Where is my joy?

[CanMan86]

I’ve been struggling lately. I’ve been praying hard, trying to make a daily Holy Hour, rosary, weekly mass, etc. I’m trying to “find” God yet I feel empty. I don’t know my purpose in life. I ask God to reveal Himself to me but I feel no inner consolation.

I don’t have much of a life. I’ve become very anti-social over the last number of years but feel a desire to go out and meet new people and maybe this will begin to bring some joy to my life. But then I get this worry like “wait, I shouldn’t seek joy in anything but God, so if I find joy in friendship, new job, making a life for myself, etc. then it’s not a good thing” but I feel these are big voids in my life that I need to fill! I’m worried that joy in friendship would take me away from joy in God. I just don’t know what God wants me to do with my life. What kind of job I should get, etc. I’m praying but don’t feel anything! What do I do? Are there any books I can read that might guide me or particular prayers?

Thanks.

 

[crystal_waters]

I’ve been struggling lately. I’ve been praying hard, trying to make a daily Holy Hour, rosary, weekly mass, etc. I’m trying to “find” God yet I feel empty. I don’t know my purpose in life. I ask God to reveal Himself to me but I feel no inner consolation.

I don’t have much of a life. I’ve become very anti-social over the last number of years but feel a desire to go out and meet new people and maybe this will begin to bring some joy to my life. But then I get this worry like “wait, I shouldn’t seek joy in anything but God, so if I find joy in friendship, new job, making a life for myself, etc. then it’s not a good thing” but I feel these are big voids in my life that I need to fill! I’m worried that joy in friendship would take me away from joy in God. I just don’t know what God wants me to do with my life. What kind of job I should get, etc. I’m praying but don’t feel anything! What do I do? Are there any books I can read that might guide me or particular prayers?

Thanks.

id recommend praying for the holy souls in puragtory and asking god to grant you through their prayers and intercessions the graces you are wanting…the holy souls are fantastic prayer warriors and wonderful friends to make, they can obtain any favour, and they pray so eagerly for our prayer petitions meaning that their prayers are heard and answered quickly cos god loves them so much,
read this link of all the wonderful favours of every kind thatthe holy souls have obtained in the present day for those who will take a bit of time and pray for them
missionbell.homestead.com/Afavourgrantedbytheholysouls.html

 

[RosaryFan]

I’ve been struggling lately. I’ve been praying hard, trying to make a daily Holy Hour, rosary, weekly mass, etc. I’m trying to “find” God yet I feel empty. I don’t know my purpose in life. I ask God to reveal Himself to me but I feel no inner consolation.

I don’t have much of a life. I’ve become very anti-social over the last number of years but feel a desire to go out and meet new people and maybe this will begin to bring some joy to my life. But then I get this worry like “wait, I shouldn’t seek joy in anything but God, so if I find joy in friendship, new job, making a life for myself, etc. then it’s not a good thing” but I feel these are big voids in my life that I need to fill! I’m worried that joy in friendship would take me away from joy in God. I just don’t know what God wants me to do with my life. What kind of job I should get, etc. I’m praying but don’t feel anything! What do I do? Are there any books I can read that might guide me or particular prayers?

Thanks.

There is absolutely nothing wrong with finding joy in friendships, companionship and community activities. God does not want you to hide in an empty house and just pray all day (unless you’re a cloistered nun or monk). Human beings are social. We NEED socialization, especially with people of like mind. God’s intention is for us to be social. That’s why He took Adam’s rib and made Eve, so that Adam would have a suitable companion.

Try getting involved with a Church activity. It can be a lot of fun to meet new people in your parish, who share your morals and beliefs, while assisting your church in the meantime.

But I wouldn’t stop praying and making holy hours! That is key to inner peace.

Maybe God is trying to nudge you out the door. Maybe you haven’t found peace yet, because you haven’t ventured out there to find it. God is not necessarily going to send joy to your front door. You must cooperate with Him and go out seeking it. If that involves a new job and new friends, then do it without guilt. My friends actually bring me closer to our Lord. They are very devout Catholics and I learn much from them. We do bible studies together, serve on parish council together, and serve our community together. We also spend time outside of church activities. My family socializes with their families at parties, etc. There is nothing wrong with having recreational joy in your life. Certainly, it’s nothing to feel guilty about.

 

[Lief_Erikson]

I’ve been struggling lately. I’ve been praying hard, trying to make a daily Holy Hour, rosary, weekly mass, etc. I’m trying to “find” God yet I feel empty. I don’t know my purpose in life. I ask God to reveal Himself to me but I feel no inner consolation.

