Share Your Dreams and/or Visions

As to silence in the lives of married and very busy people...

My mother tolds me that after ebing married a few years and having had the first few of her many children she became concerned that she no longer seemed to have time to pray. So she asked a holy old priest in Confession about this and he told her that:

'You're children are your prayers now'.

To which she told me she never worried about time for prayer and silence ever again.

I always knew my mother was a very good person but I don't think I ever realised how good. At her funeral an old lady came up to me, looked me in the eyes and said, your mother was a very,very good person. I thought this was just the usual funeral convention and so simply nodded. However the stranger pressed the issue.

'No you don;t understand even as a child we other children always had a high regard for her goodness and as she grew up this continued and we all who knew her had a high opinion of her'.

One of the things I have always loved about the Vatcian Document, 'Lumen Gentium' , is that it acknowledges the real vocation of lay people to a high degree of holiness, to become a saint.

These faithful are by baptism made one body with Christ and are constituted among the People of God; they are in their own way made sharers in the priestly, prophetical, and kingly functions of Christ: and they carry out for their own part the mission of the whole Christian people in the Church and in the world. ("Lumen Gentium" #31)
Several priests have mentioned to me these fruits of real sanctity amongst lay people when they come into the confessional in their senior years. A for instance is the lady who comes to the priest to confess that she can no longer pray. When she tries to say the, 'Hail Mary' her mind wanders and she getss, 'Lost' .This is in fact the lady is in a high state of Contemplative prayer.

 

Well, if you're marching off to slaughter a bunch of (supposedly) unarmed men, women, and children, it certainly has a catchy rhythm. Reminds me of the scene in "Fury" where Brad Pitt's character realized that they're about to face SS troops because they're singing as they're marching to battle.

 

Your story about your mother reminds me of my own mother, and the example I use with her life. She developed MS after 3 kids, and while my dad was serving in Korea. That earned him a hardship discharge, and after he came back and the stress went down, her symptoms abated. She remained symptom-free for the next 15 years, when it started coming back. I remember every night kneeling before the image of the Sacred Heart that was pinned above my bed asking Jesus to heal her. Didn't happen. It progressed until she died about 15 years ago as a quadriplegic.

When I was a senior in high school and about two months from graduation, I was driving her around town to run errands (she could still walk after a fashion at that time) and I asked her what she would be doing now if she didn't have MS. She thought for a bit and said she'd probably be helping out at the car dealership run by her brother.

When she died, the local newspaper printed her obit on the front page above the fold. In her life, she had helped raise money to buy medical equipment that hospitals in towns ten times our size didn't have; she served on the park board and made sure our town had the best park system of any town our size in the state (she succeeded, too); helped raise funds to build a municipal swimming pool; and as her disease progressed she served on several other local committees and would read and record textbooks for vision-impaired and dyslexic students. She helped improve the lives of so many people; many, many more than she would have if she had been helping my uncle run the family business.

 

If the Lord builds the house, it is well built indeed, built on a Foundation of prayer, it will last forever and give shelter to many.

 

My dream last night kicked my butt back into gear spiritually for sure.

First I am not ashamed to tell all of you but ashamed of my sin that for the first time in a long time I missed mass this Sunday. Saturday night was a joint 40th bday party for my wife and I and needless to say I went too far in my celebrating and was in no shape for mass. I felt horrible about it all day thank God I can go to confession today at a church 2 blocks from where I work (on a side note this is also the Cathedral in Cincinnati so I can finally go through the doors of mercy too). I have been in a bit of a funk all week before this sin and just kind of down and angry and spiritually my connection with the Lord had not been so good and my duties to prayer have been limited. So all this is going on and then last night I had the following dream. The details of the total dream are completely lost right now so I will give you the highlights of what I remember.

I was with a large group of people in like a large celebration or recreation hall (possibly even a church) and everyone was so happy. I however was not happy but scared. I don't remember all the details but remember that I felt I did not belong in this room so was trying to keep a low profile. It was implied that this was sort of a holding/waiting room for heaven. Out in the hall however was another sorting room if you will and here you could see people being sorted some for this room that I was in and some to go down the hall to another room that I remember being the holding/waiting room for hell. I continued to keep a low profile while in the heaven waiting room but knew I did not belong and did not want to be caught or discovered. It was weighing very hard on my conscience because I knew I should not be there and it was only a matter of time before someone discovered that. It was devastating to me so on my own I decided to leave this waiting room and went back out to the sorting room to be put into the proper room that I belonged in. I began to walk down the hall to the sorting room and could feel the evil and sorrow there. I could also feel or was told that if I looked back there would be these large pair of eyes watching me to ensure I could not return and back peddle out of the hallway. It was quite dreadful and scary in this room because I knew once in there, that was that. I was not in that waiting room and it was terrible. The sorrow was all around and you could feel evil in the room as well. When I thought there was no hope left then I had some hope given. This was not the end all be all as to once in this room that was it you were going to hell, at least it was not for me. I was met by a few persons though I knew them to be angels and they were giving me on instructions as to what I had to do in this room. I had to be united to the passions of Christ on the cross. I knew exactly what this meant in the dream and they asked me if I would be willing to be united to be saved from where I belonged. I of course said yes and in that moment in that awful room I laid down on the floor stretched out my arms and waited with excitement and also with quite the fear of the coming pain and suffering knowing that I was about to be nailed. I opened my palms and then I don't remember anything further. I know there was more and I did not wake up after this but I just don't recall it now.

