I have reached the point where I am ready to quit church altogether. I was baptized Lutheran (confirmed too, but probably shouldn't have been), but was born Catholic. Ever since I was small I was drawn toward Catholicism. My sister and I use to watch EWTN, I especially liked the rosary and begged my grandmother who was raised in the church, but left (for personal reasons), to teach me the entire 'Hail Mary'. I still remember what it felt like as those words rolled off my lips, it was surreal, solemn experience, as if I were entering into church, when an evening service was being held, and the candles flickered, impressing on me that I was entering a most holy place. One of my most vivid memories was going up to an upper level of a school with some friends (while our parents were holding an auction downstairs) to see a statue of Mary with the Christ Child. I can't say what I saw was real, or just my imagination (if I remember correctly, the statue was illuminated from below), but her face and eyes shown as if they were real. And I just sat and stared at her with her baby, entranced by the love, peace, and sense of calling I saw in those eyes). Like I said, it may have been an illusion, but the experience has stuck with me, in some sense, in my soul, I can still see those eyes. And have never had a similar experience with any other statue that I can really remember.

But growing up in the Lutheran church I had to struggle against my catholic sensibilities, afraid I would go to hell, if I trusted or prayed to any beside Christ, or if I gave heed to the apparitions (I was told once, that they were possibly delusions from the devil). I stayed away because I was scared. A little over a year ago, my Dad died, which automatically caused my family and I to ahem....believe he could hear us and that we could talk to him, asking him for his help and guidance. He was always there for us, and we couldn't let go of him. We couldn't accept that he was not able to watch over us anymore. Which I know is probably the worst defense of invocation, but that is what seems to have happened. Mom still talks to him, I don't. Been convinced out of it once again, and lately have been afraid too.

Let me back up a little. After Dad died, and it was up to us to decide which church to attend, we started to visit around. One night as I sat on the basement steps ready to pull my hair out (trying to understand things like Mary as Mediatrix ect). I kept feeling prompted, as if a voice were telling me, "Go to the apparitions." Then again, stronger..."Go to the apparitions". Now I had recently read a little of some supposed apparition a few days earlier (I say "supposed" because I'm not sure if it was an approved apparition), but didn't think a whole lot of it, except that what I read was pleasant. After being spooked out of heeding the apparitions when I was smaller (and coming to believe they taught unorthodox theology), they pretty much ceased being a part of my interest in Catholicism. But as Providence...perhaps would have it, I had saved the site where I had found the apparition. I read all night, not only that apparition, but others. I read so many, I can't tell you what came from where, whether a certain phrase was from an approved apparition or not. All that I know, is that by the morning, I felt...."born again"? I don't know how to say it, but everything fell into place. Not only did I understand the Marian dogmas (something that I had been struggling with (for reasons unrelated to Mary), but I loved the new life I was given. I prayed more at that time than I ever have since. I would pray the rosary and couldn't wait to get back to it again. I couldn't immerse myself fast enough into Catholic devotions. I wanted a scapular (like three different kinds), for the simple fact that I loved Mary and Jesus....Jesus...I fell in love with Jesus! Whenever I struggled with something, He seemed to always answer me, not vocally per se, but I could hear Him nonetheless. Then it happened.....

I was introduced to something I never knew about- the distinction between attrition and contrition. It began to affect my prayer life. Whenever I asked God to forgive my sins, I wasn't sure He had forgiven me, because I didn't know if it was attrition asking or contrition. So my focus turned to myself, wondering if I was sorry enough to be forgiven. I had previous to this struggled with the issue of mortal sin. I was always afraid of committing it. The idea of loosing Christ, and/or not having a chance to repent before I died, scared me to death, and finally robbed me of whatever joy and hope I had. My salvation had become about me and what I was doing, would I loose grace...would I go to hell...am I repentant enough. This was a feeling I was all too familiar with. I had it, even while attending Lutheran churches, it's just that Catholicism magnified it, and kinda hammered that final nail into the coffin, of my soul.