I don’t have much of a life. I’ve become very anti-social over the last number of years but feel a desire to go out and meet new people and maybe this will begin to bring some joy to my life. But then I get this worry like “wait, I shouldn’t seek joy in anything but God, so if I find joy in friendship, new job, making a life for myself, etc. then it’s not a good thing” but I feel these are big voids in my life that I need to fill! I’m worried that joy in friendship would take me away from joy in God. I just don’t know what God wants me to do with my life. What kind of job I should get, etc. I’m praying but don’t feel anything! What do I do? Are there any books I can read that might guide me or particular prayers?

Thanks.

You need to remember that God is in control of the circumstances all around you, and working in them, for your benefit. God can speak to you through your job and through your relationships with your friends. Provided these don’t become more important to you than God is, all is fine. And even if they did become more important to you than God, you could seek for more union with Him and He would change everything for the better, unite you more deeply with Himself. “For everyone who seeks finds,” as He says.

Jesus and the apostles had friends. St. Francis de Sales says that we should have friends, good, solid, Catholic friends who will be a blessing to our spiritual lives. He says that such friends are pearls beyond compare. So go find them! Your local Catholic Bible Study, and Daily Mass, are good places to start looking.

Also, St. Josemaría says that God fills the work place and he encourages us to seek Him there. I recommend looking him up online, and looking up Opus Dei on Google. Opus Dei is the order he founded, and their principle goal is to help people to find Christ in regular life, including the work place.

Find out what jobs are available, around you. Pray to God to lead you to the job He wants you to go in. Consider each door that is closed to you, each job interview that comes up with a negative result, to be the Lord saying, “This is not my will for you.” But when the door opens and you desire to enter that job, go on in, and consider it to be the Lord giving you this job. He wants you there right now.

He doesn’t always speak through mystical visions or locutions. He very, very commonly speaks through our everyday circumstances.

Also, listen in at the Mass and try to apply whatever you hear in the readings, liturgy, hymns and homily to yourself. Try to change accordingly, for this is definitely the voice of the Lord.

And when people advise you, listen to what they say with care. For perhaps God is speaking to you through them. You may not “feel” anything, but that’s not how God tends to speak.

I think that these desires within you for a job and friends are things God has placed in you, in answer to your prayer. He knows you have difficulties with an anti-social disposition and wants you to overcome this. He made humans to be a family. Only a few are called to be hermits. And even the hermits remain in communion with the larger family through their relationships with the saints in Heaven.

Read the writings of the saints as well, ESPECIALLY the writings of St. Josemaría Escrivá. For these are God’s voice as well. He speaks through these writings with great clarity; they reveal His will. St. Josemaría’s book, “The Way” is extremely good, and seems suited directly to your needs.

This website may help you: stjosemaria.org/

Also, check out Opus Dei. Send them an email and talk to them about your situation. They’ll be glad to talk with you, and I’m certain they’ll answer your questions and fulfill your needs. Religious orders love to be contacted by people in need, so that they can help.

Here’s the website. Please contact them; you won’t regret it. opusdei.us/

 

[Lief_Erikson]

Here’s a chapter for you, from St. Francis de Sales’ book, “Introduction to the Devout Life.”

CHAPTER XIX. Of Real Friendship.

