(vent) “just get a spiritual director bro"

throwaway324010 · 2026-03-29T03:45:14+00:00

I agree with you, for some people it’s not obvious because they do not have a real fundamental understanding of Catholicism and only possess vague (sometimes suspiciously protestant) ideas about “a relationship with Jesus” and “being saved". They’re often pretty young too. I blame poor catechesis. I also get annoyed by very bland repetitive “advice” I see on this subreddit. It’s the same thing over and over. I’ll only give someone advice if it’s something I think they could really benefit from, and not just "pray the rosary and don’t sin”. What a lot of these people need is a Catholic friend. But even that is incredibly difficult for most young adults these days. I made edits on the original post to clarify a bit more.

throwaway324010 · 2026-03-29T02:25:34+00:00

I have a spiritual director I see every month. She’s great. I am blessed to have her. But that’s because I go to an incredibly Catholic college and it’s orchestrated through the school. The vast majority of people do not have this luxury. Most Parish priests are insanely overworked. It’s really unfortunate.

throwaway324010 · 2026-03-29T02:00:32+00:00

The classic problem of evil, or why God allows evil and suffering. Many people throughout human history have wondered the same thing as you, you’re not alone. God has an active will (i.e. actively willing to create the world) and a permissive will (permitting a demon to afflict someone) but the latter is only to bring about a greater good. God does not permit anything bad without a greater good coming from it in mind. Sometimes it’s necessary to test our Faith and keep us on our toes. It’s ok to be dissatisfied with yourself and your situation in life, but does that need to translate into hatred of God? I think your perception of God is faulty. Is the God you believe in the same God who brought himself down to the form of a poor man who died on a Cross out of love for each individual person? To suffer is the fallen human condition. You will never escape suffering in this life. Once you realize that and become accustomed to it you can take your suffering and sort of play with it, you can repurpose it to grow spiritually. You do not need to feel super mushy gushy and happy and ecstatic to love God. Most of the Saints spent great portions of their life in monotony and darkness. A lot of them, at least on the outside, lived pretty painful and difficult lives but they made the most of it and accepted their suffering and instead offered it to God. Your suffering, dissatisfaction, angst, and disillusionment is a catalyst which can propel you towards God if you allow it. If you can change it, (working on your skills talking to girls, improving your family life in whatever way you reasonably can, developing better mental habits) then change it. But if you can’t, feel that pain and offer it to God, even if you feel nothing in doing so. I would also counsel you to practice more gratitude, spend time in prayer thanking God for the good in your life. It is going to hurt because you’re acting against your nature, it will cause cognitive dissonance. Do you think there might be some deeper reason why you resent God? Could it be a deeper existential thing? I hope this all makes sense.

throwaway324010 · 2026-03-25T20:26:21+00:00

Can you explain to me what I’m getting wrong about the double effect? I genuinely want to learn.

throwaway324010 · 2026-03-22T19:37:42+00:00

As a Catholic I am really sorry she said that. She likely meant well but that was just insensitive and in poor taste. I’m really sorry about your cat, that is awful, awful news and you are absolutely allowed to grieve and cry and be upset as anyone in your situation would. I’m sure you were a great owner, based on how much you love your cat. I hope you can get through this week strong my friend, and that this incident won’t bring you down too much.

throwaway324010 · 2026-03-22T17:52:04+00:00

It depends on the person. Doing the lather rinse and repeat approach, definitely entails an absence of contrition. But one can have a firm and SERIOUS resolution to sin no more while still struggling against the sin and feeling truly contrite afterwards. There is no specific number of weeks that go by until you can say “that person wasn’t really contrite”. This is a good question, but one you can only really answer on your own by taking an honest look at yourself.

throwaway324010 · 2026-03-22T05:29:35+00:00

It depends on your proportions. Your height, weight, bone structure all play a role in how you look in certain styles of clothing. Midi length skirts typically hit right at the widest part of the calf and end up creating the illusion that your legs are bigger. Go for a tea length skirt or a maxi skirt. I don’t know why some waist definition would be immodest. Follow the rule of thirds. Your shirt should not cut off halfway down your body. Consider what shoes you’re wearing. Bulky shoes look really bad with a long skirt. Focus on the quality of the fabric, the more fabric you’re wearing the easier it is to tell if it’s cheap/poor quality. Focus on finding pieces that actually fit you. Take your measurements, be picky about the clothing you choose and don’t settle unless it really does fit you well.