And so, I thought, maybe I can be Eastern Orthodox, but that meant giving up my belief in the apparitions. I struggled with that for awhile, but eventually relented. But I couldn't settle there...it just wasn't home. So I moved on, thinking maybe I should go home to Lutheranism. I found real peace in their doctrine of universal justification (ie the belief that God has forgiven the whole world). But the peace they gave me in one hand they took away with the other, by saying that I needed to have faith in this promise of forgiveness, in order to really have it. It doesn't really make alot of sense to me, all I know is that it became about me again, and what I have to do...have faith. I was so tired of my salvation being in part dependent on me. What despair! Then on top of it all, I was told everything from the saints aren't aware of us, to it's idolatry to trust in them...to they're dead....to a simple...we don't know. Trust=Idolatry....I was spooked again. And this morning, the weight of it was so immense that I just broke down crying. My father was taken away from me once, and now he was taken away from me again. I wanted to cry out to him, I wanted him to be here with me. And Mary, have I lost her? I do not have the same relationship with her and Christ that I had before. Was I deceived? I was so happy then, can I trust my feelings ever again? I'm afraid. I'm afraid I was deceived. I am afraid that if I return back to my former practices and beliefs that I will be turning my back on Christ. That if I put my trust in anyone else but Him, I won't be saved. I so want to be saved. I need that assurance. Not so that I can go off and do whatever I want to do, but so that I can pray my rosary in peace and do whatever I do out of love for God, rather than being preoccupied (even in the slightest way) by fear of loosing Him. It is not only for myself that I fear, but for my family and everyone else. And yet I know to fear and worry are themselves sins, and yet how can I not given all of the above.

Well, this is my story. I'm sorry if it's a bit much, I just feel like I need to unload. I am going to go talk to a priest I know, very soon. But if any of you have any words of encouragement to sustain me until that time, you have my eternal gratitude.

God Bless,
Cheryl

PS. I know this is really long....my apologies....move it to wherever. I just wasn't sure where to post this.

+J.M.J.+
moved to open mic for a variety of responses.

Cheryl,

God loves you so much... and He wants to do great things through you. I can feel that from reading your post. You're probably suffering from scrupulosity... I went through a similar situation when I got serious about my faith. I used to be afraid of suddenly losing my salvation just before I left this world. But when I started to trust Him more these thoughts started to dissipate. Basically I realized that God doesn't want me to go to hell, rather he wants to make me a saint (this is what he wants for all of us). And if this is the case then the only way i can go to hell is if i pull myself out of His loving arms and refuse his mercy that He always holds out to me!

Please be assured that when you go to confession and confess your mortal sins they're gone forever. If you fall you can always go to confession... tell the priest everything.

Being Catholic for me is being whole. I believe that I can ask souls who have gone before me to pray for me... and I believe that I'm assured of heaven because of His grace and mercy provided if I cooperate with it faithfully til the end.

I want to recommend that you read Story of a Soul by St. Therese of the Child Jesus.

If you ever want to talk please e-mail me at htgomesATstarpowerNET... let me know if you have Google chat, AIM or Yahoo.

Cheryl,

Do me a favor and read my story from yesterday.

http://www.phatmass.com/phorum/index.php?showtopic=87310

The communion of the saints is real. Heb 12 says we are surrounded by them as witnesses. Heb 5 and 8 show that they are before the throne of God praying for us. It is ridiculous to say they can't know what is going on here. They are in heaven with God.

God loves you and has plans for you as a Catholic. Don't let the devil take it away from you.

In what way do we refuse His mercy? What does His mercy consist of?




The very idea of having even committed mortal sin, terrifies me. I don't want to loose Christ for one minute. I don't want to be afraid of loosing Christ and yet I know how sinful I am, and if not loosing Christ means not being so sinful, Then it becomes about me and I am no longer trusting in Jesus. If there are sins, great sins, by which we can loose Christ, and not loosing Him depends on not committing these sins, how can I ever fully trust that I will not loose Him. Oh, God, I cannot loose Him.



Whenever I try and "cooperate" it becomes about me, and I come back under the law as it were. Meaning my sins begin to dominate me. I become so focused on not committing this or that sin, so as not to loose Christ, that I actually make myself all the more susceptible to committing the sin, I want to avoid.


I have it in my Amazon cart as we speak.


Thank you.

That was an awesome story! And..."GODINCIDENCE"? What a great word! I need to start writing down all the fun and unusual words I come across. Yours would be at the top of the list!



They quote Old Testament verses like,

Is 63:16 But you are our Father, though Abraham does not know us or Israel acknowledge us;
you, O LORD, are our Father, our Redeemer from of old is your name. And, 2 Kings 22:20 Therefore I will gather you to your fathers, and you will be buried in peace. Your eyes will not see all the disaster I am going to bring on this place.

