It would be worth it just to have the moral support.
 
Look under the find a spiritual director tab.(link in previous message. I said a prayer for you today at Mass.🙂
 
Thank you Bauerice for the link and saying a prayer for me.
Katy, I am glad you found your way back to the church. To say the rosary right now would be too much, I have a hard time with help me. We do have a retreat house run by Franciscans within an hour, the delema there is that the last time I was there it trigger extreme memories of horrible abuse, at present the counsellor that I am seeing is very concerned that to go there would increase those memories and sprial me down even further.So my options are extremley limited.

scared
 
Dear Scared,
even as I posted my first response, I wondered if I was not being too shallow and too glibe in my response. Although I stand by everything in my post, I also apologize to you. I am reminded that no one cares how much you know until they first know how much you care. I would like you to know that I care very much for you and your sucess in this trial. I am confident that God will provide for you and lead you. I am not surprised, but shocked that once again, the prayer recomended at Fatima, advocated by Pope John Paul II and identified as the strongest prayer after the mass that we can pray, was presented to you as ‘not significant.’
As to your worthiness, you are right, you are not worthy and neither is myself or any of His children in the World today. But Jesus is worthy and He has chosen you as one of His lambs. He died for you that not only would you have Eternal life but also so that you might know that His Father in Heaven loved you enough to not only die for you Himself, but more than that, enough to sacrifice His only Perfect Son for you as well as each one of His children. There is the ability to converse here with private messages, if you would like to do that I am open to participating. But I want to underline that with the support of readers here and through your own desire and the Love of God even if you did not converse with anyone here, God will not abandon you! I will also pray for your priest and the other shepherds of God’s flock. They are under so much attack today, they need our prayers not our condemnation. Thank you for the personal response to each post. May God Bless Protect and Guide you now and forever. Amen.
 
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scared:
As many of you know I have had a huge struggle with the church, faith and God. This has not been any easier and in many ways has become more difficult. I had at the end of 2005 decided to be done with it all, I attended one last mass, with a different parish. The homily asked a simple question How close are you to God?
My answer about as far as you can get. One of my major problems is I have to understand, dissect and digest everthing before I can either accept or deny it. My problem is I can’t find anything to accept these.
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scared,

Do you have specific questions about the faith that you would like answers to? You spoke of “accepting them,” but what are you referring to? Certain doctrines?

This is definitely the place to raise them specifically, I think, so why don’t you spell them out here. Just state what you’re specifically having trouble with.

I know from my own posts that there are many knowledgeable people here who will jump in just as fast as they can to answer them. And if this isn’t the right forum, you could go to the Ask an Apologist Forum or others on this site.
Adding this at 8:04 p.m. Friday:

I don’t believe your priest has the right or the authority to tell you to not come to Mass.

Unless you are disrupting the Mass or causing a problem for others, you have a right to be there.

If none of these things are happening, I would call your bishop and complain. I mean it. This is outrageous.

If you are not disrupting the congregation, you cannot be prevented from attending Mass.

Please think about calling the bishop and lodging a complaint.
 
God Bless you Scared, you will continue to be in my prayers.:yup:
 
John the seeker:
There is no need to apologize to me, I take no offence, if I did I would let you know.
Thank you for your kind words and for praying.

This one:
First the Priest, I should clarify that I was told to take a time out from the church until I was finished counselling then come back once I was totally healed. That would be fine if it were a few weeks or a couple of months, but this will more than likely last a year or more. On top of that I was not dispensed from mass thus ever time I don’t go puts me in mortal sin. I do not disrupt mass, I sit in the back, do not converse unless spoken to. I have spoke to someone in the diocese about this. The problem being that although he would receive correction he would not be removed from the parish and there is no priest close enough to have him put under. The concern from the individual is for me and what may happen without him being supervised. Thus for now it is easier to let things stay as they are, even though the cross for me is great, it may be greater to take action.

As for specific questions the biggest is God’s existence. Up until August of last year I never only had vague doubts about his existence. That changed when the realization of what was happening, of course being punted by my own parish priest didn’t help. I keep thinking I should have faith, I did before, but it is gone. I don’t know enough about doctrines. When I went through RCIA I was so scared that the first 12 weeks I remember nothing, but shaking. The priest then realized the problem and attempted to help some, but he did all he could and that was a lot to keep me in the program. So I am very poor catholism. I am looking I guess for a reason to stay, I have a tonne of reasons to leave. None to stay, many will say because God sent his son to die for us. Who is God anyway, who is Jesus? I know the story, but right now that is all it is.

scared
 
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scared:
This one:
First the Priest, I should clarify that I was told to take a time out from the church until I was finished counselling then come back once I was totally healed.
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He has no right to tell you anything like that. That’s just crazy, scared. It makes no sense. It’s theologically, morally, and intellectually wrong on every level.

