Why?

[Trishie]

Conversion: Your way

Loving God, if You wish, You can cure and convert me instantly. All goodness comes from You, so any ‘merit’ of my life is already part of Your holiness. Therefore, so that no moment of my life is wasted in sin or emptiness, please transform me with Your holiness now, as a channel of grace to others and a delight to Yourself!

That You do not hasten to grant this prayer reminds me that You are God who creates in gradual progression, molding Your masterpieces, no one like any other. You hold each creature in profound love that touches and moves each instant of life!

Help me to accept the quiet evolution of my life to wholeness as You seek my cooperation, while respecting my free will. Your wisdom neither transforms souls on demand nor coerces the unwilling person. Like the greatest silversmith, Your love delicately forms each tiny second and each unique shape of holiness and wholeness in our lives. That is Your glory in us, to form us in our prayerful obedience to the fire of love and the sharp tools of effort and tribulation.

God please grant me patient faith to accept Your fashioning. Yet, if anyone can persuade You to purify and sanctify all in my life from this instant, please let it be so! If not, then grant me to continue to live in quiet faith and faithfulness.

 

[Trishie]

Suffering servant of God

Dear Jesus, as Suffering Servant [Isaiah 52-53] You accepted all human weakness and struggle in atonement for human sin. You obtained redemption for all who choose Your ways.

With You, I accept the gifts and burdens of my humanity for the sake of others’ salvation. While I endure my faults and life’s difficulties, accepting them as opportunities to grow in love and wisdom, I ask that through Your mercy I never actually sin against You or other people.

Suffering Servant of God, united with You, I offer the heartaches, failures and misfortunes of others’ lives and mine. Your life in me is my real self that desires and moves towards goodness and others’ welfare. Where we can only experience grief or depression before traumatic and distressing occurrences, empower us with trust in You.

Fulfill Your promise that “all shall be well” that “all manner of things shall be well.” (Jesus to Julian of Norwich) Please grant me confidence in Your merciful action even when all seems hopeless, so that like You, I will obtain numerous conversions in blessing for my life lived in service of You and others.

Jesus, even when I feel devastated or despondent, I desire to pray and try to assist others. Help me to accept humbly, without surprise or disappointment that I seem imperfect and unfruitful, and that life seems dark and gloomy.

Let me live Your dream of me regardless. Let me be the treasure You created me to be, for You and for anyone in my life. Please delight Yourself in me and fulfil Your will in my life despite my inadequacies and trials. October 2001

“A Christian should always remember that the value of his good works is not based on their number and excellence but on the love of God which prompts him to do these things.” (Saint John of the Cross)
*
“Do not say, “God will consider the number of my gifts*.” [Ecclesiasticus 7:9]

*“Offer to God the sacrifice of never gathering any fruit. If He wills that throughout your whole life, you should feel a repugnance to suffering and humiliation—if He permits that all the flowers of your desires and of your good will should fall to the ground without any fruit appearing, do not worry. At the hour of death He will cause fruits to ripen on the tree of your soul.” *(Saint Therese quoted by Celine in ‘Counsels and Reminiscences’)

 

[Trishie]

Harvest

Beloved Jesus—from the compost of my sins, failures, faults and omissions please enrich the soil that nurtures the harvest that You prepare of my being and life—for Your delight, and for others’ benefit.

From the flower and fruit of all grace and good sprung from You within me, please bountifully glorify Yourself and bless all whose lives touch mine!

“Upon every person God loves, in order to bring them to God’s bliss, God imposes something that is not a defect in God’s sight, but is a reason why they are humbled and despised in this world, scorned, mocked and cast out. This God does to prevent the harm they would suffer from the pretense and vanities of this wretched life, to make ready their way to heaven and to the state of eternal happiness. For God says, ‘I shall tear you away from your vain affections and vicious pride. Then I shall gather you, and make you meek and mild, pure and holy by uniting you to Me’.” (Revelations to Julian of Norwich)

Clinging to God in the storms
A priest informed me that at this time in my life (November 2001) I am like an oyster clinging to the rock of God, unable to do much more than this.
If this oyster may still produce a beautiful pearl for God from the irritants embedded in my life and being, then praise God’s goodness in producing something of value and beauty out of my life with its struggles doubts and difficulties.
Equally, the world can only cling to God as its rock.
The rock may seem hard and barren, the ‘oysters’ of God’s faithful ones may at times appear lifeless and dull, yet this appearance is merely temporal.

 

[pollylodges]

Our Father who art in Heaven, hallowed be thy name.

Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on Earth as it is in Heaven.

Give us this day our daily bread.

And forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us.

And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.

Amen.

†

Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee.

Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb Jesus.

Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death.

Amen.

†

 

[ServantPD]

You will be on my prayers, my dear friend. You can feel alone in all of our sinful world, and you may feel unjust and you can deceptively feel that Lord is hiding far deep into the fog. But He sees your struggle, and will be there for you, wheter you know/feel it or not.