Which to be truthful I don't really know how to reply to such assertions. Like you, I have had experiences and now I wonder were these experiences delusions of the devil. They seemed to have produced good fruit, but in listening and reading Lutheran arguments against the invocation of the saints, I can see why from their point of view, invocation detracts us from Christ. Although it didn't seem like it to me at the time I was engaged in it, now I'm afraid, that if I return to it, I will be turning my focus from Christ. So I'm just really confused right now. And it doesn't help that I haven't been able to find anywhere in Scripture a person invoking a saint in heaven. The two closest I have come to have been, Job 1:5 "Call if you will, but who will answer you? To which of the holy ones will you turn?" and, Matt 27:47 "When some of those standing there heard this, they said, "He's calling Elijah." But both of these were uttered by nonbelievers, and so may just be a reflection of some sort of erroneous theology they held too. I wish I could find an example of a godly person invoking a saint for help or whatever. Because it's like, my experiences don't matter (and I do acknowledge that Satan can appear as an angel of light), what matters is if I can demonstrate it from Scripture. And it's just so discouraging.


It's interesting you should say that because it seems like whenever I think I'm ready to settle down in a Church somewhere, something always happens that makes me begin to despair. But none more so, then when I thought I was going to be catholic. I was so close...and so alive...and then got hit upside the head with the whole contrition/attrition and the mortal/venial sin thing, that my heart just sunk, my joy left, and with it, everything that had enlivened me. I had died. I do think (and God forgive me if this is not the case), but that they devil is messing with my head, heart, and my relationship to God. And these teachings, attrition/contrition, mortal/venial sin, are the instruments which he is using to pull me away from the life I had as a soon-to-be catholic (twas already catholic in my heart), from Mary, from Christ, and in it's place, had driven me down into a pit of confusion and despair. Don't get me wrong, many people have found a great deal of comfort in Lutheranism, it's just I am not one of them.

Yeah, Thanks. Sorry it was in the wrong place.

The usage of Job 5:1 does not apply because we are not calling to the saints for them to help us personally. We are asking them to interceed before God who will help us. To expect them personally to accomplish what is desired would be idolatry. I agree. That's not the context of Catholic prayer to saints.

Matt 27:47 is a bit silly I think. First of all Jesus could call upon Elijah if he wanted as he did in the transfiguration. He called on him to come forth (the words are not in the Bible but surely he did) and appear with him and with moses as Peter, James, and John saw. That someone who is not a Christian said the words says nothing about the whether we should ask the prayers of saints. In Matt 12 we are told that the apostles would sit on thrones judging the 12 tribes. How can they do that if they don't know what is going on. It also says "Luke.15

1. [7] Just so, I tell you, there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who need no repentance. "

Now if they can't "hear" or no anthing how can their be joy over something that happens on earth.

Another passage that you will here is eccl 9:5 against praying to the saints.

"[5] For the living know that they will die, but the dead know nothing,"

Now that is usually where they stop. But they should read the rest of the passage:
"and they have no more reward; but the memory of them is lost."

Clearly this is speaking of the damned because if they have no reward that contradicts the many passages in the NT that say there is reward in heaven. But even without that this is an old testament passage and Christ is the first fruits. Thus it is speaking about those in the abode of the dead before it was opened and they were resurrected as we are told in Matt 28 and they go in to heaven. In heaven, by the power of God they can know what is happening here. And I think the passage above about the rejoicing in heaven answers that pretty effectively.

One last thought. I think your dilema helps me understand what it means when lot's wife looked back on sodom and gomorah and became a pilar of salt. Forgive me for saying this but God is leading you to the CC and when you get there you won't regret it. Stop looking back.

I always thought of it a bit differently. I think of the saints like sacraments. God poured into each one the grace and merits to be who they are. So I always thought that they did help us personally. For example if I ask my Dad to protect my family, I'm doing so, because God has bestowed on him the ability to do just that. This is not to exclude the fact that they do pray for us, but I think that the saints in heaven are so united to Christ, that in some way, they are all one. So to pray to Dad, is to pray to Christ who works through Him and visa versa. If we just limit their intercessions to actual prayer, then I think there may be a danger of putting distance between ourselves and Christ, especially when merits become involved. It would just be too easy to fall into the mentality that we need to go through such and such, because Christ would more readily accept them than us. That was one of the reasons my grandma eventually left the catholic church, because she was told that we ought to pray to Mary, because we would be more apt to get what we ask for than if we went straight to Christ ourselves. The nun who told her this, had said, "If I asked you to go to your mother to get something for me, she'd be more likely to give it to me because you asked, as opposed to if I went to her and asked her myself." I have always been turned off by such a picture. Because firstly, 1) it makes Mary out to be more compassionate than Christ. 2) It uses Mary and it uses Christ. If I thought someone was sending my mom to request that I give something to that someone because they didn't think I would give it to them if they had approached me themselves, my heart would sink! I would think, "Do they think I need to be persuaded? Don't they know I love them and would give to them whatever they ask".



