At a turning point

Praying to Jesus for deliverance from any cycles of hurt and unforgiveness.

 

Its so strange often when I look back at my past sins, so very,very, very many , it is not the big things that come to mind but the small things. I suspect I cannot even bear to revisit the big ones.

But I just have to trust that when God says He forgives He really does even though I am only now coming to some vague understanding of how awful I was.

But there is one lovely story I read one times about a French nun a mystic. In a conversation with Jesus she apoligised for some sins she had committed in the past. Jesus looked puzzled and said,

'But I cannot even remember them'.

Then Jesus went on to explain that the sins we are absolved from in confession are not even remembered by the good Lord.

That's the difference between us and the Lord. We forgive and remember. God forgives and forgets.

The easy part is getting God to forgive.

The really, really hard part is to forgive ourselves.

 

I went through that (past hurts I'd endured).

Since coming to Catholicism, it's been how I've (unintentionally; I am rather conscientious) failed or disappointed others. Lots of examination in that regard. It's been so good for me.

 

These wounds that have been closed up and closed over are indeed a possible source of spiritual infection. I found the best thing to do was to bring them into the light of day and give them to Jesus. In confession if sin is involved or before the Blessed Sacrament if they are wounds apart from sin. It was helpful for me to make a list of "Oughts against Any" as Jesus says and then make an act of will to Jesus to forgive each one. Feelings may rebel but remember you are acting in the will, not feelings. I also learned that I had to make an act of will to forgive myself. That for me was a very deep wound.

 

SO so true.

It took me until very recently ("late bloomer") to come to that very important understanding.

 

On the topic of feelings, that seems to be why so many now are turning to alternative spiritualities, new age etc. because they seem to promise "nice feelings" without the hard work and patience that is required with the Catholic and Christian faith. It all seems to be based around feelings, doesn't seem to matter to them whether it is true or not. Many people seem to be completely blind as a result of this to the nature of the very strong battle which is taking place for their souls at present. Have been getting glimpses and insight into the seriousness and enormity of this battle from time to time lately, then it goes away again.

 

Mark Mallett and others talk about a spirit of "diabolical disorientation" that has been sent by God over the world in the past number of years as a punishment. This spirit seems to be affecting everyone to varying degrees, faithful and non-faithful alike.

 

2 Thessalonians 11 "For this reason God sends them a powerful delusion so they may believe the lie." This could be a scriptural reference to the spirit of disorientation. Perhaps it could mean that God is permitting it.

 

I'm unsure, QuD. Whatever it is anyway, something of that nature definitely seems to have taken hold of the world at present.

 

I found Mark Mallett's latest posts on the New Paganism to be very enlightening. He is on part VI and is laying out his case for the New Paganism very attentively. He is back on posting inspired writings as in the past and looking forward to reading how he see's it all unfolding.

 

God permits diabolical disorientation to come, because of man's sinfulness. Yes it comes from the devil, but God permits it because of man's turning away from the Truth. God's restrainer is being lifted as man has turned towards evil ways. The vacuum from this is diabolical disorientation, as foretold as Fatima 100 years ago.

 

Yes.

The, 'Permisivess Will of God'.

God can only invite us to Love, He cannot force us. If He forced us it would no longer be Love. He is imprisoned in the Chains of Gold of His own Love.

https://spiritualdirection.com/2016/02/01/what-is-gods-will-part-ii-of-ii-his-permissive-will

God’s Permissive Will

But the phrase God’s will also touches another category of life-experience: suffering. Suffering, of one type or another, is our constant companion as we journey through this fallen world. God has revealed that suffering was not part of his original plan, but rather the offspring of original sin, which shattered the harmony of God’s creation. His indicative will to our first parents in the Garden of Eden was for them not to “eat the fruit of ‘the tree of the knowledge of good and evil'” (Genesis 2:17, RSV). They disobeyed. Human nature fell; creation fell; evil attained a certain predominance in the human condition, giving rise to “the overwhelming misery which oppresses men and their inclination towards evil and death” (Catechism of the Catholic Church, paragraph 403).

Here is where the distinction between God’s indicative and permissive will comes in. God did not desire or command Adam and Eve to rebel against his plan, but he did permit them to do so; he gave them a certain degree of freedom that made disobedience to his indicative will (moral evil) possible. Likewise, throughout human history, God does not will evil to happen, but he does permit it. He certainly didn’t explicitly will the Holocaust, for example, but, on the other hand, he certainly did permit it. His indicative will doesn’t lead to the abuse of innocent children, but his permissive will sometimes allow his free creatures to disobey his indicative will and commit such evils.