DO you, my child, love every one with the pure love of charity, but have no
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friendship save with those whose intercourse is good and true, and the purer the bond which unites you so much higher will your friendship be. If your intercourse is based on science it is praiseworthy, still more if it arises from a participation in goodness, prudence, justice and the like; but if the bond of your mutual liking be charity, devotion and Christian perfection, God knows how very precious a friendship it is! Precious because it comes from God, because it tends to God, because God is the link that binds you, because it will last for ever in Him. Truly it is a blessed thing to love on earth as we hope to love in Heaven, and to begin that friendship here which is to endure for ever there. I am not now speaking of simple charity, a love due to all mankind, but of that spiritual friendship which binds souls together, leading them to share devotions and spiritual interests, so as to have but one mind between them. Such as these may well cry out, “Behold, how good and joyful a thing it is, brethren, to dwell together in unity!” 106106 Ps. cxxxiii. 1. Even so, for the “precious ointment” of devotion trickles continually from one heart to the other, so that truly we may say that to such friendship the Lord promises His Blessing and life for evermore.
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To my mind all other friendship is but as a shadow with respect to this, its links mere fragile glass compared to the golden bond of true devotion. Do you form no other friendships. I say “form,” because you have no right to cast aside or neglect the natural bonds which draw you to relations, connexions, benefactors or neighbours. My rules apply to those you deliberately choose to make. There are some who will tell you that you should avoid all special affection or friendship, as likely to engross the heart, distract the mind, excite jealousy, and what not. But they are confusing things. They have read in the works of saintly and devout writers that individual friendships and special intimacies are a great hindrance in the religious life, and therefore they suppose it to be the same with all the world, which is not at all the case. Whereas in a well-regulated community every one’s aim is true devotion, there is no need for individual intercourse, which might exceed due limits;—in the world those who aim at a devout life require to be united one with another by a holy friendship, which excites, stimulates and encourages them in well-doing. Just as men traversing a plain have no need to hold one another up, as they have who are amid slippery mountain paths, so religious do not need the stay of individual
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friendships; but those who are living in the world require such for strength and comfort amid the difficulties which beset them. In the world all have not one aim, one mind, and therefore we must take to us congenial friends, nor is there any undue partiality in such attachments, which are but as the separation of good from evil, the sheep from the goats, the bee from the drone—a necessary separation.
No one can deny that our Dear Lord loved S. John, Lazarus, Martha, Magdalene, with a specially tender friendship, since we are told so in Holy Scripture; and we know that S. Paul dearly loved S. Mark, S. Petronilla, as S. Paul Timothy and Thecla. 107107 S. Thecla (V.M.) was a native of Lycaonia, converted (so say S. Augustine, S. Ambrose, S. Epiphanius, and others of the Fathers) by S. Paul, who kindled so strong a love of virginity in her heart that she broke off her intended marriage, and devoted herself to Christ. She is said to have followed S. Paul in several of his journeys, and a very ancient Martyrology, which bears the name of S. Jerome, published by Florentinus, says that she was miraculously delivered unhurt from the persecutors’ flames at Rome. It seems doubtful whether she died a natural or a martyr’s death. The first Christian Emperors built a great Church at Seleucia, where she died. S. Gregory Nazianzen boasts continually of his friendship with the great S. Basil, of which he says: “It seemed as though with two bodies we had but one soul, and if we may not believe those who say that all things are in all else, at least one must affirm that we were two in one, and one in two
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—the only object that both had being to grow in holiness, and to mould our present life to our future hopes, thereby forsaking this mortal world before our death.” And S. Augustine says that S. Ambrose loved S. Monica by reason of her many virtues, and that she in return loved him as an Angel of God.
What need to affirm so unquestionable a fact! S. Jerome, S. Augustine, S. Gregory, S. Bernard, and all the most notable servants of God, have had special friendships, which in nowise hindered their perfection. S. Paul, in describing evil men, says that they were “without natural affection,” 108108 Rom. i. 31. i.e. without friendship. And S. Thomas, in common with other philosophers, acknowledges that friendship is a virtue, and he certainly means individual friendships, because he says that we cannot bestow perfect friendship on many persons. So we see that the highest grace does not lie in being without friendships, but in having none which are not good, holy and true.

 

[LoverofChrist]

Joy can seem so elusive but our joy has to come from within us. What I mean is that we have to be open to it and not be blind to it or intentionally close ourselves off to it. Some of the greatest joy in life will come from some of our greatest sorrow. But it is also in the simple and everyday of life…it’s looking for the beauty that God gives us in this world. It may be the physical or it may be in the smile of another, the prayer we offer for another, or even in a home run . I’m attaching a little article I found online and I’m hoping it may be of some help for you. I will be keeping you in my prayers!

Joy, A Heavenly Tickle
Please do me a favor. The next time that you are in the supermarket, gas station, bank, shopping mall or church, look around you and see how many people seem to be joyful. In fact, the next time you look in the mirror, ask yourself, “Am I joyful?”. A few days ago I went to our local shopping mall, sat on a bench and began watching people as they walked by to see how many might indicate some expression of joy.

For the most part, the people who walked by me looked as if they had been sucking on a lemon since birth. I am not suggesting that we should all have a banana surgically implanted in our mouth to give the appearance of a smile, but if all these people are joyful they need to let their face know about it.

In the New Testament “joy” is mentioned 361 times. Do you think that the writers of scripture are trying to convey a message?

Joy is the completion of happiness, the aim of human life and the completion of human action and existence.