I woke up this morning scared for my soul and cried out to the Lord to take me back. My prayers this morning were so closely connected to the Lord and I have new vigor again but first I need to get my behind to confession so I am off to go do that in about 15 minutes.

 

Dreams are very interesting. As you become more spiritual... dreams do play a part. In you deepest dreams, you are actually in the spiritual plain. The spiritual plain gradually leads you to the light or to darkness. It doesn't happen to many but once you start knocking on the door of the spiritual...dreams can be a part of your spirituality. Andy, your dream actually was livid and had choices. Very interesting.

God is calling

So exciting...I will pray for your journey.

May Gods Will be Done

 

Andy, a few things hit me about your dream and about where the Lord has you at the moment.

This is one of them.........

St Therese the Little flower suffered incredible physical agony before her death, and it is hard to believe she was able to endure such agony for so long, and she offered all to God.

But just before she died she had apparently said or thought something bad about one of her fellow carmelite sisters, this sister had innocently come in to attend to St Therese in the infirmary but had caused even greater physical pain for St Therese, hence the bad word or thought from St Therese.

On giving account of this sin to another sister, just before her death, she said.......

' Oh how great is the Love of Our Lord! for now I know that I can call upon His infinite Mercy to save my soul, as His Mercy is all that I desire!'

 

Andy, you are very blessed to have had this dream. Our dear Lord showed you what the consequences of missing Sunday Mass would be. I think your dream should be posted on every Catholic internet site and told to those Catholics who don't believe that it is a mortal sin to miss Mass in Sunday! Jesus is very happy that you paid attention and went immediately to Confession. God bless you!

 

The last 2 days have been great. Such a deep connection in prayer with the Lord. For those who do not believe in the power of confession, they are so foolish. On another positive note. I am very open about being a Catholic in my working world. From time to time I even delve into with my co workers if they want to hear about. One of my employees took our conversations to heart and began to fully come back to the church these past 2 years. Yesterday as I was typing up my post above he walked into my office and blew me away with timing. He told me that he got to a point in one of the books that I gave him to read where he had to put the book down and made a personal realization of the importance of something in his life that he was not doing. What that was was confession. He said the next day he walked into the confession line for the first time in 15 years. The priest's response was excellent. he told him welcome back and that they were not going to that today. He said the priest wanted him to set up a time with him to expect to spend about a half hour to do a deep dive over the past 15 years. He told them he need to make a serious contrition. My employee corrected him and said you mean confession and the priest said no...contrition. It made my day and I am glad that our discussion these past two years have truly brought another soul back to full communion with the church and its sacraments.

 

st James tells us that if we save one soul we can count it as an assurance of our own salvation

 

My mom and I went to confession yesterday evening. The diocese was doing a special "all day all evening, all the churches are open for confession" thing. Several obstacles stood in our way throughout the course of the day though. First in our Parish it wasn't all day and all night, there were only a couple hours here and there during the day and we did not realize that, so when I got her in the car and we headed to confession there wasn't a single church with an ppen door in our town. Discouraged, we were about to give up on the idea and then we found a bulletin and looked in it and saw that they were open again later for 2 hours from 6 to 8 p.m. Of course then another obstacle occurred, a Marian consecration meeting that I attended at 6 went long and if I would have stayed till the end we wouldn't have gotten there in time. Reluctantly I left early but I am so glad I did because I got my mom to confession and myself too. Thing is she hasn't been in over 3 years. I had spent Sunday night convincing her to go with me this week so it was important. Several times during the day she said "let's just not bother", and when I picked her up at 7:30 she said "isn't it too late now let's just not go", and I said no no no we're going.

