Stuck.....Please Pray For Me!

[Reader Antonius]

It's pretty difficult to put this here, but I know I need the prayer, I have to share this...maybe its pride, maybe I just want attention...I don't really want to know, I just want prayer.

You know, there are times when I preach when no-one is listening. It happened today...I think the fact that I had a cup of Costa Rican coffee certainly moved things along a bit in my little "homily" as I was about as impassioned as a Pentecostal.

Today, my sermon was about the radical salvation that comes from being "In Christ." The main thrust of the sermon appears to have been the danger of mortal sin and fleeing from it. I kept stressing to my imaginary audience that sin suffocates the life of God in us and kills us and left unrepentant will lead to hell. I preached of the forgiveness of the sacrament of Confession and how sin damages even those whom we love most...our Christian brothers and sisters.

It was one of the best sermons to date, if not the best from my own judgement of this odd practice that I sometimes feel compelled to do when no-one is watching.

But again this evening I am reminded of how pitifully weak we are..the "preacher" could not abide by his own word.

I am in the dust again. All the victories of the past months feel so hollow at this moment. The surfeit, that thing which I have known all along cannot satisfy me, called to me again. And again I ran to it and again the prostitute left me alone...with the cold ache of emptiness.

Forgive me, but I am hurting and I respond to pain like this with poetics...so I can hide myself from my guilt.

It hurts...it still hurts. I feel utterly defeated. I dare not even try to contemplate the damage I have done to myself or to the Church....and to those whom I love most with what I have done. I remember now that emptiness, that wound that begs me to cry....to weep in bitterness over what I have done.

And the "archdemon", Asmodeus, whispers:

"It's not worth it....you are mine, my slave, and you will never be free."

And now...I feel stuck. There is no turning around. If I throw down the baptismal robe in the dirt, as I have done before, I will live the rest of my life chasing this same surfeit..until I either kill myself or die of folly. But I chase shadows, that "beautiful" protistute who takes my inheritance and rewards my "gift" to her with emptiness and loss. Her kisses do not linger, and in time they burn. No, I cannot go back to Paganism. Even if I model myself a "noble Patrician and servant of Jupiter", I will be dying in my heart.

...Because I am in love. I am hopelessly lost in love.

But the One whom I love, I have denied before...and tonight I did so again, although not by words. This One whom I profess to be deathly in love with is now covered with shame.

My other option is to pursue this One whom I love. But it's so hard! Everytime I try, I fall down again and again. I work so hard, but I am always found tossed aside by the great things that oppose me. I am just not strong enough, I can't do this. And what is worse I think He is calling to go even deeper, perhaps so deep that He wants to use me to act in ways that I dare not act. For if I stand in the altar I stand as a mere servant not a presider.

And so I am stuck. And what's worse is that I know which path I must take, but I don't want to keep going through with this again and again. I don't want to keep having to come to Confession relaying this same disease again and again. I don't want my tongue to touch Him again, until I can say that I clean enough to touch ta hagia..."holy things for the Holy One."

How tempting the fence seems now, to stand in limbo as it were...betwixt life and death. But to be on the fence is to die, but at the very least we can entertain the illusion that we are alive.....illusions like the protistute.

I am a slave of Asmodeus! His grip is strong, again I kneel at his throne and kiss his festering feet in homage. Again and again I betray the One whom I do love in my inmost self, and bow before Asmodeus and the rotting corpses that have already passed into eternity, forever to decay and eternally die in his wretched place of lust, of which he is so splendidly a patron.

Sometimes, as I am doing now, I like to shake my fist in pride of my sins at my Lover and say: "What can you do with a man like me?"

And He responds with a smile. That smile tells me that my tiny little fist and childish pride is nothing compared to His immensity and in this smile He says: "I have made saints out of worse men than you."

Again, as I have had to say many times before......He doesn't play fair!!

I know what I must do, but I just, I just want Him to hold me again. Is it so much to ask? Ok... yeah, I fell, but can't He just hold me like He used to? Because right now it hurts, it hurts to know that I cannot be at His altar until I am free from this and complete another round of exomologesis: confession and penance. It hurts to know that I am dead inside.

He told me that He is always by my side, wherever I fall He is there.....and so I will not rest until He comes to me as has done before. I will do penance for my failure that I may not be a stumbling block to those I love. I will go to confession on Saturday and declare everything.

But until then I will seek Him out, I wilI hunt Him down. When I denied Him, He came searching for me and found me. Now I am going to search for Him, and I will cast myself at His feet and demand that He hold me in His arms, and I will sit there at His feet until He does, I will badger Him incessantly until He holds me again.

