L
Lief_Erikson
Guest
Blaspheming the Holy Spirit is explained in the Catechism as unrepentant mortal sin. Deep sin which a person refuses to repent of.
You aren’t deliberately doing anything like that. So don’t worry about it. God is so sublimely patient. Don’t worry about His wrath but meditate instead on how patient He is with you. How ready He is to accept you in spite of all your mistakes or sins.
Remember Mary Magdalene, and how Jesus took care of her even though she committed all kinds of mortal sins, and was plagued by seven demons. Jesus has dealt mercifully even with far greater sinners than she was.
I’ll tell you one thing about God’s wrath. God’s wrath is felt when a person shuts Him out of their life by unrepentantly and with commitment sticking to their sins and preferring that wickedness to love. And how is God’s wrath felt? It is felt by God removing Himself from that person’s presence, allowing the person to have their wish and to depart from Him. God doesn’t bash people to punish them; He just lets them leave Him if they absolutely insist on it (in spite of a lot of coaxing from His Spirit to lead them back onto the right path). That choice to live without God IS the punishment people experience. People punish themselves. God’s wrath is His disappointed love allowing people to do these cruel things to themselves. Our selfishness, despair or hatred, or greed or lust and so on are all punishments we choose for ourselves and afflict ourselves with. These things deprive us of true happiness, peace and freedom. They blind us, also, to truth.
So don’t worry about God’s wrath. Rather, ask God’s help in identifying your sins and then repent for them in Confession, then try not to commit those sins anymore, and trust God’s Word that you have truly been forgiven.
When awful things happen in life like car crashes or other such events, God’s Providence uses these temporal afflictions to help us in various ways. The sufferings of this life can help us to mature in ways we couldn’t mature without them. They can be used by God to cleanse us of sinful habits and to learn faith or humility, and other virtues.
So I recommend strongly interpreting your mental afflictions and loneliness as a cross that you can offer up to the Lord, and ask Him for grace to grow closer to Him through it. Ask to become a better man, to learn humility (the most important virtue for any of us to learn). Asking for healing for your life also is a good idea.
And I think others have offered good suggestions about going to a counselor. That is a very good idea. It’s not something to turn your nose up at; I believe a trained counselor could be helpful to you, if you take their advice seriously.
Something else that might help you is to trust that God is doing things in your life right now, only not necessarily the things you have in mind for Him to do, at this time. That’s very frequently the case with people, that they have one idea and God has another, and they pray for God to do what they want, but God knows that what’s best for the person is what He wants.
Even Jesus had to deal with this. At Gethsemane, He prayed, “If it be possible, take this cup from me, but not my will but yours be done.” He set an example for us by surrendering His will to God, accepting even the ultimate suffering if it was God’s will. Because He knew what good God would do through this sacrifice. That was valiant, divine love at its finest. And that’s what we need to imitate, asking that whatever HE will ultimately is done, whatever is best for us and those around us, whatever that might be.
One of the reasons people have trouble accepting God’s will for their lives is that they don’t value the good of their souls anywhere even remotely close to as much as they should. People are so used to focusing on material things, on getting through the day, on their work, on their friends or family, on the day to day activities and accomplishing them successfully, they don’t think that much about their souls.
But each soul in this life is called to become Christlike, filled with the fire of divine love. God wants us to become extremely generous, merciful, humble, courageous, and so on. That is the good of our souls. God sees how tremendously valuable this is – and so do we, when we meet somebody who is considerably closer to God than we are, and can see that virtue shining. Then, we recognize a little how valuable virtue is.
But we don’t think about it much on a regular basis.
And the way to get to this divine life is the cross. We have to suffer humiliations in order for our pride to be crushed. We have sometimes have to suffer poverty in order to stop being obsessed with our comforts, get over our weakness, live a life of prayer and manliness. We sometimes have to suffer loss of friends in order to learn greater compassion for others. There are all kinds of lessons to be learned in sufferings, lessons that are very important for our souls to learn in their ascent toward God.
At the same time, we shouldn’t cling to our suffering either. We should accept it when God sends it to us, and yet be equally willing to let it go when He calls. Jesus Himself, on the way to Calvary, had a helper, Simon the Cyrene, who carried the cross with him. A psychiatrist could be that helper for you. But it takes humility also to listen to a counselor’s advice rather than trying everything on your own; that’s a challenge too, that a soul can use to grow.
