Dear Steveinny,
I wish to tell you a bit about myself, not because I want the whole world to know, or because I wish to toot my own horn, but because in you, I see myself, in many ways, as I was just a few short years ago.
I go to church regularly on Sunday’s and as often as work allows during the week. I do not go because it is a duty, or because I fear God’s retribution, but out of love for Him who, with His strong right arm, has brought me back from the edge of extinction in sin.
I am 62 years old, and except for my younger to mid teen years, I had been at odds with God. Oh, it took many forms. I got tired of going to confession and telling my priest the same sins over and over. I rationalized that it must be a virtue to not be hypocritical with God. Yes, I attended mass, off and on; Christmas, Easter; you know, the important times. I returned to the “church”, on several occasions, even going to confession, but never really making a good one. As the years passed, I stopped going almost altogether. My sins mounted up. I made excuses for them, telling myself that my problems were not my fault, and that God would probably overlook my weaknesses. It even got to the point where I no longer recognized my sin as something evil and loathsome in God’s eyes.
Then, a few years ago, I began to hear whispers, although at the time I did not recognize them as such. I slowly began to realize that there was something inherently wrong in the way I had led my life up to that time. I came to understand that I had no idea who God was, or why I was, for that matter. I began to feel an overwhelming need to pray, to seek truth, to find out who this God is. I prayed to Our Lady that the Holy Spirit would find me. … He did!
At first, it was through reading various materials which would suddenly catch my eye. Slowly, I began to come to an understanding of who and what God is and how I had so grievously offended him in my life. I started attending mass again, and my prayer became more fervent as I asked this God to forgive me. At times, my prayer would bring me to tears. I made up my mind to confess my life and I asked the Spirit to help me recall my sins. A few weeks later I suddenly started remembering things that had gone on in my life; things I had long forgotten, some major, some seemingly minor (to me). This went on for many weeks. I became cognizant that God was whispering to me in many other ways also, and I learned how to “hear” that whisper.
I finally made that good confession- with no little fear and trepidation I might add. I felt God lifting an immense weight from my chest and crushing it before my eyes into nothingness, and this is where my love of the mass and for my God has come.
You my friend, have in a way, built a wall between yourself and your God. The same wall as I had built, although made perhaps of different sins. You have cut yourself off from God and from his saving grace. You see yourself as not a half bad catholic and you convince yourself of this by profession of the many things you do. I think though, that you do not really know who God is, much as I did not.
Please do not take what I say as condemnation or judgment, but rather as reproof, for, as you have seen, I wore no hallo either. Just as God whispered to me, so, he whispers also to you. You have heard him, although you probably do not realize it. Rectify your life. Start with attendance at mass; as a duty at first if needs be. Pray, fervently. Ask our Lord to make you humble so that you may see you life as it really is. Seek “The Face of God,” and you will find it! Go to confession, with a “humble and contrite heart.” The more you find out about God, the more you will come to know the mercy that is his infinite love. Then you will come to mass out of love for Him.
May God’s blessing be upon you.
Appears they are right.