If I die from the hunt for His Face.....then I will die and go to hell knowing that.... at my final moments....I was at the feet of Jesus Christ and even though I may have been under Asmodeus' thumb.....I was still not at his feet, but before the Throne of God.


Pray for me that I will find Him....that I will weep bitterly over my deeds and so be washed with the baptism of tears of repentance and make sweet wine from eyes for the seraphim to drink.

Pray that when I find Him, He holds me.

Pray that I drag all of this filth out in Confession and that I may finally receive peace from the Sacrament.

Pray that when I come home, He falls on me, kisses my neck, enrobes me and gives me His ring. For I need His kiss, I need to feel His tears on my neck as He weeps for joy. I need to hear His song of praise as He sings over me.

Please pray, because even now Asmodeus fans the fires in me.....



Most of this is probably just me being a melodramatic teenager seeking attention and feeling alone right now and desiring to vent with lots of useless verbiage to hide behind.... but it does hurt to have fallen down again...I can't stand that emptiness!

I need to know that I am being prayed for.

 

[ShannonMcCatholic]

Make a perfect act of contrition, promise to confess as soon as you are able--and the life of your soul is restored. There are those who say that we can have no idea if we have perfect contrition or not, but I think we are not so deluded as to our intentions as that. There is no need to be empty or feel separated from God--if you do, then you are not acting in faith on the teachings of the Church.

Hon, if your spiritual life is dependent upon consolations, you are going to have a seriously rough go of things. There is absolutely nothing wrong with crying out to the Lord (just read through Psalms)--but faith is what happens in the dryness and the darkness; faith is what happens in the desert.

And this is going to sound harsh- but, well I kinda suck. Pretty words are just another fortress to hide behind to keep from having to be truly vulnerable. Just because you grandiosely declare your repentance, doesn't make it any more sincere. The intention of trying to go and sin no more is a good and lofty, and necessary one; however, the reality is that unless you are stricken down right after confession- you WILL sin again. Perfection is forged in the fire of not getting what we think we need.

 

[benedictaoo]

I agree with Shannon. If you are depending on highs all the time, boy, you are in for an awakening.

Knight, here is it... what ever gifts you have preaching, or what ever, they are not for you to build yourself up but so others can benefit, so don't get disappointed with yourself as if you are supposed to be so special you can't fall. God will still be putting you to use, sins and all.

You fall out of weakness and becuase you are a sinner, not becuase you are rebelliously out there doing your own thing.

If you didn't practice what you preached, then repent and move on, do not dwell on it. Knowing who you are in Christ (a child and a heir to this forgiveness) is true humility, pride is what has us beating our breast and lamenting over our wrong doing because we thought we were something we obviously were not.

For you to just say, heck with all this beating yourself up, i know I'm forgiven and I'll confess this ASAP and not dwelling on it is being humble enough to trust in the Lord.

The guilt we feel is good, it's there to let us know we did wrong but it can turn very unhealthy when we turn it inward and obsess over it.

 

[WarriorAngel]

It hurts...it still hurts. I feel utterly defeated. I dare not even try to contemplate the damage I have done to myself or to the Church....and to those whom I love most with what I have done. I remember now that emptiness, that wound that begs me to cry....to weep in bitterness over what I have done.

And the "archdemon", Asmodeus, whispers:

"It's not worth it....you are mine, my slave, and you will never be free."

.

Eh - kick his butt to the curb.

He is a weak loser who is no one's boss. He thinks he can manipulate you - BUT - pray the Our Father [I find that that prayer helps me in my weak moments]

AND just so ya know - i know the routine, and because i mouthed off - my temptation is coming.



Recognising it first helps some.
So let's pray for one another.

AND REMEMBER - WHEN WE FEEL CLOSEST TO GOD - IS WHEN THEY ARE GOING TO UP THE ANTE...AND REALLY PUSH THE TEMPTATION.

FOR ME - I ALWAYS FIND IT much easier when i know it's coming.
So time to up the prayers...a few notches.

[Saying the Rosary is a wonderful tool that defeats those miscreants] For we are not alone - just keep trying. And don't let those who want to do you harm - get you to believe anything in their lies.

You belong to God.
He loves you - and the others - they only want to hurt you.

Oh, and i agree that a good confession is in order. AND next time this happens - take a quick walk outside and think of something holy.You are in my prayers!!!!!!!

 

[servant of Merciful Love]

†JMJTJ†

You will be in my prayers for your light, strength, and peace.