You are under NO obligation to obey that priest.

Why do you do as he says?

You have an absolute right to go to Mass, to pray before the Tabernacle, and to be a part of the community.

This is positively outrageous.

Your being in counseling has nothing whatsoever to do with your going to Mass.
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scared:
That would be fine if it were a few weeks or a couple of months, but this will more than likely last a year or more. On top of that I was not dispensed from mass thus ever time I don’t go puts me in mortal sin. I do not disrupt mass, I sit in the back, do not converse unless spoken to. I have spoke to someone in the diocese about this. The problem being that although he would receive correction he would not be removed from the parish and there is no priest close enough to have him put under. The concern from the individual is for me and what may happen without him being supervised.
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I’m afraid I do not understand. Has this priest physically harmed you? What can he do to you? Chase you out of the church? What for? Go to the parish council and complain.

Does the diocese agree with you that what he’s doing is wrong? Write to the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops:

diocese-edmundston.ca/canadian-conference-of-bishops/canadian.conference.of.catholic.bishops.htm

I’m sorry, but this sounds quite sick. Something is terribly wrong. Is the priest mentally unstable? Is he out of his mind, scared?

What is the person at the diocese afraid he will do to you “unsupervised”?

What do the other parishioners think of him?

I really don’t get it, but you do not have to obey that priest. You do NOT. You obey Christ and your bishop. Did the diocese say you should stay away? Why?

Look, if you have a crazy priest who accosts you and tries to get you to leave, call the police.
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scared:
Thus for now it is easier to let things stay as they are, even though the cross for me is great, it may be greater to take action.
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What on earth are you afraid he will do to you??? I just don’t get this whole thing. Please explain it, if you can. We don’t know who or where you are. Canada’s a big country.
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scared:
As for specific questions the biggest is God’s existence. Up until August of last year I never only had vague doubts about his existence. That changed when the realization of what was happening, of course being punted by my own parish priest didn’t help. I keep thinking I should have faith, I did before, but it is gone. I don’t know enough about doctrines. When I went through RCIA I was so scared that the first 12 weeks I remember nothing, but shaking. The priest then realized the problem and attempted to help some, but he did all he could and that was a lot to keep me in the program. So I am very poor catholism. I am looking I guess for a reason to stay, I have a tonne of reasons to leave. None to stay, many will say because God sent his son to die for us. Who is God anyway, who is Jesus? I know the story, but right now that is all it is.

scared
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Keep calling out with your question to God, scared. I know how you feel. Keep crying out for His touch. I know exactly how you feel because your words really resonate with me and were my own not long ago. They will be mine again, I am sure. But the bedrock is in us, I think, and though we cannot feel it sometimes or think we don’t really know it, we still do. Keep calling out to Him.

God bless you!
 
Hello This one:

No the priest has not physically harmed me, he has advised me in what he believes right or wrong to be the best thing for me. I actually believe he is a very kind and gentle mind, well liked in the parish he is in my case just very misguided. I truely believe he is scared of either me or my issues, which are very difficult. The parish council has abosolutely no say, he is the final say in all that happens in the church, he can take under advisement what the parish council says, but they are only there to give council, not preside. They themselves where rained in by the bishop for poor behaviour. I can still go to mass it is just a nightmare and that makes all the other issues worse.

The people at the diocese do know what he has said and are upset with what he has said. Yes it is wrong, poor judgement. I don’t think he is mentally unstable, nor out of his mind, just scared.

Again he has done nothing physical to me, yes it hurt mentally to be told to leave, but nothing physical.

Actually the counselling and church are very closely related and from what I understand the church is where I belong to get through counselling.

The things that I have to go through does include clergy, not him and happened years ago, but I must deal with them. I believe that is what scares him. The person at the diocese is concerned that anything else he does negatively could impact so bad on the counselling that they don’t want to chance it at least now.

If he ever tried to physically hurt me I would be yelling and screaming and going straight to the police. It is not that.