Joy for the Christian is the result of charitable actions, forgiveness of sin and life under the promise of redemption and salvation. Essentially, Christian joy is sharing in the joy of Christ at the accomplishment of the works of divine salvation.

I can hear most of you saying, “Oh Glenn, give me a break! I can’t pay my bills, the washing machine is broken, my car needs a brake job and my kids have become aliens from another planet. What do I have to be joyful about?”

Please believe me when I say that I know first hand how joy can seem so simple in theory but so difficult in reality. Especially during the past few months as I have watched the news and seen how much manure there is floating around this country.

Long ago, as I watched Mark McGuire hit his 62nd home run that eclipsed a major league baseball record, I found myself cheering his achievement as tears welled up in my eyes. I saw how joyful he was at that moment as he trotted around the bases high fiving and hugging everyone around him.

As I tried to hide the fact from my wife, Linda, that I was crying (Why do men so often hide their tender side ?), I realized that the sadness within me was giving way to joy. At that moment I was experiencing a “heavenly tickle” and it felt so good.

In closing let me refresh all our memories by saying that joy is one of the fruits of the Holy Spirit. During this year of the Holy Spirit may we all take the time to visit our spiritual produce aisle and grab as much “Holy Spirit Fruit” as we can possibly handle.

Glenn Harmon © 2002

 

[EmeraldWings]

I would recommend reading Saint John of the cross’ Dark Night of the Soul - tanbooks.com/index.php/page/shop:flypage/product_id/749

according to the wisdom of Saint John of the cross, you should not seek joy, but seek God Who gives joy, because joy is not yours to have, but it is Gods to give, and to seek God alone in all things is to have all things,
joys and consolations are Gods to give or take when He sees fitting to do so, and whether He gives or takes such things depends purely on what is best for you, so whether we have consolations or not, we must try to be content and at peace, knowing that God is helping us even if it feels uncomfortable,

it is especially hard to have joy(or anything else) when we worry ourselves over obtaining it, or even once we have it, then we worry over losing it…and then peace is disrupted,
but in the spiritual life, the main focus in all things must be God, to focus on anything else, even ourselves, will take us away from God…
if you seek God, you should seek Him for His own sake, and not for His consolations, you should be grateful and thank Him when He gives you consolations, and also when He takes them away, because as i said, whether He gives them or takes them, it is always for your best,

try to think of this desolation you feel as a gift you can offer to Jesus, if you can unite it to His own sufferings of desolation and abandonment that He felt during His passion, then you can turn it into consolations for Jesus, and Jesus in turn will console you,
every time you offer up a suffering for Jesus, you help Him to carry His heavy cross, and He also helps you to carry yours, and by doing that, you will be gaining more for yourself than all the joy and happiness in your whole lifetime are worth,

although i know it’s not easy, and you should not try to take on more than you can handle, especially not without asking for Gods help first, because without God we can do no good, and so we must never neglect to always ask for His help and graces and blessings in all things,
but when things get hard and start feeling impossible, that’s when you must slow down and take a break and let God replenish you, God pores His graces into us, and we pore them out when we do good works and other good things, so we must keep going back for more, and you obtain Gods graces simply by asking for them, but more especially in communion and confession,
but just be patient with yourself and trust in God that He is taking care of you,
but also, don’t think that what you feel is an indication of what God wants or what is His will for you, your feelings are only sensual and really mean nothing for you in regards to the spiritual life, and most of the time they only get in the way, either distracting us from prayer and good works, or making us depressed because we don’t “feel” close to God, or whatever else, not to mention the devil can manipulate our feelings…so they just can’t be trusted…and so what you must tell yourself is, no matter how you feel, you should serve God and love Him in everything,
so just don’t worry about your feelings like that, whether you feel happy or sad, you can always serve God just the same, and actually, your prayers and good works mean more to God and merit more for you in heaven when you are feeling dry than when you are feeling joy, because it is then that you prove your love most to God, because then you prove it’s God your doing it for and not the good feelings,

well anyways, here are a few other things i think will help you to understand what is Gods will for you, and also how you will find joy and peace -
gaiaonline.com/guilds/viewtopic.php?t=15358315
gaiaonline.com/guilds/viewtopic.php?t=20538467
gaiaonline.com/guilds/viewtopic.php?t=18175319
gaiaonline.com/guilds/viewtopic.php?t=18087275
amazon.com/Searching-Maintaining-Peace-Small-Treatise/dp/0818909064/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1301018188&sr=8-1

dunno if that helps, but i will keep you in my prayers, take care.