Eternal God, in whom mercy is endless and the treasury of compassion inexhaustible, look kindly upon us, and increase Your mercy in us, so that in difficult moments we might not despair, nor become despondent, but with great confidence, submit ourselves to Your Holy Will, which is Love and Mercy itself. Amen

[FONT=bookman old style, new york, times, serif]God bless you †
Gail [/FONT]

 

[MoNiCa4316]

brother, let this humble you.

that's my advice to you.

we ALL need humbling once in a while.

so you made up a cool sermon about sin and then sinned... and now you feel horrible that you messed up again... let this be a reminder for you of your sinfulness, go to Confession, and then move on with trust in God. Don't get discouraged when you sin, cause when we get discouraged it's like we thought we could do better. See, no we can't! Only by relying on God can we reach perfection, and the road is difficult, and it requires very deep humility or we fall. The Saints..considered themselves the greatest sinners. If you feel contrition and if you feel like a sinner, praise God for this, it is a gift. It's a gift to see ourselves as we really are.

Also, don't despair don't rely on consolations. God is always with you no matter how you feel or what happens. Offer Him everything...guilt, sin, pain, everything. When it gets difficult..that's God allowing you to share in His Passion. Someday, in Heaven, we'll thank Him for this. Thank Him now and ask for strength and grace and humility, and move on. Let God forgive you and then don't dwell on the sin anymore. Look to Him. The devil isn't as strong as God, he wants us to think he is, but even when he wins the battles God will win the war. He's on our side...

prayers for you..

God bless

 

[pingypoo]

i kinda got lost in that, but i love youa nd i will keep you in my prayers!!

 

[isabella1]

 

[Rhamiel]

the others here gave you great advise, all I can add is my prayers

 

[Gwendolyn]

You seem to have a lot of ups and downs. You post here on a high, with a long sermon about being faithful to Christ and the Church... and then a couple days later you make a long post about how abysmal you feel. I feel like you just need to calm down, take a breather, stop chasing highs and searching for this spiritual ecstasy that you talk about all the time. Being too dependent upon highs and consolations isn't spiritually healthy and it won't help you move forward.

I suppose you ought to ask yourself why you preach. Do you preach because you feel like you have to be the one to tell people to flee from error? Because you have a gift and you need to let people know? If preaching and then sinning is bothering you so much, then calm down and take a break from preaching to other people for awhile. Focus on yourself, better yourself, haul yourself out of your hole.

I feel like you intellectualise your faith a lot - at least, everything you post here is very intellectualised. Like, you know things in your head but maybe you haven't let that knowledge sink into the rest of your being yet. Stop preaching about things that you know in your head and focus on learning about what it means to have that knowledge, what that knowledge can do when we truly live it. Maybe you are up and down so much because the knowledge just hasn't made its full journey from the head to the heart yet, even if, on the surface, you think it has.

Stop overthinking everything and allowing yourself to fall into the depths of despair. Christ forgives sins, you don't want to sin. If you fall into sin, you're repentant, you go to confession, you pick yourself up and try again. We are fallen humans. We are not perfect and we will continue on this cycle for the rest of our lives. All you have to learn to do is forgive yourself as Christ forgives you.

 

[benedictaoo]

Good advice Gwen.

 

[stone]

 

[MoNiCa4316]

I agree with Gwen..

I think it's really good to just focus on loving God in whatever circumstance you find yourself in. Whether you feel close to Him, or far, or sinful, or like things are going well, or if you have doubts or not, ETC... just turn to Him and tell Him you love Him and want to serve Him regardless of how you feel. If you feel discouraged that you've sinned, remember He knows this about you already and we can't surprise God with our sinfulness. It's not like He 'expects better'. He expects us to try our best with the grace He gives us, to try and cooperate with grace. He knows our sinfulness and will help us overcome it with time. We don't become holy in a day.. it's a difficult journey full of ups and downs, and we learn through trials and through doubts and lows.. that's how we learn to grow..

one part of 'dying to self' is not paying that much attention to feelings and letting our love for God be a choice that we make in spite of any suffering or sin or weakness.

 

[Gwendolyn]

The Saints weren't Saints because there is some invisible bar up there that everyone, regardless of their situation in life, their personal capacity for struggle, their strength, etc. must reach.

The Saints were Saints because they knew themselves thoroughly and they allowed God to meet them where they are. They didn't fast because other Saints fasted... they fasted because they wanted to learn temperance, to reflect, to become masters of themselves and make a sacrifice to God. They acknowledged that things that other Saints did probably wouldn't work for them because they were different.

We're all different. We all have different capacities - different capacities for strength, intelligence, kindness, compassion, selflessness, etc. Being selfless doesn't mean doing A, B, and C. It is a state of the heart, of the soul, that colours everything else that a person does.