But, if they were unbelievers they wouldn't have believed in Christ's power to call Elijah "to come forth". So it would seem that their misunderstanding of what Christ said, stemmed from another train of thought. And if they were unbelievers that train of thought might not have been kosher (ie anything for us to imitate). The only two other possibilities I can think of, is 1) those who said, he is calling Elijah, were believers or at least some of them were, so maybe they were expecting what you had said, that he was calling Elijah like in transfiguration. 2) If it was unbelievers, they still knew that Christ claimed to be the Messiah, so maybe they said what they did, not because they believed Christ could call down Elijah, but simply acknowledging that as a part of His claim to being the Messiah, Christ thought He could. Which brings us back around to what you said again. Namely that the Messiah could call Elijah. What's interesting at this juncture, is that if these were unbelievers, then it seems there was a belief circulating among the Jews that the Messiah would have this power, now where did they get that idea? Hmmmm.



That is a very.....very good point.



Yep. Speaking of the Transfiguration, something that I thought about before (and this may be complete nonsense), but we are told that Christ went up the mount to pray and let's assume because Christ is God, that He went up to pray to His Father. Now the disciples had kinda drifted off to sleep. When they woke up, they saw Moses and Elijah conversing with Christ. Now the usual interpretation is that Christ went up the mount with His disciples, to show His glory and to reveal Moses and Elijah as somehow a part of that revelation. And I'm not saying this is a wrong way to look at it. But I wonder if that's all there is to it. If Christ went to pray and while he did so, the disciples slept, and woke up to the sight of Christ talking to the Prophets, it seems possible to conclude that well...to put it rather bluntly, "Christ, when you pray, do you talk to your saints often?" I don't know. Like I said, I may be way off base.



Yes, that's something I noticed too, that most of the citations are drawn from the Old Testament. I think the problem lies in the fact that the "abode of the dead" doesn't register on the radar of many Christians. So they don't look at these passages as suggestive of a situation that has since been altered by Christ's death and resurrection.


I don't take offense at all. Thank you for giving me the faith to do so. I have found talking to you and others here, has helped ease my fear and if I may say so, has violently pushed me back toward where I use to be. Heaven was watching and has worked wonderfully through all of you. Please continue to support me in your prayers. Help me to stand firm.

I had said previously that I felt like I had fallen into some sort of ditch. Now, it's as if, you guys were behind me in that ditch and had pushed me out, while I was scraping and clawing against the wall trying to get out myself and yet feeling as if I couldn't.

Thank you, you all don't know the magnitude of what you've done. May you all, by the love of God which fills you, continue to be channels of his saving grace.

Cheryl

Something I thought when reading your initial post...

When you had early experiences, of what you thought were apparitions, and the experience with your father... you were told be weary these could be of the Devil! While you tried to push them out, you couldn't, because you knew there was something good and real there.

When you started getting into the Catholic faith you were hit with something we all struggle with deeply: guilt. I've heard people call it Catholic guilt before. Its a fear that one might lose your salvation.

Here is what I think. You are a strong soul, and the Devil knows this. He tried to dissuade you early on, by saying that you should run from your experiences because they're bad. Now, he is trying to tell you that there is no way you can be good enough for heaven.

Ignore it. Keep your hope alive. Trust in Jesus.

Mortal sin is real. But so is your hope and trust in Jesus. That faith can overcome any mortal sin. Fear is from the Devil.

Your first post was really inspiring and good to read. Don't let fear rob you of the joy of being a Christian. The gospel is meant to be rejoiced, not feared!

+J.M.J.+
it's okay. God bless you

Well...it wasn't so much that I couldn't get away from them completely because I knew there was something real and good about them. It was that even apart from those "experiences", Mary never seemed to let go of me. And by that I mean, she was a constant presence in my life. I could sense her with me, watching over me, not like a ghost, more like the sort of knowledge one has of God's presence. Except this presence was/is distinctly female. Isn't that strange how once can identify whose presence they are in, without seeing them? During those times when I was convinced that I ought to reject catholicism because of doctrinal reasons, and as a result the idea that Mary was really present with me, whenever I seemed to let my guard down regarding religious matters....there she was again. I'm just now coming out of the confusion I was previously in, so I can't say this with great confidence, but it seems like Mary has a strangle-hold on me lol. Seriously, it's as if she had/has? her arm around my middle, the way a mother does with a little toddler trying to get down off their mother's lap. I can get distracted for awhile, by what's going on around me and forget the feeling of that strong resistant arm, but the distractions never seem to last.