The question of why God permits some evil and the suffering that comes from it, even the suffering of innocents, is an extremely hard question to answer. Only the Christian faith as a whole gives a satisfactory response to it, a response that can gradually penetrate our hearts and minds through prayer, study, and the help of God’s grace.

St. Augustine’s short answer is worth mentioning, however. He wrote that if God permits evil, it is only because he knows he can bring out of that evil a greater good. We may not see that greater good right away; we may not see it at all during our earthly journey, in fact. But Christ’s resurrection (Easter Sunday) is the unbreakable and undying promise that God’s omnipotence and wisdom are never trumped by the apparent triumphs of evil and suffering (Good Friday).

Thus, only by faith can we begin to understand why obedience to God’s will also include accepting the painful things that he permits, trusting that in our Christ-centered response to them (which often involves resisting and correcting evils) we will be contributing to building up his eternal kingdom in our hearts and in the world.

Take Up Your Cross

In this context, we can brave a brief comment on the one condition that Jesus lays down for anyone who wants to follow him:

Then [Jesus] said to all, “If anyone wishes to come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me. For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will save it.” (Luke 9:23–24)

Growing in love requires self-denial, self-forgetfulness, self-giving. And in this fallen world, self-giving is often painful (in heaven it won’t be). It involves taking up the cross, just as Jesus took up his own cross in order to show the extent of his love for the Father and for us. The cross symbolizes the painful self-sacrifice that growing in love requires in this fallen world. If we truly desire to grow in loving God, to learn to love him with all our all, we will have to carry crosses.

 

The cross is suffering made fruitful through faith and love. When God’s indicative or permissive will in our life contradicts our natural preference (our self-centered, human will), we experience the cross. His will is like the vertical beam, and our natural preference is like the horizontal beam. When they are opposed, we are faced with a grace-filled opportunity. By choosing to accept God’s will when we would prefer something else, we exercise our faith, hope, and love more intensely than in any other possible situation. We show that we trust him, not because he fits into our limited, human calculations, but precisely because we believe and hope in his infinite wisdom, power, and goodness. That’s the supernatural virtue that unites us more fully to God, deepening our trust in him, the trust which is found at the heart of all interpersonal relationships. And when we exercise that virtue more intensely, it grows more quickly and surely, and our communion with God expands and deepens.

The High Road to Holiness

The Lord sends and permits crosses in our lives because he knows they are the high road to holiness when we live them in union with him, saturating them with faith, hope, and love. As Jesus explained to his twelve apostles, almost all of whom ended up dying martyrs’ deaths, he prunes the branches of his vine only so that those branches will bear more fruit:

I am the true vine, and my Father is the vine grower. He takes away every branch in me that does not bear fruit, and everyone that does he prunes so that it bears more fruit. (John 15:1–2)

When we feel the pruning shears purifying our still-imperfect hearts, when we feel the weight of the cross pressing down on our limited minds and souls and strength, we know God is hard at work, and we can abandon ourselves to his care. It is then, above all, when we recognize that growth in love, holiness, and lasting happiness is only 1 percent up to us and 99 percent up to the Lord. And “therefore,” as St. Paul explained, “I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and constraints, for the sake of Christ; for when I am weak, then I am strong” (2 Corinthians 12:10).

It is through bearing our crosses with Christ that we enter into the indescribable experience of joy that comes with the Resurrection. For Jesus, the darkness and suffering of Good Friday blossomed into the brilliant light of Easter Sunday—as a medieval phrase put it:

per crucem ad lucem (through the cross to the light).

If we are in him, the same will be true for us.

 

I know so well what you are saying Quis. Quiet is vital and increasingly harder to find.

 

I was trying to count up the refuges for the Soul in Darkness and in Need of Rest.

Now let me see.

1. The Eucharist.

2. Eucharistic Adoration.

3. The Word of God (especially the Book of Job.)

4. Meditation on the Passion.

5. Marian Devotion.

6. Friendship with our Angel Guardian.

7. Good Spiritual Direction.

8. Spiritual Friendships.

9. Good Spiritual reading.

I remember when I was in the Doldrums I used to take a bus all the way out to the country to see my Spiritual Director. Things were fine when I was with him, but I noticed even while walking down the driveway on the way back home the Dark Doors clunked shut again.

It taught me that there was no refuge from the human from the Black Fires. The remedy for Spiritual Suffering lies in Spiritual Remedies. In silence with the Lord and not with talking a lot with others.

 

Thanks Padraig. There seems to be an area or belief system in my life which has kept me consciously separated from God and those around me for a very long time, but it seems to be healing up slowly and I'm being given the awareness around it.

 

The evil one seems to have created a massive web of lies about myself and others that he tricked me into believing somewhere along the line. God is slowly unveiling and revealing the magnitude of these lies to me and is setting me free!