Courage is needed

 

I am not in a position to pass judgment and to criticize, 

I know what I am; a miserable sinner, and in a glass house 

one can't throw stones. 

We are all in this position, none of us can throw stones.

God alone can judge.

But I feel strongly about the One Holy Catholic Church; which is the guardian and treasurer of the full knowledge of God, and about us mere humans.

 

When I pray the Rosary and come to the Crucifixion of 

Our Lord, I am struck by the unfailing truth in Jesus's cry 

to the Father: 

"Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do".

 

Sin is knowing what is right and wrong and deciding to do the wrong, anyway. 

 

But first of all knowledge comes from having received information from a trusted source, in order to form an informed conscience. 

That then becomes the frame of reference for everything we think, say and do.

Because if nobody tells us, how do we know? 

 

I grew up in a post-christian former protestant country, 

and although baptized in the Norwegian Lutheran church, 

I received no instruction from anyone, not even from my 

mother, who was a believer, and very sparsely in connection 

with my conversion to the Catholic Faith.

 

Ignorance is a dangerous thing, one is unable to make good decisions.

And then, always, sooner or later, we suffer the consequences of those bad decisions.

 

Also, paradoxically, it can often be that very suffering that 

brings us close to Him who suffered for us, who even died 

a terrible death for us.

 

But Catechism is crucial, the passing on of dogma and truth 

of authentic Catholic teaching, not open to personal interpretation or subjective opinions. 

 

These days I am hugely encouraged to hear small children talk about the faith, it shows that it is alive and even coming back stronger than in recent decades, where liberalism (accepting everything) and a reticence to teaching morals, reigned.

 

Morals, personal behavior, is number one; "it starts with me". 

I have spent years learning about the faith, deepening it, 

learning more, and going more frequent to confession, getting 

feedback from the priest.

 

The priesthood is a miracle, a supernatural gift. 

I pray for priests, and I pray for more and more vocations to the priesthood.

I pray that the courage they need to go back to preaching morals will be revived in them, and not to be cowed down by those who say that priests have no authority to teach morals after all the scandals and cover- ups of same.

 

They DO have the authority, it comes from Jesus Himself. 

They must preach, they must not be afraid.

 

Stopping preaching sexual morality caused the legalization 

of abortion, and abortion is the cause of spiritual, psychological and mental collapse of societies.

We are called to love everybody, and a fundamental obligation of love is informing and warning those we love.

 

All parents knows that; we love our children, and for this very reason we teach them things that sometimes they do not want to hear, but we do it out of pure love.

 

And it is the same for priests, with the difference that they are spiritually responsible for a large number of souls.

 

 

  

 

 

 

 

 

 

FEAR

 

Catholic teaching says that all fear, 

with the only exception of fear of offending God, 

comes from the devil.

Fear has many degrees; from faint uneasiness, anxiousness,

nervousness, fear, to panic and full blown terror.

So why do we say that it comes from the devil?

Because it prevents us from trusting in God, who is in 

reality and truth always present and ready to help us, in any 

situation, if we allow Him access, but us being afraid is a solid 

barrier.

The devil wants us to worry, as that will assure us being on his 

side.

And the pharmaceutical industry profits hugely from the 

population living in anxiety, likewise therapists and counselors.

 

The problem is not the feeling of fear. Because it is NORMAL 

to feel fear when there is a danger, either to us personally or to 

someone we love. 

It is also NORMAL to feel stressed in situations when there is 

a lot at stake for us personally, for example before and during 

important interviews and performances.

But nowadays many people think that they suffer from anxiety 

when they experience these normal, passing, feelings. 

It is the interpretations and diagnosis of these, both by the 

medical profession and therapists, which poses the problem, but

before a person arrives there, what brought him there?

 

His own high esteem in which he holds the doctor, his belief in 

their capacities to cure whatever it is,

because he himself sees it as a problem, something that 

"shouldn't be there".

It is the world that tells him that these feelings are an illness 

which has a medical solution. They tell you that you 

"have anxiety", you "suffer from anxiety", in the same way as 

you would suffer from a physical condition. 

In reality, it is just life.

There are exceptions which are medical, and need 

medical supervision and control, but the vast majority 

of people being put on "medication", are not dealt with 

properly from the beginning. 

These medications always have side effects, they can 

cause long term damage and they reduce your quality of 

life.

And the therapist is capable of saying anything, listening 

to you they will interpret and "diagnose" everything you say, 

label you as suffering from anxiety because you experienced 

feeling of fear in situations where it was totally normal to 

feel fear.  

A doctor can say to a young teenager, an only child, who had 

just lost her mother to suicide, that she had 

"hormonal imbalances", 

prescribed a drug that was supposed to rectify it, but which 

made her very sick, she put on a ton of weight, and in the 

end she was diagnosed with cancer. 

The drug had in the meantime been taken off the market, as 

it had been proven to cause cancer.

This girl was used as a guinea pig, without knowing it. 

I know this case, and many other instances, this is just one.

This is the reality of medicine.

Despite this, most people have an unfailing belief  in doctors, 

it is their trust and belief in them that brings them to them in 

the first place. 

And most doctors feel that they should give their patients 

something, since they are present in their office.

 

But there is something that WE can do, consciously, when we 

are experiencing fear, when we feel overwhelmed by it, or tense 

in body and spirit because of a stressful situation; we can surrender 

and trust in God, and that is the meaning of the prohibition of fear 

in the authentic living out the Catholic Faith.

 

Faith, Belief, Trust comes first, then knowledge comes, which 

enables us to surrender to Him who is much greater than us, and 

who unfailingly helps and assists in proportion to the degree of 

trust and surrender to Him.

This is not a way of evading the fear, or of cutting ourselves off 

from feeling it, on the contrary; it is a way of fully accepting it, 

stopping the resistance to it (which is the unwillingness to accept ) 

and in so doing, handing it over, in trust, 

to Jesus Christ; true God and true Man. 

The way to God is through ourselves, it is by going inside.

 

Most people spend their lives looking for happiness in the world;

the right job, the right partner, the right house, car, holidays etc. etc.

They always find that that happiness is short lived, the void comes 

back, the nagging feeling of lack of fulfillment that will not go away.

But if you earnestly seek what will truly make you happy, 

you will find it.

 

Do not ever let fear paralyze you, because that is what fear 

does best.

When we are nervous, we often can not even speak coherently, 

our brain does not function normally. 

This is unacceptable.

We have the Source that gives life to the world available to us,

it demands our interest and learning. It is often, paradoxically,

when we are most afraid, that we loose the capacity to hold on to

the fear, the mind let go of the grip on it, we surrender, and we see 

that it was ourselves that maintained the fear. We kept feeding 

this beast of our imagination by our repetitive thoughts, maybe 

of what was said to us, e.g.: 

"I am suffering from anxiety, I am anxious, I am afraid", etc, etc.

The devil thrives on all the attention he gets like this. 

It is we who are doing it. The devil is also in us, doing everything 

to disturb our peace and trust in love and goodness: God.

Jesus, I trust in You.

Fear; just go away, I am not interested in you.

https://www.catholicdoors.com/prayers/novenas/p03530.htm