Well, not really. My anxiety over loosing my salvation began in Lutheranism. Faith alone is not much of a comfort to me, because it's still something I needed to have to be saved, and my faith wasn't strong enough to put any real degree of confidence in. Now Lutherans will tell you, that faith is only the means, one's confidence should be in Christ. But however it was explained to me, I knew I still needed faith to be saved. And this was accentuated by the fact that during Confirmation, my nephew had died stillborn. And in inquiring as to his salvation, I was told that he was saved, because had he been born alive, his parents would have had him baptized, but that we don't know about anyone else. I still remember a quote from our workbook, "a person can go to hell by doing no wrong". It was just one thing after another, so that what was once a wide all-encompassing, not worried about anyone view of salvation...became narrower and narrower and narrower....Faith became something that I possessed not because God's Word is true and I believed it, and simply that I loved Christ, but because if I didn't possess it, I was going to hell, along with everyone else who weren't baptized or didn't have faith. And this was the time when I was beginning puberty and so masturbation became an issue. I don't really know when I started, I think it just kinda crept up on me. Well, anyways, one Sunday, somewhere in the mists of the sermon, I heard these words, "...sexual immoral...will not enter the Kingdom of Heaven". I'm not saying I didn't have any guilt before that...I don't remember...but I do remember that being a turning point for me...when the guilt over my sexual proclivity meant hell. And it was made all the worse by the fact that for whatever reason, I am sado-masochistic. That's very hard to control. But then as I began to learn more about catholicism, and the criteria of mortal sin, 1)Is the sin serious? -Yes! 2)Did/Do I know it was serious? -Yes 3) Did I, or do I commit it with full/sufficient knowledge? -Yes! Ergo, I have and continue to commit mortal sin. But because this desire or need or whatever you want to call it, is so strong in me, I live pretty moment by moment that I'm going to succumb to it. So really, no, Catholicism didn't do this to me, I grew up with it.




Oh, my friend, if you only knew what I was capable of. How strong-willed and rebellious I am....



"Faith can overcome any mortal sin", how so?


I need help to get there.

To clarify the 'faith can overcome any mortal sin'. My point was that someone with a strong faith will be strengthened to avoid mortal sin or in the case that one falls into mortal sin, a strong faith will motivate one to go to confession.

Sexual immorality is a problem a great deal of people struggle with. Maybe all people?

Its a very old sin and can be overcome, if you want to.

I was a baptist and took a while to find the Catholic faith and I struggled with a lot of the same issues. First of all, about the saints. When we pray to (or with, as I like to think of it) them, we are not asserting that they are a power seperate from Christ. All power in the world comes from Christ. Sometimes we ask them to bring our petitions to Jesus, because, for one thing, they are much closer to Him than we are, and for another, a couple of extra voices certainly can't hurt. Also, Christ uses people on Earth to work for the good of others, so why can't he continue to use these people in heaven? What kind of sense does it make to say that on Earth, through the grace of God, we can be instruments of His saving work, but once we get to heaven, we're useless? God loves the saints very much, and he gives them the ability to care for us in a special way out of kindness to them and to us. So they are in no way in competition with God - they are a part of his body and they do his work, just as we do imperfectly here on Earth.

About your struggles with guilt - I have noticed that the closer we get to God, the more desperately Satan tries to tear us away! Mortal sin definitely exists, but it is not something that you do without realizing it while trying to be a good Christian. To be mortal, you have to know how wrong it is and fully consent to it. For example, you mentioned sexual sin. The Church affirms that people, especially teenagers, are not necessarily choosing in full freedom to commit these acts, especially if they have become a habit. A mortal sin means that you know, I am about to do something that will utterly offend God, but I freely decide to to it anyway.

Jesus does NOT mean for you to be terrified of losing your salvation. Don't think of it so much as requiring you to do something in order to be saved. It's more like God gives you the right to say no to Him. He won't force anything on you that you don't want. Merely the desire to have faith is good enough. He won't judge you by your feelings.

I hope that God gives you peace! You will be in my prayers.

Whether or not I want to depends on day to day....it's an emotional release for me, and a way I self-medicate. As for having a strong faith...I can't say. But I need to be able to heal from whatever is going on with me that makes me act out this way, without worrying that I have lost my salvation. Fear and healing don't go together. The former tends to cancel the latter out.

I wish I could explain the logic behind the Lutheran reason for rejecting prayers to the saints altogether. But it's very difficult to discern. Unlike most other Protestants they grant that the saints do pray for us, just that we shouldn't invoke them. I say this because it's always good to have a firm understanding of what others believe...as for the Baptists...you'll have to tell me where they stand. But yes, I agree with you.