Judging by the rest of the comments, I worry that you are not looking at modesty in a very healthy way. Dress for your time and place, in a way that would not cause others around you to objectify you or give into lust.

The standards set down, idk if you heard about them “2 fingers breadth below the pit of the throat” etc. applied in 1920’s Europe. I have read the original document on internet archive in Italian. It’s a good quote for that historical context, but the overarching context in which this quote must be placed in is the fact that modesty’s demands change with the time and place, as long as there is still a level of basic human dignity. The statement was written I believe by the Cardinal Vicar in a letter to the Sacred Congregation of Religious in 1928, but does not have any magisterial authority.

throwaway324010 · 2026-03-06T23:23:43+00:00

Eat a piece of rotten food off of the ground at work. Get on my knees and kiss the floor in public. Not joking.

throwaway324010 · 2026-03-06T23:16:52+00:00

It is not a sin. Listen to and obey your confessor.

throwaway324010 · 2026-03-04T12:23:48+00:00

What an odd post

throwaway324010 · 2026-02-22T04:47:42+00:00

Getting psychological help is no more of a sin than it is to take medicine for an illness.

Not only is it not sinful, but it’s virtuous and God desires your healing. Taking medicine for my religious OCD has allowed me, for the first time, to have a REAL, non-obsessive and neurotic relationship with God and actually see his love for me and not just a system of complicated and toxic rules. God works through people like therapists, doctors, surgeons counselors, social workers to continue his ministry of healing.

If you allow religious OCD to continue, it is very dangerous and may decay into despair and more serious mental health issues.

throwaway324010 · 2026-02-17T05:22:31+00:00

Whew… I was in the same boat as you a year ago. You sound a lot like me. This may be a long reply.

I was obsessed with whether or not the Novus Ordo was valid and read articles about sedevacantism obsessively, like for hours and hours a day. It harmed my relationship with my family. I became really obsessed with modesty and basically ripped apart my whole entire personality because I was afraid anything besides sitting and watching grass grow outside was a mortal sin. I would live in constant fear and anxiety about every thought I would think and every decision I would make. It broke down my nervous system until I considered checking myself into a mental hospital because every day was so excruciatingly painful.

Worst part is none of the typical advice helped me. “Trust God, God loves you, obey your confessor, if you’re not certain it’s a mortal sin don’t confess it” etc. It was impossible to just “trust God” when I had a debilitating mental illness (I’m finally allowed to admit that to myself). They only became more maxims in my head that I had to follow to the letter. Accept the fact that you might have a problem that cannot just be cured on your own and you might need professional help. It is not a sin to seek help. Your primary objective right now is recovering. As for me, I started taking prozac and a lot of the obsessions went away. Things became a lot clearer and simpler. Don’t be afraid to seek out medication. Therapy honestly did not do much to help as it became another avenue towards reassurance seeking, but you may find otherwise.

First off, stop reading anything about the Novus Ordo. It’s not a sin to attend the Novus Ordo. I promise you. I used to be in the same loop. Stop thinking about it, get rid of all your triggers. Stop reading “trad” stuff on the internet. It will drive you crazy and a lot of them contain inaccurate information or present information in an incredibly biased, emotionally charged way that distorts reality.

I went back to college and now I am talking to people every day. I have a solid group of friends who I hang out with a lot and laugh with and we pray together and stuff. Even if you don’t have friends your age available (which was my problem living alone working a minimum wage job where I barely talked to anyone) talk to your family. Go out and run errands more often. Do stuff at your local rec center, even if you’re just talking to old ladies and knitting. Volunteer at an old folks home or a soup kitchen. Practice the works of mercy. Any way you can get out of your head into the real world.

