RCIA prayer help

[Mf2]

Hello! I’m a junior in college and wasn’t raised with any religion. Over the past few years I’ve been discerning joining the Catholic Church. I began RCIA last month and it’s been wonderful. I’ve been asking so many questions that the director jokingly says things to our group like, “Does anybody ELSE have questions?”, so here I am on Catholic Answers Forums! I have been having trouble understanding the nature of the Holy Spirit. As I spoke one-on-one with the RCIA director about my journey that led to my inquiring about Catholicism, she talked about how the Spirit is moving me in this direction, but I have not been baptized or confirmed. She knows this. Please correct me if I am mistaken, but I thought the Holy Spirit is given at baptism and sealed at confirmation? How does this work? As I read the Bible and the Catechism and pray, I wonder if God will answer the prayers I lift to him. I haven’t been forgiven for my sins yet because I haven’t been baptized, and I am not living in a state of grace as I have not received the Sacrament of Reconciliation. I understand and appreciate the long process it takes to become a Catholic, and this may seem to be a very elementary question, but how is God viewing my prayers at this point? I know it takes time to build a relationship with Him and this intimacy cannot be rushed. I feel heavily burdened to pray for a certain friend of mine who decided to stop practicing his Catholic faith because of a lack of healing he prayed for over the course of several years. I find myself praying and weeping for him quite frequently. I don’t know if God will heal my friend next month, next year, 10 years from now, or ever. It may not be His will, but how am I supposed to know if the timing for the healing to manifest is in the future? I am trying to pray for God’s will in his life, and for Him to reveal it to me, but how would that even come about? I’m so terrified of praying wrongly that maybe I should stop, but I can’t seem to be able to do that. I’ve been journaling them and I sometimes feel nauseated when I put down my pen and decide to stop. My friend’s condition is not terminal, but he has been physically affected and does not think any woman would be willing to marry him ever. I find myself praying for his future wife all the time. I literally can’t stop doing it. Of course I don’t know if he will ever marry, but something is deeply moving me to keep going praying for this woman. If its not yet the Spirit of God urging me to pray for her and it’s just my emotions leading me, should I keep going? At this early point in my own faith development, my knowledge of “prayer language” and also the Word of God is very limited, but I use what I’ve learned thus far in my prayers for her. Surely they can’t hurt. Is this appropriate? Is it appropriate to invoke the intercession of the Blessed Mother or other saints, or should I wait until after I am fully initiated into the Church? Not just for my friend, but for anything at all? I know this is such a rambling post, but I would appreciate any responses from Catholics who are much more developed in their faith than I.

 

[PaulfromIowa]

You are a catechumen, a student of the faith. If you would die before baptism, the Church teaches that you have had a baptism of desire. You can certainly pray.

 

[Trishie]

You are an inspiring person,
and your prayer is a gift from God,
including your prayers for your friend, although you are right in praying for God’s will.
Your friend certainly needs prayer for his soul’s peace,
for being able to see himself as a loved child of God, instead of being negative about himself.

You don’t actually need to know God’s will for him, but to pray that he does, seek and fulfill God’s will:
first, by loving God,
and by loving himself as God’s child, in the sense that Jesus told us, “Love others as yourself”.
Some people miss the implication of those words, that Jesus does desire us to love ourselves, not in a selfish, self-indulgent way, but with recognition of ourselves as loved children of God, and taking best care we can manage of our temporal and our spiritual welfare.

And loving others doesn’t, as you already know, mean warm feelings, actually love is doing practical acts of kindness to others whether we feel like it or not, kindness with as little as a smile and kind words, or or in any kind of practical way that helps or benefits others, prayer included.

Our heavenly family love you, and God is calling you to His Church. Can you imagine that oving family do not wish to have you speak to them? You’re not out in the cold because you’re not yet baptised.
The disciples that Jesus chose were not baptised when He chose them and began to teach them, so that’s indication enough to know you may prayer to our Father, our Savior, our Mother, our heavenly family.

May the Holy Spirit continue to bless you and lead you.
And may God heal and bless your friend.

 

[CatholicDetroit]

Hi and welcome home! I went through RCIA this time last year. I just want you to know that God hears your prayers and answers them according to his will. So pray, hope and don’t worry as Saint Padre Pio would say!

And I’m sorry to hear about your friend. Since I have become Catholic I learned to bear my sufferings with patience, by uniting even the smallest pain to that which was felt by Jesus. Like if I have a headache i’ll unite my sufferings to Jesus’s crown of thorns.

Your friends can use his sufferings to help the holy souls in purgatory. It’s nice that you’re following the prompting of the Holy Spirit and to pray for his future spouse.

I pray that his sufferings will be a form of purification for his soul.

And YES it is appropriate to ask for Mary’s intercession. She is the only reason why I’m in the church. I became Catholic because I promised her that I would be one if she helped me out of this major situation. So talk to her, pray the rosary!

God Bless You!