I hope I didn't scare anyone off by talking about "sexual sin" I've noticed no one else has commented since then. I didn't mean to embarrass anyone. For me it's like a disorder (and it very well may be, I have OCD (obsessive compulsive disorder), and PTSD (post traumatic stress-disorder) . OCD, itself can attribute to sexual dysfunction as well as religious scrupulosity). So me talking about it, is like talking about a sickness, and trying to understand that sickness. Which brings me to, "(I) know, I am about to do something that will utterly offend God, but I freely decide to to it anyway." Hmmm. That's very hard for me to assess. Sometimes I think I do, sometimes I think I don't. I had said before that I know it's a sin and I do it anyways. But this whole guilt thing, my ability to distinguish between right and wrong, came about when I was still attending the Lutheran Church. I'm not saying Lutheranism did anything wrong, it's just from the pulpit to my ears, something went wacky. I don't really understand the Catholic concept of sin. I didn't grow up in that environment, so my conscience has yet to really be informed by it. For example, when we talk about knowing that something is a sin and freely deciding to do it anyways, my non-catholic conscience, tells me that all sin is freely decided there's 1 criteria of mortal sin checked off. And that my sins conform to the ten commandments, so I know it's against God's will, there's #2 checked off. And then when you combine these two together and say, "sin is freely decided (or to put it more accurately, all sin is willful), I know I wanted to do it, my body and heart were telling me so, and being aware of God's Law, I can't say I didn't know it was wrong. I knew it was wrong according to God and I did it anyway. Ergo=mortal sin.


Well...that's sorta why I asked elsewhere if Christ forgives everyone irregardless of whether or not they repent. Sorta like how we are told to forgive our enemies. Because believing that seems to have been the only real thing that really brought me out from under not only my own sins, but everyone else's too. It kept me from constantly remembering and complaining about what other people had done. I think a great deal of why I struggle (besides just being messed up), is that I am not sufficiently grounded in the Gospel, and consequently find myself under the Law. Like when Paul said he would not have known what such and such sin was, except for the Law (there again, knowledge that it's wrong), but that the Law produced death in him through his transgression of the Law (ie separation from God). And that's the way I feel a great deal of the time, namely that God is my enemy. That I know what I do is wrong to him...but in some sense, it's not wrong to me...but His Law and what's wrong to Him is what ultimately matters and He has my fate in His hands. And I think that's where alot of my fear comes in at, because it's like.....When am I going to sin next....when am I going to knowingly and willfully sin next....I am obeying God not because I love Him and am free to do so, like when I believed God forgave everyone, not counting the sins of the world against them....but because it's against THE LAW and if I knowingly break THE LAW, I'm going to hell.



Thank you. I'm sorry I didn't reply yesterday....I was really dragging.

I just got done purchasing a few books I thought might help with my particular struggles:

Understanding Scrupulosity: Questions, Helps, And Encouragements

And

Understanding-Scrupulosity:Helpfu Answers For Those Who lExperience Nagging Questions And Doubts

(both are written by Thomas M. Santa)

I also purchased:

Everything Is Grace: The Life and Way of Therese of Lisieux by Joseph F. Schmidt

Thomas M. Santa has "CS.s.R" after his name, does anyone know what that means?

(Would any of you read a review if I wrote one?)

Cheryl

You are in my prayers!
God will give you the grace to overcome whatever
you need to overcome!

Godbless~

Thank you. I would love to have a Mass said, but I know that's asking a lot. It means a great deal knowing that others are praying for me.

Hi Cheryl,
I agree with Seven77, it sounds like a lot of what you are dealing with is scrupulosity. It's easy to say "don't worry that your sins aren't forgiven" but I know that it's not that simple. First of all, realize that God has control over your life and that He loves you. It is very obvious that you are sincere in your spiritual life, and God knows that and will not lead you astray. God ALWAYS forgives sins; if you are going to confession and confessing your sins to the best of your recollection with a sincere intention to stop committing them, you're covered. I honestly think it's best, at this point, not to try to get into heavy theology which may trigger further scruples. Instead, focus on simpler, inspirational readings. That's just my opinion, but having struggled with similar problems, I find that a time of spiritual questioning and turmoil is not usually the best time to try to understand the more esoteric mysteries of the Faith-it's a time to hand the reigns over to God and keep it simple.

