I'm struggling to keep my Catholic faith.

Michie the Pope is human, and frail like we all are. He is no different they you or I. Keep yours eyes on the cross and everything else will take care of itself. We have nothing to fear if we are in Christ Jesus.

God bless you my dear sister in Christ
if you EVER need to talk about something just PM me
I can not promise to have all the answers, but I can promise to always be honest with you

dzheremi said:

It's probably best to keep this thread focused on prayers for Michie, since that is what she requested from us in the OP.

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Yep, apologies to Michie.

Michie said:

Please pray for me.

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You are going through so much, Michie; it would be a wonder if you were not feeling a little uncertain. Hold on to what you have, and try not to worry.

Lord, have mercy.

Michie said:

Please pray for me.

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I will Michie, I will...
I've come to understand that I'm not the only one who suffer a crisis under this pontificate.

I know where I will go, but going where I would like go would close of the door back for the rest of my life.
It's worth thinking long and hard about.

Beside I'm not the one who should be in the front seat of my life, but the Holy Spirit.


Prayers said for you Michie.

Lord you grant us the supernatural gift of faith

Lord have mercy

Lord you give us the gift of hope

Christ have mercy

Lord you give us the gift of charity

Lord have mercy

Lord look upon your humble servants and grant us the graces we need to take up our cross and serve you.

Lord you are the light of the world. In the darkness of confussion let your light shine to direct our steps let us not loose heart.

Amen

The devil is going to do his utmost to destroy our faith. You must be aware that we can loose our faith in more than one way. Its not just giving up on catholicism and walking away...we can loose our faith by deception and being led astray by false prophets. But

"the one who stands firm to the end will be saved."

These are the things our lady said will protects us.

Regular confession
Recieving and adoring our lord in the eucharist
Penance
Prayer

When all seems lost, everything will be found safe... stand firm

Michie, I haven't worked out yet if it is your CATHOLIC faith you are struggling with, or faith in general, but I sense it is the former. If so, been there at times too, so will be praying for you.

I am not going to presume to know what the issues are for you Michie. That is often a very private matter. But when this has happened to me in the past, I sometimes feel like I need to just "coast" for a while. We all sometimes feel like we have to pedal as hard as we can toward salvation, and overdo it.
Maybe trying to relax a bit, not overthinking it so much, resting in the arms of Jesus will help. Give a dollar to a homeless person, smell a rose. Go to mass and rest in its quiet beauty.
Don't wear yourself out wondering if one church or another is the one for you, but be at peace knowing that God loves you for just moving forward.
I don't know if that helps or even makes sense to you. But it has helped me in the past.

RKO said:

I am not going to presume to know what the issues are for you Michie. That is often a very private matter. But when this has happened to me in the past, I sometimes feel like I need to just "coast" for a while. We all sometimes feel like we have to pedal as hard as we can toward salvation, and overdo it.
Maybe trying to relax a bit, not overthinking it so much, resting in the arms of Jesus will help. Give a dollar to a homeless person, smell a rose. Go to mass and rest in its quiet beauty.
Don't wear yourself out wondering if one church or another is the one for you, but be at peace knowing that God loves you for just moving forward.
I don't know if that helps or even makes sense to you. But it has helped me in the past.

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I think this is excellent advice. Sometimes we can over think things as if our faith rests on our own abilites sometimes we need to recharge our batteries and plug ourselves into the source. While we go into standby mode and soak up that energy.

I love what RKO has said. It does work.

Mikhael Reborn said:

She is strong in the Lord, but has admitted in the past to having issues with the Church.

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So do I, so do I. At least with certain segments and aspects of the Church. Some that made me think I should leave, but when I talked to my parish priests at the time about it (and even a bishop one time) they always said I was not alone in my doubts and concerns, and each one told me to "stay". What I did do was double down on my parish involvement, trying my best to live the Gospel within my own community, trying not to let my issues with the institutional church bother me. And it worked! I have found a lot of joy and fulfillment in various parish ministries and programs. The connections and friendships I have made through doing that have become the basis of my Church, more so than any bishop or Pope, laws or rules.