The only thing he does is make an already bad situation worse by not ministering to my needs. That is the real problem. I will not fight him at least not yet.

I am not sure I ever had bedrock in me, if I did I am sure it has been rocked, crushed and has crumbled.

scared
 
Thanks, scared. I’m so sorry this is going on.

What I think you are on the brink of is surrendering – yes, just surrendering. Tell Christ how you feel, silently, in your heart, and just surrender to how you feel, how you need, how you want. Do not pray aloud at all. You can think your thoughts without any problem, right? So just TALK to Christ in your mind and tell him everything, even if you don’t believe He’s there, and tell him that you are surrendering and you are going to wait for Him to show Himself to you. In other words, stop trying to “understand.” Let go of your intellect for a little while and doctrines, and all that. If you surrender, and just tell Him how you really feel, and tell Him you will wait for him to show Himself to you, you will find peace and He will surely come to you.
 
Scared,
I cried when I read your first reply, about how you were treated by a priest. I myself was away from the Church for 10 years. God tore down the walls I had created around me. Now my thirst and drive to know Him is unyielding, and has been for 2 years now. When I did get back and go to confession, when I finished the priest said to me “God loves you so much, and He is so glad to have his son home.” I would give you a hug myself if I could. I too have had many occations where I felt almost an unbelief or total loss of faith. But, I know that I did not just come back to the church on my own, I was way to far gone. Too many little miracles happened to me, and I do call them miracles. Some maybe not so tiny.
When you feel divided or feel interiorly that you dont believe or are having a hard time believing, it is Satan. It is and dont doubt it, the mere fact that a priest told you to leave because of this should be proof enough. Protect that beautiful soul with all your will and know that all lies come from the evil one and He wants us badly. I like to read the lives of the saints, because they have had the same experiences you are having now, and they may be of some consolation. “The pilgrim years of St.Ignatius Loyola” is a good one, and “The life of Christ” by Fulton Sheen is awsome. Remember the devil even tried to tempt Christ, he has no qualms about trying us.
Please dont give up, I will pray for you. God will help trust Him, but we must put forth our efforts as far as we can and farther than we think we can sometimes. Life is a voyage over waves and through storms till we reach that port, and He whom we strove for awaits us.

God Bless You, and keep you near.
 
scared,

You have been on my mind and heart for the past two days.

Tonight at the First Friday vigil, you kept coming to my mind. I prayed for you.

Something else kept coming to me, also - a story that I had read some time ago. I looked it up and found it. It is related by St. Alphonsus in his book “The Glories of Mary”.

We read in the life of Sister Catherine of St. Augustine that in the city where she lived there was a woman of the name of Mary who had led a sinful life from her youth. Refusing to mend her ways and at length growing old in sin, she was driven out of the city and had nowhere to live but in a secluded cave.

There she lingered on, neglected by all and half consumed by disease. At length, she died without the Sacraments and was buried in a field like a beast.

Sister Catherine always prayed with great fervor for the souls of those who had departed from this world. She heard about the unhappy end of this poor creature, but she never thought of praying for her, since she considered her (as did everyone else) irrevocably lost.

One day, four years afterwards, a soul appeared to her from Purgatory and exclaimed: “How miserable for me, Sister Catherine! You commend all the departed to God; for me alone you have no pity.”

" And who are you?" asked the servant of God.

“I am that poor Mary who died in the cave,” she replied.

“But how is it you were not lost?” said Catherine.

"I was saved through the mercy of the Blessed Virgin. For when I saw myself at the point of death, loaded with sins and rejected by all, I turned to the Mother of God and said to her: ‘O Lady, you are the refuge of all the abandoned; behold me here and now abandoned by all. You are my only hope; you alone can help me; have pity on me!’ "

"The Blessed Virgin obtained for me the grace of contrition. I died and so I was saved. But more than this — she my Queen granted me another grace, that my Purgatory should be shortened by enduring in intensity what could have been prolonged for many years.

“And now I need only a few Masses to free me entirely. I beg to have them said, and for my part I promise to pray to God and Mary for you.”

Sister Catherine had the Masses offered at once, and after a few days that soul appeared to her again, resplendent with glory, and said: “I thank you, Catherine. I am going now to Paradise, to sing the mercies of my God and to pray for you.”

The Glories of Mary p. 52 (Chapter 1)

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