As for apparitions; although there are many apparitions I believe to be of God, a Catholic is not required to believe in any private revelations. If they are causing a lot of questions, I'd focus on other devotions for now. If God wants to use a particular apparition to inspire you in the future, He will. Try your best to relax-it is very evident that you are a truly devoted person and God will bless you for it! I'll pray for you Katie

ETA: I don't think asking your dad to watch over you is a problem. I often ask my deceased loved ones to pray for me and I think that it's perfectly in accordance with the teaching of the communion of saints. It's not the same as invoking a spirit through a seance or medium, it's simply asking for their prayers.

I guess when it comes to confession....I worry. Because if confessions is required for God to forgive me (or to be forgiven), then what about the times in between confession? What if I die before going to my next appointment?




The apparitions themselves give me a great deal of peace. My favorites are Lourdes, Pontmain, well, I could go on...The apparitions were what helped me understand nearly every Catholic dogma I had struggled with. I wish our Mother would talk about attrition/contrition, mortal sin and this topsy-turvy thing I have going regarding forgiveness. You're forgiven...you sin...you're not forgiven...go to confession and/or confess...then you're forgiven...you sin...ect.
She (and Christ of course) just has a way of explaining things better than any catechism or theologian. I can't imagine being catholic and not believing in the apparitions. In fact, that's how this whole thing started, I picked up...BOOKS! I'm even leery of reading Scripture right now, because I don't want to come to a conclusion that is contrary to the Faith. And no matter the author, no one speaks for the Church, unless it's a general council or the pope speaking ex cathedra. But even these things I need help interpreting and applying to me personally. And who can do that? Everyone is just passing along their own interpretations, including father-confessors. That's not to say they are wrong....but it doesn't mean they're right either. Only heaven has that sort of infallibility I can lean on. Thank God, Christ, the saints, and Mary still visit us. If we were left to ourselves to try and discern between the promptings of the Holy Spirit and our own personal albeit pious opinions, who could do such a thing consistently, without error?


Thank you for that.

You have my prayers Cheryl

Thank You.

I don't think you have anything to worry about. And I'll explain why.

If you commit a mortal sin, and do not go to Confession, and you die in this mortal sin, the Church teaches that you will go to Hell. But hold on. Unless you fill the criteria of mortal sin (one of the three criteria being that you know it's a grave offense but you do it anyway), you will not be committing a conscious mortal sin. Also, if you do fulfill the criteria of mortal sin, but are completely repentant and resolve to go to Confession ASAP, but die before you can go, you have completed a perfect act of contrition and will not go to Hell.

On to venial sin - venial sin you are forgiven of by simply being truly sorry and praying for God's forgiveness. Venial sin does not cut us from God's grace the way mortal sin does. Also, during Mass, recall what we say before receiving Christ: "Lord, I am not worthy to receive you, but only say the words and I shall be healed." This cleans you from venial sin before Communion.

HCF for three from behind the blue line, past the goalkeeper and for the win to send her team to Super Bowl XXXXVIISFVVRrlvr434290.



































great post.

I get that final unrepentance would equate to an eternal hell (or separation from God). Where I get confused is why this "final unrepentance" is the reality for everyone who dies unrepentant, as if in the next life, they were locked into their unrepentance and subsequently never have the ability to repent. What happened to their freewill? Who locks them in?



holding



May I share something with you, so as to get a "catholic" take on it? Remember how I said in my original post that I felt as if Christ were speaking to me? Well, when I was worried about whether or not I had committed mortal sin, or if I ever would...I "heard" a voice say to me, "Get up and do something". What I understood that to mean, was that if I were ever afraid of having lost Christ, or of loosing Christ through my sins, I was to do some good and my fears would cease. As if doing something out of love or service to God, made reparation for my sin, even if it be mortal. But then when I got to reading about attrition versus contrition, I don't remember them ever making mention of anything like this, but that it was through prayer and heart-contrition and a resolve never to do it again, for the sake of God alone that restored the grace lost.



What does "completely repentant" mean? When I was reading about contrition versus attrition, it said that if you are sorry because you fear hell or the loss of heaven, recognize how ugly the sin is, then it's attrition. That only loving God for his own sake brings about true contrition. But this didn't make sense to me. If by mortal sin, you destroy the charity that God had endowed you with, but then to be forgiven of mortal sin, you need to repent out of loving God for His own sake...well...if you're able to do that, then you've already been forgiven ie God has already restored you to sanctifying grace. And for me, loss of heaven, fear of hell and love for God are so wrapped up together, that it's nearly impossible to separate.



Thanks that clears up a great deal.

I will praying for you by name as I offer the mass in about a half hour.

In Christ,

Fr. Burns

lol..I don't know what to say...except laugh. That made my day. Thanks.

Oh, God I'm going to cry. You don't know how much that means to me. Oh God bless you!

