I was raised a Catholic, went to a Catholic school, was an alter boy and prayed daily as a kid. I was taught at first that God controlled everything that happened so you needed to pray to God in order to make things better in life. For whatever reason I was sticking the tip of a hunting knife to my chest around the age of 7. I seemed to be curious of stabbing it in or killing myself. So you know something was wrong with me. Being taught that anything that had to do with sex was a sin and you would go to Hell for it I made sure to stay away from that area below the belt. So when I turned 14 and saw that I hadn’t been circumcised completly I thought I was deformed and could never tell anyone because it was a sin to talk of such things. So I started praying and praying and praying for help from God. Nothing happened except for me becoming so suicidal that I had stuck a loaded gun to my head more times then remembered. Praying didn’t help my situation and thanks to what I learned through the Catholic religion I was ashamed to even talk to my parents about it until I was 17. By then I was addicted to drugs, alcohol and was suicidal. 25 years later I’m still struggling with thoughts of suicide. So I “saw the light” in my own way. God wasn’t going to help, prayer did no good and the Catholic religion is the reason my parents were to narrow minded for me to want to tell them of my problem. I know there is a great presence that can be felt but this presence is not going to help you in times of need. Just look at those who have suffered and have been tortured religous or not. Maybe I’m damned to Hell already but I feel I’ve gone beyond this religion, this Pope, the cardinals, archbishops, priest and whoever else that think they know that prayer is the answer to anything to fix anything or make it better. I believed at one time. I believed as much as anyone in the power of prayer. Now I feel like someone standing on the outside watching a bunch of no it alls who have yet to really be tested by this life. Yet I keep it to myself since no one can really understand another without experiencing what they have. Yes it makes me angry to travel back to such thoughts but it is what it is. The very thought of going into a church makes me angry. But who want’s to hear someone cry about how unfair life is right, so just keep it to yourself?
Welcome, Patrick20:
Where to begin? The first thing I wish to say to you is that
prayer is enmeshed in that exigency known to us as
grace. Grace is that which is given FREELY to us by God, and there is nothing we can do to earn it with one possible exception: God’s foreknowledge of each of us expresses what we will (
time as we understand it) do throughout our lives, or at least the
best part of our later lives. In other words, God knows what our lives consist of in less than an instant. In knowing that, He determines any and all other graces we shall, or shall not, receive.
Prayers of supplication may not work for us. If the end portion of our lives is to be a continuous rejection of Him and a continuous indifference to His gifts, He may not waste more on us. If, on the other hand, He sees that we will grab hold of the gifts we receive, praise and thank Him for them, and continue to do this for the rest of our lives, we will receive more of these completely gratuitous gifts, no matter how short the balance of our lives my be.
JRKH. above, mentioned something about our “crosses.” We can do nothing greater than to bear our own cross in honor of Jesus. Thus we may be left with one or more of them. Think it through: if we don’t get what we whine for that does not mean that there is no God, nor does it mean that He has forsaken us. It may mean that we must strive even more; that we must become more unselfish, that we must become less self-serving. Remember, God made our initial precursors to be as perfect as possible, considering they could not be made into duplicates of Him. Then what happened? Our precursors failed to thank Him in the only way they could which was by honoring His commandment not to eat the fruit of a particular tree.
So then what did God do? He asked that part of Him, His Son, to incarnate and become the
Way: to show the Way true filial love should be expressed. His Son did this in the most monumentous way any Man could possibly do it: via the Passion. Now, no other man is asked to undergo the Passion, but, we may be asked to bear our own “crosses” just as Jesus was the bearer of His.
What is ultimately revealed to each of us can be that we are not the causes of our own possessions. Rather, God is the cause and benefactor of any and all of them. That we have any is testament to the fact that we are
infinitely loved, despite our inability, or unwillingness to give back true filial love.
I suggest that you decide which is more important to you: this life or the next. If you choose the latter, then you must decide how you can best give back true
filial love. Next, you must decide to persevere in that for the rest of your life. All of this will require help, not only of God, but also of you fellow man: of your Priests and confessors.
In reading your tome I was struck with the idea that some of it is colored by your own personal predilections. That perhaps you read more into what you were taught than was there. But, it’s not for me to judge. Only you (and God) can judge you. I wish you well and you will be in my prayers.
God bless,
jd