Athanasias said:

The Papacy is not about a man its about a office a divine office. The world will never see it but yet they do. God can write straight even with crooked lines. Christ is in charge. God wills many things to happen that we cannot understand for his greater glory. You should have seen some of the popes in History if you think Francis is bad. Incoincidentally I am doing a dialog on the office of the Pope you may want to check out.

http://www.christianforums.com/threads/formal-debate-office-of-the-papacy.7942835/

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Understanding this is important. We have had bad popes, immoral popes but none taught something that was not true. Is this pope being ultra liberal a bad thing? I dunno. Is this where the HS wants to take us? I dunno. We are at a moment in time is all and some of us are just too old to get on board with this. But then I think I came after Vll so those things/changes didn't seems weird to me because I didn't know better. I remember my mom asking me, since when they allowed guitars on the alter? So if the Church lived through that she can live through anything, I guess.

benedictaoo said:

Understanding this is important. We have had bad popes, immoral popes but none taught something that was not true. Is this pope being ultra liberal a bad thing? I dunno. Is this where the HS wants to take us? I dunno. We are at a moment in time is all and some of us are just too old to get on board with this. But then I think I came after Vll so those things/changes didn't seems weird to me because I didn't know better. I remember my mom asking me, since when they allowed guitars on the alter? So if the Church lived through that she can live through anything, I guess.

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Well I hate guitars at mass
It's so pentacostal the whole thing !

Even in my former Lutheran church they didn't use guitars...

Well sacrilegious liturgical abuses aside...
I continue to pray for your souls Michie.

May our faithful mother Mary embrace our insecurity.
Amen.

Michie - I've been reading this thread and seriously wondering just how to respond.

In many respects I think this is something we all , if we are honest , go through from time to time.

I remember moaning to a young priest a loooong time back that I was having horrendous problems praying - his comment was that it was a sign of growth and he'd be very concerned if I never had problems.

His advice then was - just read prayers - don't even think about what I was reading - read them and relax and let them sink into me and my innermost being would absorb them . Eventually I would find that I was starting to pray again - I would be thinking and reflecting on the words I was reading/praying.

I came to realise this was true - and even better it worked.

I stopped worrying about prayer and the fact that I thought I couldn't.

Stop reading things that upset you and make you ask questions that you can't answer . Remember there is always more than one side to a story - the truth is a combination of all

A good thing to for the struggling is when you pray, pray for the Grace to be at peace. This can manifest as a decision, greater peace..anything. Just open yourself to the Grace God will give and try to shut out other things for a bit.

Michie my wife and I understand how you feel. All I can do sometimes is think about our roots in the days of Pentecost as I despise the industrial machine our world has become. Our Church is spread so large and so thin across this plain of thorns. All we have in the world today are false hopes and dreams of technology and turning our bodies into instruments of our own invention; our faith today is in a promise that seems to be so abstract and out of reach.

The way that I hold on to my faith is to remember that the wickedness, chaos, and confusion we are seeing in the world today was foretold in Sacred Scripture. So it actually validates the prophecies of our faith. And the Catechism of the Catholic Church says that in the time of Antichrist that the Church follows in the footsteps of our Lord in his passion and death.

LivingWordUnity said:

The way that I hold on to my faith is to remember that the wickedness, chaos, and confusion we are seeing in the world today was foretold in Sacred Scripture. So it actually validates the prophecies of our faith. And the Catechism of the Catholic Church says that in the time of Antichrist that the Church follows in the footsteps of our Lord in his passion and death.

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This is exactly what works for me. Its as if i am a clockwork toy the darker and more horrid the world becomes the more prophecy is fullfulled the stronger my faith becomes. But it still can be frightening so i unplug from time to time to recharge