Get a handle on who you are and stop comparing yourself to some invisible high bar that you think you ought to live up to. God gives us guidelines, but the way in which we come to meat them is completely up to us. God doesn't say, "Flee from sexual immorality. Don't struggle, ever, or you aren't getting into My Kingdom." He doesn't say, "Treat people kindly. Don't get too caught up in yourself and forget that, ever, or you aren't getting into My Kingdom."

If you read the Saints you know that they struggled with sins that stood in the way of them and God for their entire lives. Just because your struggles are different, that doesn't mean you are any less capable of knowing God or overcoming those sins. "Different" doesn't mean "unworthy".

 

[MoNiCa4316]

The Saints weren't Saints because there is some invisible bar up there that everyone, regardless of their situation in life, their personal capacity for struggle, their strength, etc. must reach.

The Saints were Saints because they knew themselves thoroughly and they allowed God to meet them where they are. They didn't fast because other Saints fasted... they fasted because they wanted to learn temperance, to reflect, to become masters of themselves and make a sacrifice to God. They acknowledged that things that other Saints did probably wouldn't work for them because they were different.

We're all different. We all have different capacities - different capacities for strength, intelligence, kindness, compassion, selflessness, etc. Being selfless doesn't mean doing A, B, and C. It is a state of the heart, of the soul, that colours everything else that a person does.

Get a handle on who you are and stop comparing yourself to some invisible high bar that you think you ought to live up to. God gives us guidelines, but the way in which we come to meat them is completely up to us. God doesn't say, "Flee from sexual immorality. Don't struggle, ever, or you aren't getting into My Kingdom." He doesn't say, "Treat people kindly. Don't get too caught up in yourself and forget that, ever, or you aren't getting into My Kingdom."

If you read the Saints you know that they struggled with sins that stood in the way of them and God for their entire lives. Just because your struggles are different, that doesn't mean you are any less capable of knowing God or overcoming those sins. "Different" doesn't mean "unworthy"

I think it was CS Lewis who said that the Saints are all different and the villains are all alike. lol.

I've noticed too all the Saints are very unique. Compare St Teresa of Avila and St Therese of Lisieux and St Augustine. wow. Very different journeys. They're each saintly in different ways.

We all have sins that we struggle with.. perseverance matters a lot..

let's say I want to be more selfless. Well in that case, I first start from where I am. I don't get discouraged cause I'm not like Mother Teresa yet. I try to improve as much as I presently can. In time, God's grace fills our hearts more and our capacity for virtue actually increases. But it's not like that in the beginning for everyone. Do as much as you can presently. Eventually you might find you'll be able to do more. But trust God He knows all our limitations.

We can't suprise God with our sins, so neither should our sins surprise us. When we sin, we should repent and go to Confession, ask God for the grace to do better, and try our best to cooperate with His grace... but thinking something like "I can't believe I sinned, I thought things were going so well!!!" can lead to pride. We WILL overcome sin one day, but just because God is giving us graces now does not mean we are perfect now. It is in His mercy that He gives us consolations and understanding, not because we have finally 'advanced far enough'.

 

[Maggie893]

I will pray for you.

As for finding Him, do you not know that you need only look inside? From your baptism, He has resided within you. You want to give Him your strength and your righteousness, neither of which are really yours but a gift from Him to begin with. He doesn't ask for those things from you. He desires that you be vulnerable and that you give Him your sin. He wants your sin. Give it to Him.

Know that I will be praying for you, I encourage you to pray for yourself as well and not as though He is far away, recognize that He is within you and He loves you.

 

[JoabAnias]

I'd recommend reading the Imitation chapt 34-40.

 

[benedictaoo]

I will pray for you.

As for finding Him, do you not know that you need only look inside? From your baptism, He has resided within you. You want to give Him your strength and your righteousness, neither of which are really yours but a gift from Him to begin with. He doesn't ask for those things from you. He desires that you be vulnerable and that you give Him your sin. He wants your sin. Give it to Him.

Know that I will be praying for you, I encourage you to pray for yourself as well and not as though He is far away, recognize that He is within you and He loves you.

he's as close as our hearts and only a prayer away.

 

[AFallingStar]

Praying for you as well.

 

[MyLordIsMyLife]

prayers brother!!

the blood of Jesus will put out even the harshest fires...I adore this blood and I pray for you with trust that the death of Jesus set you free from sin...He died to forgive you and He will because you're truly sorry. call on His name. trusting in Him never fails. also our Blessed Mother loves you so much that she will pray to her loving Son for you.

and also, I imagine Asmodeus reduced to nothing at the mere sight of the beautiful light of the Lord...where the Lord is, hell is not.

Jesus, Jesus, Jesus. He's yours. And He's there for you. Just reach. His mercy is forever.

Happily your brother in the family of Christ,
Jonathan