God bless you, friend
.
You aren’t deliberately doing anything like that. So don’t worry about it. God is so sublimely patient. Don’t worry about His wrath but meditate instead on how patient He is with you. How ready He is to accept you in spite of all your mistakes or sins.
Remember Mary Magdalene, and how Jesus took care of her even though she committed all kinds of mortal sins, and was plagued by seven demons. Jesus has dealt mercifully even with far greater sinners than she was.
I’ll tell you one thing about God’s wrath. God’s wrath is felt when a person shuts Him out of their life by unrepentantly and with commitment sticking to their sins and preferring that wickedness to love. And how is God’s wrath felt? It is felt by God removing Himself from that person’s presence, allowing the person to have their wish and to depart from Him. God doesn’t bash people to punish them; He just lets them leave Him if they absolutely insist on it (in spite of a lot of coaxing from His Spirit to lead them back onto the right path). That choice to live without God IS the punishment people experience. People punish themselves. God’s wrath is His disappointed love allowing people to do these cruel things to themselves. Our selfishness, despair or hatred, or greed or lust and so on are all punishments we choose for ourselves and afflict ourselves with. These things deprive us of true happiness, peace and freedom. They blind us, also, to truth.
So don’t worry about God’s wrath. Rather, ask God’s help in identifying your sins and then repent for them in Confession, then try not to commit those sins anymore, and trust God’s Word that you have truly been forgiven.
When awful things happen in life like car crashes or other such events, God’s Providence uses these temporal afflictions to help us in various ways. The sufferings of this life can help us to mature in ways we couldn’t mature without them. They can be used by God to cleanse us of sinful habits and to learn faith or humility, and other virtues.
So I recommend strongly interpreting your mental afflictions and loneliness as a cross that you can offer up to the Lord, and ask Him for grace to grow closer to Him through it. Ask to become a better man, to learn humility (the most important virtue for any of us to learn). Asking for healing for your life also is a good idea.
And I think others have offered good suggestions about going to a counselor. That is a very good idea. It’s not something to turn your nose up at; I believe a trained counselor could be helpful to you, if you take their advice seriously.
Something else that might help you is to trust that God is doing things in your life right now, only not necessarily the things you have in mind for Him to do, at this time. That’s very frequently the case with people, that they have one idea and God has another, and they pray for God to do what they want, but God knows that what’s best for the person is what He wants.
Even Jesus had to deal with this. At Gethsemane, He prayed, “If it be possible, take this cup from me, but not my will but yours be done.” He set an example for us by surrendering His will to God, accepting even the ultimate suffering if it was God’s will. Because He knew what good God would do through this sacrifice. That was valiant, divine love at its finest. And that’s what we need to imitate, asking that whatever HE will ultimately is done, whatever is best for us and those around us, whatever that might be.
One of the reasons people have trouble accepting God’s will for their lives is that they don’t value the good of their souls anywhere even remotely close to as much as they should. People are so used to focusing on material things, on getting through the day, on their work, on their friends or family, on the day to day activities and accomplishing them successfully, they don’t think that much about their souls.
But each soul in this life is called to become Christlike, filled with the fire of divine love. God wants us to become extremely generous, merciful, humble, courageous, and so on. That is the good of our souls. God sees how tremendously valuable this is – and so do we, when we meet somebody who is considerably closer to God than we are, and can see that virtue shining. Then, we recognize a little how valuable virtue is.
But we don’t think about it much on a regular basis.
And the way to get to this divine life is the cross. We have to suffer humiliations in order for our pride to be crushed. We have sometimes have to suffer poverty in order to stop being obsessed with our comforts, get over our weakness, live a life of prayer and manliness. We sometimes have to suffer loss of friends in order to learn greater compassion for others. There are all kinds of lessons to be learned in sufferings, lessons that are very important for our souls to learn in their ascent toward God.
At the same time, we shouldn’t cling to our suffering either. We should accept it when God sends it to us, and yet be equally willing to let it go when He calls. Jesus Himself, on the way to Calvary, had a helper, Simon the Cyrene, who carried the cross with him. A psychiatrist could be that helper for you. But it takes humility also to listen to a counselor’s advice rather than trying everything on your own; that’s a challenge too, that a soul can use to grow.
God bless you, friend
.