And don’t feel alone. Your Father loves you, and we and all the saints in the Triumphant and Suffering Churches are rooting for you. Bring your cries to God, and we will do prayers for you! :hug3:

God bless, brother

 

[George_Stegmeir]

Over and above any spiritual exercises you may do, you would do well to seek professional counseling from a psychologist or psychiatrist.
In addition, you should learn to be less self centered, by seeking out ways to help others. By helping others, you will be helping yourself.
As for people teasing you, ask your self why are you concerned? What have anyone of them done for you? Are you dependant on any of them for your food or lodging? Have anyone of them egver done anything that puts money in your pocket? If the answer to these questions is NO, then, fie on them!!!
Learn to be concerned only with important things. Continue to pray, but learn to care for others and don’t be concerned about those who taunt you.

 

[david_patrick]

hi i will pray a decade for you…

 

[mlz]

You are in my prayers Trishie has given you a lot to “chew on” and pray about. You are not ever alone and Jesus understands rejection as a man…He knows and will help you. Even though you can’t right now, you will.

My love in Christ,
mlz

 

[Cricket2]

Thanks. The real problem is I struggle (or don’t really struggle enough) with unchastity. The isolation is greatly exacerbating the problem.

As another suggested, do some volunteering someplace. It could be a soup kitchen, a local hospital, your parish or a nursing home.

By taking your mind off your own difficulties for a while you focus on others and in that giving of yourself you receive many graces. I know it is easy to say, but please don’t let those who snub you or try to humiliate you rule your life by letting it eat you up.

I don’t know how tall or short you are, but this is not who you are. Yea, there will always be those who want to quantify you this way, but who are they? What matters is your inner character. Are you kind to others, honest, loyal and generous? Do you try to help others when you are able, refuse to be a gossip, pray for others? These are the things that matter and will define who you really are.

Every human out there has one time or another struggled with issues of chastity. Go to confession and then try again to remain chaste. Believe it or not, being involved with helping others can help diminish this problem greatly. Also, you may want to seek some counseling to work on self esteem issues. This may help with your concerns about your height. Some of us struggle with weight, being almost blind, acne, stuttering, depression, a missing limb or difficulty understanding math.

All of these things can be used by those who are ignorant and maybe really in doubt of their own capabilities to put us down. The trick is not to let this define us. The next time someone makes an off remark about your “lack of height”, come up with a quick remark that is a bit funny or a wee bit scolding: Like: Oh that, you can’t believe what I can see down here! Think of ways that being shorter has helped you and find a way to joke about it.

My sister is good at this sort of thing. She never takes herself too seriously, and when someone says something to her that is unkind she usually has a quick remark that usually silences them. So, I am not trying to make light of your situation you see. I just hope you can find ways to show that you can have fun with your own supposed “down sides,” We all have them. Everyone does, the best thing to do is to use our own self knowledge to make light of it when we can.

 

[Layp3rs0n]

Thank you all so very very much. I know that the friends I do have live me, and sometimes I perceive affliction from others wheen there may be none. It comes down to, as Trishie has said, to love oneself, a thing I have struggled mightily with. Yet as of late that us the command Ive felt from God. I have been ignoring it thinking, “I love myself. Probably too much. I bend to every desire. I am too lax with myself. I must live myself less.” Still, I realized God meant Charity myself, not wanton abandonment to passions. So I say to God, “Fine, I value what You value. I have value. But no one You have created can perceive that value.” And so again, I fall into self pity and sin.

I must, by God’s grace truly value myself. My conversion has been going nowhere without it. I wondered, why after so long of being in the Church I have made no progress in taming myself to His obedience. It’s clear now: One cannot love God while hating himself! It is absolutely impossible to reach holiness at all when you consider yourself trash and unlovable. I need to believe God has more internet in me han ONLY my Salvation. He cares about my temporal needs as well. Granted they take a backseat to the former. But He loves me now.I do not have to wait until Heaven to accept His love and comfort. I do not have to ask Him for things with a, “You’ll probably say no to this prayer. Prove me wrong.”, attitude due to feeling that He doesn’t care about my happiness this side of the grave. I need to actuall accept that God truly does **delight ** in me. That I am not merely tolerated. If He loves me, I must find a way to look at my own reflection and smile. To not read or hear my own name in disgust. Please pray for this grace for me. That God show me who He really is and who I really am. Thank you all again (especially you , Trishie.).

 

[tawny]

Why God? I don’t understand. Why, since my youth, have You determined that I be an object of rejection? Why do You insist I have almost no family? Why so few friends? Why when I try to reach out to people am I mocked? My Faith is suffering. Not that I no longer believe, but I feel rejection from You as well now. I went to Church today. I prayed to you for hours before Mass. I wept in my pew. You saw me. I saw families come and go. Two children Baptized for which I thanked You. And then before Mass, my lonliness got the best of me and I left. I will have to bring that to confession. I cry to You, but You do nothing.
None of Your people stop to address me. You allow me to be stricken with foul luck. You allow almost nothing to go my way, and have equipped me with such clumsiness that I am at once embarassed and a burden to others. I wonder if it’s actually a generational cure.my father is similr in misfortune. Your blessings avoid me. My broken heartedness causes me to sin. The lonliness crushes me till i turn to the flesh for comfort. I am a ball of misery. You created me very short in stature, my peers openly laugh at me for it. I act kindly but am treated like pariah. Few are the joys in my life. I am sad and weakened. Please give me the gift of companionship. Please, Lord, give me fellowship. How can I love others when I am never loved? Please help me God.

Praying for your intentions.

 

[Hortenzie]

When I prayed for you these two scriptures came to my mind:
Proverbs 19:3
Acts 20:35