Falling from Grace and Faith
abomino
Posts: 9
I started into this world Roman Catholic. I lost mu faith in the sands of the Middle East at 19. I became agnostic and then atheist as time went on. We had our first child in 2010. My little daughter looked at the world with wonder as did I. She discovered the world while I rediscovered the Saints and the Church. Upon returning to the Church, I felt it to be very relaxed in nature. Unhappy, I joined the organization within the church "Opus Dei" which is centered around the teachings of St Jose Maria Escriva. Bad publicity surrounded Opus Dei after the Dan Brown novel (if you can call it that) turned movie. All of a sudden people assumed there really was a killer albino Opus Dei Monk killing people (or a version of it). After the movie I felt as if people looked at me as if i was a scientologist of sorts. My faith as of late is as dark as night. Not because of Opus Dei, not because of the scandals that rock our Church. Every religion has scandal...we are just more trendy to bash. I see post after post on my facebook feed of people asking others to pray for their children who are dying. I can no longer walk thru a childrens cancer ward and believe there is a god who cares. I've no solace in the "Everything happens for a reason", "God called an angel home". It is a joke to me anymore...what kind of God would take a child? This leaves me with three schools of thought. 1. I have wasted my time on a religion that was borrowed from many religions that mirrors Christianity (that far pre-dates Christianity. 2. God is real. God has no dealings with what happens here and can only help in the after life. 3. God is real, cares less and needs punched in the larynx for all the dying children. I have vented enough I suppose....it is sad to lose faith as I am doing, it is sad to believe perhaps we are all here alone. Perhaps I am wrong
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Replies
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I hear pain in your words, and I am sorry, and thank you for sharing your thoughts. Ironically, there is much compassion in your words, and I think compassion is what God asks of us most--to love him and to love others more than ourselves. Don't lose that compassion that you have for children and other sufferings, and perhaps in that fire you will again someday see a brighter light.0
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The mystery of human suffering---a question that is as old as Job. It is in the Pieta holding the body of her son. It is in Christ cruxified. He is there, with us, in our suffering, in our losses. In those surrounding us, suffering. Go deeper into your questioning---atheism has no answers to offer to the question of human suffering. Faith gives us Lamentations where we voice to God our outrage, our fear, our loss.
The Early Church Fathers sought to preserve everything that was good in ancient paganism. Vatican II recognized that there are no barriers to the Holy Spirit, and that human beings apprehend God in all cultures. This is why Catholicism is catholic, and why inculturation is an important part of spreading the Gospel. Rather than a detriment, it is a richness. A blind spot in our Protestant neighbors, perhaps, but something that renders us so much more ancient, and why the Church is a repository of human wisdom.
Yes, the Church is always in need of repentance. Clerics are often an obstacle to the faith, but, again, only God is God, and we are wrong to seek him in earthly things.
Your faith and your questioning strike me as being very contemporary. I think that we all go through the same struggle---in seeking God. In waxing hot and cold. In wanting to believe, and in doubting. In seeking the absolute and finding only the finite. In the end, faith remains a decision---it cannot impose itself from the outside. I must choose to say yes, and live it, despite all of the obstacles in my way. And those obstacles, as you eloquently pointed out are big ones, because the decision to believe is the one that you are constantly challenged on by contemporary culture.
Welcome to the Catholic forum, and I hope to see you present in many of our debates.0 -
I very much enjoy replies that do not enlist the use of brevity. Thank you all for the welcom0
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sorry for being brief but to ignore your post seems heinous. I can only hope some comfort comes your way..0
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I’ve been absent from the forum for a while and just saw your posts last night. You have endured things that I’ll never have to experience. I’ve suffered some setbacks and losses, but nothing compared to you. So I was thinking, who am I to give you advice? I could tell you things that you already know: that God created the world and us in perfect harmony. There was no suffering and no death, until we disrupted the original, beautifully ordered world by our choice of sin. Life and love are creations of God. Suffering and death are the consequence of our turning from God; in a way suffering and death are our creation. So, why do little children suffer, when they could not have committed serious sin of their own? Sadly, our sins affect not only ourselves, but everyone. When the original sin occurred, the natural order was broken for all of us, not just Adam and Eve. So, we live with the consequences. We can add to the disorder by turning from God ourselves, or we can work against evil. We can be God’s love in the world, especially to the weak. God doesn’t enjoy watching our suffering, but he created us all with free will. What is so amazing is that, knowing in advance how we would reject Him, He still loved enough to create us. All I know is that God is the answer. When we get to the point where WE have no answers, we have reached faith. Anyone can say, “Lord, Lord. I love you and I trust in you” when they have not met serious challenges; that’s not a point where we have to have faith. It’s when you get to the point that you are where faith comes into play. Trust in God now, that he can bring good from all things, even from the suffering of children. It really is a choice. Go down a dark road that denies God and says that after all the suffering here: there is nothing. Or go down the road of love that embraces God and says that after all, there is still God, still life and still goodness. One day, you will see the face of God. The face of all that is true and beautiful and good, and so will those little children! So, now I sit here typing this, hoping I don’t come across as trite or sanctimonious, because I’ve never been to war, never been involved in a huge scandal, and I’ve never watched a child suffer with terrible disease. There is a new CD available on Lighthouse Catholic media, by Dr. Scott Hahn about making sense out of suffering. On that same website there is at least one other CD about suffering. I think it’s by Jeff Cavins. I’m sure they do a much better job than my pathetic effort here. You are in my thoughts and prayers.0