 

I have debated a bit about sharing this but really want your thoughts on this. First, can the devil hear our thoughts and prayers to God? Mainly is he allowed to know what we talk about to God in our minds? My initial thought is only if God wants him to. So here is what has happened. Last Sunday we were traveling home from vacation. I had intended to talk to the priest ahead of time to possibly get dispensation from mass but really thought that if I got home before 6pm I could still make the 7pm mass that evening so did not. The gist of it was we got home around 5:30 and I was just exhausted after being in the car driving all day so did not make mass. I wanted to go to confession all week but did not get a chance being busy at work. It really bothered me. I hate to miss mass and even worse I hate to be at mass and passing on the Eucharist. It really is a painful thing for me to be in sin and to also be at mass and not partake of the greatest gift the Lord gave us. On Friday in prayer I was just devastated with my predicament and cried out to the Lord with my confession but also told him that I never wanted to offend Him nor eat my own condemnation so I would refrain and promised him I would get to confession as soon as my work schedule allowed this week. I also said to Him that it was up to Him to let me know though if by chance I could partake on Sunday in any way that He would like and in a way that only I would know. On Saturday I had nothing. On Sunday morning I had nothing so I realized that I would have to miss the Eucharist at mass and was greatly saddened by it but also understood. Thy will be done.

So now I need to step back a bit in time. Back in 2014 at the peek of being on fire for the Lord after my reversion back to the faith I went through this period of so much guilt from my life of past sin. I did not feel worthy at all to ever partake of the Eucharist even though I had been through numerous thorough confession of all my past sins. I just felt so filthy for something so pure as being in communion with the Lord. One day while walking in the woods I was having a deep prayer session with the Lord discussing all this with Him and just feeling unworthy. My Ipod I was listening to was on shuffle with a playlist of about 400 songs mainly instrumental and some church songs. In the midst of this guilt and feeling of unworthiness the next song that came on was "Taste and See" (my favorite Eucharist song). I was brought to tears in this moment and felt the shame and unworthiness lifted and felt the Lord was answering my distress and telling me to continue to come to his table of plenty.

So now here I am in church during the readings yesterday and this event from my past popped into my head. At this moment I had a thought that this would be the way the Lord would answer my question and in a way that I would know was from him hands down. I thought that if this was the song for the Eucharist today it would be his way of telling me to partake knowing I would be at confession soon. If not then I would know to skip. So as the song is announced (they don't post the songs for mass in my church ahead of time, we wait to hear from the choir director which song and page) I await with great anticipation and it is not Taste and See. I was a little disappointed but at least felt I got my answer so would pass and take the folded arm across the chest walk of shame as I would go up to the communion line with my family. So I pick up the hymnal (which ours has about 1000 songs in it) and I open it up searching for song 972 as the director had told us. As soon as I opened the hymnal it opened right on the page (I think it was song 904) to...you guessed it "Taste and See". Now I was just floored and so happy and ecstatic and gave the Lord so much thanks and praise for I knew this was Him telling me to partake and a direct answer to my prayer and question. So partake I did. After communion I knelt down still so happy and was in great prayer with the Lord. After mass however I had a thought come into my head that maybe the devil did this to confuse me and now I failed and am in further sin now. I struggled with this a bit because I wondered how could the devil know this personal conversation and thought in prayer with the Lord? Needless to say, when I go to confession this week I plan to discuss with the priest but wondered your thoughts as well. Regardless it was a wonderful experience that I feel came from God but it could have come as a test from God and one in which I failed because the rules are the rules and I should know and obey the rules right or maybe not?? Thoughts? Thank God for the sacrament of confession though so all can be repaired in the official manner the Lord instructed 2000 years ago.

 

I would say you should also discuss with your confessor whether or not you are falling into the sin of scrupulosity.

In this case I would say not to worry. You confessed your sins directly to the Lord and expressed true remorse for them, offering up prayers of recompense. You laid a fleece before the Lord in regards to "Taste and See" and recv'd a reply that affirmed your fleece. Since you had expressed sincere remorse before the Lord and truly believed your sins had been forgiven, you did not sin in rec'ving Communion.

Demons can read minds when given permission to do so (as demonstrated in numerous exorcisms); more importantly, they can read facial expressions and actions and deduce what we are thinking. I would say any temptation was the temptation to doubt the Love and Mercy of God when you began to think you were further in sin. This is what I meant when I suggested asking your priest about the sin of scrupulosity.

 

Thanks. I will.

 

I'm not sure how culpable you were in missing Mass if you were travelling that day. Of course, only you know whether you could reasonably have made it to the evening mass but I think culpability would be at least mitigated somewhat under the circumstances you describe. But better to discuss it in confession, of course. I can sympathise though because I missed mass a few weeks ago because I was traveling a long distance to attend to my son who was sick. I had been at a conference which included mass, so clearly my intention was very far from missing mass, but I still felt guilty about it and grilled myself as to whether there had been any possible alternative opportunity of getting to mass which I hadn't taken...

Muzhak's suggestion above re scrupulosity sounds very wise.

 

Oh how Jesus loves your wounded heart and your tears! May we all feel as wounded for our sins as you have! Bless you.

 

Most people would not think it is a sin. But your spirituality won't allow you to miss mass.

What a great blessing.

 

If you are truely unsure as to whether or not you have commited a Mortal Sin[as you were] , the Church allows you to receive communion.
Without danger of sacrilege.
You must of course seek confession and advice as soon as possible afterwards.