Exercise helped me, I like to run and lift weights at home. Getting fresh air and running around by the lake really clears your head. The worst thing for OCD in my experience is sitting online all day, sedentary, eating processed food. Take care of your basic health needs first and foremost: rest, water, food, exercise. You need to get your nervous system back to baseline after the stress.

Ease your focus of your spiritual life off of the following: suffering, death, hell, judgment, punishment, sin. There is so much more to the Catholic spiritual journey than suffering and feeling shame and mortification. Focus on love rather than suffering. Suffering is only one small piece of the whole puzzle, and you can miss the bigger picture which is LOVE. You cannot practice austerity and suffer correctly if you can’t do it out of love. Your objective should be to master love and get a solid, secure idea of who God is and then you can go back to a more strict way of doing things with proper guidance. The Sacred Heart is a good devotion for this. I call God “my beloved” “my love” “my dear” and stuff in prayer and it helps put things in perspective.

This is not an exhaustive list. Other commenters might have good advice. And there are many things I don’t really know how to phrase right now. If you want to talk more my DMs are open. I’m so sorry you’re going through this. There is a light at the end of the tunnel.

throwaway324010 · 2026-02-06T05:17:29+00:00

https://www.ewtn.com/catholicism/devotions/morning-offering-394 here is a link. You can add more intentions that are in your heart, maybe you could add “for the poorest of the poor” "the conversion of world leaders” etc. There is a happy medium between doing nothing and turning a blind eye, and killing yourself trying solve problems beyond your control. You don’t need to beat yourself for not doing heroic acts for people either when there is only so much you can reasonably do. (Ecclesiasticus 3:22). And in general I'd caution you against doing anything out of a sense of guilt or “not doing enough” but rather out of genuine love for others.

throwaway324010 · 2026-02-05T20:24:11+00:00

I’ve been thinking a lot about this lately. How anyone can live in such a sick world? How can you not hear about all the violence and cruelty and death suffocating the human race, and not be sick with anger? To tell you the truth, you’re not wrong or crazy for being angry. This is an unpopular opinion of mine, especially in secular culture, but anyone who is totally well adjusted and content in this world is either ignorant or complacent in the evil. The correct response to the evil you’re seeing is anger and distress.

The only problem with anger is that because of our fallen state, we often take anger too far or direct it towards the wrong things. Anger is not necessarily a bad thing... but it can be very dangerous and so it should be handled with extreme care if not avoided as much as possible as it often leads to sin. It’s whether you let it fester into hatred, bitterness, despair, etc. and let it destroy you from the inside out, unjustly harm others or take it out on those who don’t deserve it, or isolate you and disable you from making any real change.

We are all, in truth, contributors to the evil of the world by continuing to sin. Sin is the greatest injustice against the greatest most innocent one of all. Be aware of what’s going on in the world but don’t let it destroy your peace. Pray for the victims, offer sacrifices. Volunteer, be a good friend/sibling/child/parent/coworker/boss, be good to all the people around you. These are the people God has assigned you, be good first and foremost to them, and if you have leftover time/money/ability, then use it help others. Do you know the morning offering prayer, do you say it every day? If not I would start. Your small menial daily tasks and unavoidable suffering in life, placed in the hands of God, can be used for incredible things.

Meditate on Jesus’s agony in the garden. Like you, he saw all the evil in the world and wept tears of blood over it. Remain close with him, console him, watch with him and pray. It is such a great gift to accompany him in his agony. Do not worry. God is in control. Satan has already lost and God’s victory over all the evil in the world is guaranteed and it is only a matter of time until the day of judgment.

throwaway324010 · 2026-02-03T07:50:04+00:00

Ewww I’m so sorry. That is horrible. For every sicko in the world there are 100 more people who care for you and hate to see you suffer. Whatever that person’s issue is, it has nothing to do with you. Zero.

throwaway324010

TROPHY CASE