(Wow, Fr. P-fex has a real name! My world is upside down right now. Seriously.)

I didn't read the whole thread, so if I repeat what's been said, sorry.

In short: no matter who we ask to pray for us, whether its the saints, our Blessed Mother Mary, or our family, God is number one. He should be our first go-to always. We ask the saints to pray WITH us. They can't replace God, and anyone who puts the saints over God is very wrong.

Thanks!




I am sort of confused by what you are asking here, sorry. Maybe I'm just slow tonight.




Hm. While it is wonderful to perform an act of kindness as reparation for your sins, being good does not necessarily cancel out a sin. Now if you commit a mortal sin (again, you fulfill the three criteria), you can be truly sorry for this grave offense against God (and any involved), and you can go out and try to make amends, but this alone does not cleanse you from mortal sin unless you die before you make it to Confession; but more than that, you have to be planning on going to Confession but die before you make it in order to be absolved from your mortal sin. You simply can't think "Okay, I did X and Y, so my mortal sin is gone." You need the Sacrament to cleanse you. Believe me, I've done this before, I've been in mortal sin and I've tried to rationalize it away, but deep down you just know that you need Confession. Lost grace via mortal sin can only be restored through Confession (unless for an extreme case like that mentioned above). Prayer, heart-contrition, and a resolve to sin no more is for venial sins (like cursing and losing your temper).

I think God is telling you not to be scrupulous, and to serve Him with all your strength. He knows that we sin, believe me. But it is that more pleasing to Him when, after we sin - particularly severely - we run to Him in Confession. Confession takes a lot of strength - we feel ashamed to speak of our sins out loud - but it shows Jesus how much we love Him, that we are willing to feel ashamed for His sake. (And we should accept this feeling, since we brought it upon ourselves by sinning in the first place!)



Completely repentant to me equals (a) being in agonizing, spiritual pain not because you gravely sinned, but because you gravely sinned against God (b) begging for God's mercy for having wounded Him (c.) Sincerely promising that you will get to Confession ASAP (d) being more concerned about how you hurt God than the state of your soul (although the state of your soul is important, because going to Hell hurts God, which we must always remember).



We can only be restored through Confession. Remember, Confession is a powerful Sacrament, it's way more than just talking to a priest.



Try and think of it like this - sadness over the loss of Heaven, and fear of Hell, stem from loving God.

I was just wondering what happens to people's freewill in hell so that they cannot ever repent.


I'm confused. So it does cancel it out if I die before I make it to confession?



Still confused...I'm not trying to get out of going to confession. I very much like confession.



I use to be scared of confession. But I'd say, "God if I have to go, make it okay for me." I use to be scared of anyone finding out my sins. And then I realized that I need to combat that fear, because if I run away from the light in this life, how would I be able to go toward the light in the next (Jn 3:20-21). So, I think between God "making it okay for me" and also giving me that realization that I need to fight the urge to run and having given me the grace to do it, in addition to already confessing my sins to family members, I really don't have much fear of confession anymore. Shame for me doesn't equal fear...so....The only fear I really have, is a fear of being rejected by whoever I confess to.




I kinda think of the priest and Christ as one and the same. I don't really separate the two. I don't really know how to explain it...



That's very helpful. Thanks. In the books I read, they seemed to distinguish between loving God and everything else. If you repent for any other reason than out of love for God, then it's not enough to cancel out mortal sin. Which was hard for me to really apply to my prayer life and daily repentance, because the categories were foreign to me. Stick me in purgatory for a thousand years, even if I am in pain, as long as God's with me...I'll be just fine. In fact, purgatory will already be heaven for me, because I'll know for a fact, I'm going to heaven, and I can't tell you the indiscernible joy and peace that would bring me. And God is my heaven. If he were walking on this earth today in such a way that he was no longer in the "place" called heaven, I'd leave that heaven and stay on earth, and would say, "This is heaven". So my fear of hell or loss of heaven is essentially being rejected and alienated from Christ for all eternity.

Well, keeping that in mind, we can ask - what happens to a person's free will when they are in Heaven?

When we are judged by God, we can't say "give me another chance" because we had all of our chances while we were alive. After we die, that's it. We get put into one of three places - or, rather, the way we ran our lives on earth determines where we get placed.



Only if you have a true desire and a true plan to go to Confession as soon as possible.

Don't know...that's part of the mystery isn't it? I'd like to know the answer to that too.



Well, if anyone asks God to give them another chance, then it can't be because they are truly repentant, because you don't have repentant people in hell.



Okay...thanks. I kinda diverted the conversation with that question, but I thought it pertinent to ask.