Are you trying to tell me you hung out with Ss. Isaac Jogues and John de Brebeuf? The Martyrs who worked among Canadian Indians?
You should know that Catherine of Alexandria didn't exist, at least not as described, and had her cult supressed in 1969.
Lydwina of Shiedam? She has every reason to be afraid of ice, I suppose.
Maybe you aren't understanding this, so I'll go over it again: Saints are dead people in heaven. They aren't ghosts, they can't wander the Earth, and they have no power over prayer or spiritual house cleaning. What you claim is impossible as you understand it. Of course there are spirits, and if you have the charism to see them that is a great gift, but to say that Saints prance around cities is the talk of madmen, and I do not believe you to be mad.
And I have another question: Why would God grant you the grace to see these things and not someone who can appreciate them? Did they not say anything to you of Christ, or the faith, or anything? Why should you see faeries dance and angels sing and I be left with my thoughts and the blessed sacrament?
Saints are not what you say. Angels, perhaps, but not Saints.
1) Apparently, yes, unless they were two other guys with the same names and general background.
2) Well, she didn't actually say she was a saint--again, I looked up her name and found out that she'd been considered a saint, at least for a while. Or at least someone of that name had. I assumed she was a saint because their ghosts tend to last longer, and no one these days calls themselves First Name of City. Of course she could've been lying...but I usually assume that people are honest until proven otherwise. Unless they act very very fishy. And she didn't act fishy, just brisk.
4) and 5) I don't claim to have any special understanding of why anything happens--I see what I see and hear what I hear, and draw my own conclusions. Just like anyone else. I don't know why you think you know better than I do what happens after you die--unless there's something you're not telling me, you're just going by what people have told you. And those people, fallible human beings with their own motives, are going by what other people have told them, and so on back for thousands of years.
I did appreciate seeing them--at least the ones who didn't mob me. They were interesting people. A lot of the ones I saw as a kid talked about religion and tried to convert me, but after I made it clear I wasn't going to listen to things like that (and after that agreement the others made) most of the ones I saw were not trying to get me to do anything.
And why assume that you're alone? Just because you can't see them doesn't mean they're not there.
You used the word fallible just to irk me, didn't you?
Because if everybody else can see such things or feel such presence or have such faith why am I consigned to the constant feeling of loneliness and appreciation of Christ in my head but not in my heart?
Spirituality has the ability to fill people with joy and goodness and power beyond understanding. It can take the sin and the darkness and monstrosity that lurks within us and drive it away. I know this, better than I have known anything. And yet, all but the tiniest glimpses of it are kept from me, and I remain a monster charging about in a world where an angel's song surrounds us with its sweetness but where I cannot hear. If I had faith the size of a mustard seed, it would be sufficient, but I don't, so I rely on the faith of others. You have seen such mysteries as I can but dream of, which means that either He has no plan or use for me, and will keep me in my hideousness, or He hears my cries and I am bound not to hear a response.
The next time you see such spirits as you have told to me, tell them I am a sinner, and ask them to pray for me.
I'll ask any Christian ones I meet to pray for you, but if you're in a church, there's always one listening. It's the main reason they're there.
I know I'm really no one to talk (after all, I spent months pining over people who may or may not have been dead and may or may not have cared), but maybe you should just look for company among the people you can see? And learn about the world, so you can get a sense of how everything is interconnected. Spirits are part of the world, not separate from it. Some of them do need your belief, but they don't need you to beat yourself up for them or ignore everything else.
I doubt that there's one deity who controls everything, but if there is, I can't imagine that he or she or it or they would want you to spend all your time worrying about how it feels about you. If it made you, it must have meant you to be the way you are. And if it doesn't talk to you directly, maybe it's because it wants you to find your own way--wants you to be your own, fully-formed person and not a little child tugging at its (metaphorical) sleeve. Although it's good to be childlike sometimes, so you don't get too caught in the rut of what you think you know...
You should know that Catherine of Alexandria didn't exist, at least not as described, and had her cult supressed in 1969.
Lydwina of Shiedam? She has every reason to be afraid of ice, I suppose.
Maybe you aren't understanding this, so I'll go over it again: Saints are dead people in heaven. They aren't ghosts, they can't wander the Earth, and they have no power over prayer or spiritual house cleaning. What you claim is impossible as you understand it. Of course there are spirits, and if you have the charism to see them that is a great gift, but to say that Saints prance around cities is the talk of madmen, and I do not believe you to be mad.
And I have another question: Why would God grant you the grace to see these things and not someone who can appreciate them? Did they not say anything to you of Christ, or the faith, or anything? Why should you see faeries dance and angels sing and I be left with my thoughts and the blessed sacrament?
Saints are not what you say. Angels, perhaps, but not Saints.
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2) Well, she didn't actually say she was a saint--again, I looked up her name and found out that she'd been considered a saint, at least for a while. Or at least someone of that name had. I assumed she was a saint because their ghosts tend to last longer, and no one these days calls themselves First Name of City. Of course she could've been lying...but I usually assume that people are honest until proven otherwise. Unless they act very very fishy. And she didn't act fishy, just brisk.
4) and 5) I don't claim to have any special understanding of why anything happens--I see what I see and hear what I hear, and draw my own conclusions. Just like anyone else. I don't know why you think you know better than I do what happens after you die--unless there's something you're not telling me, you're just going by what people have told you. And those people, fallible human beings with their own motives, are going by what other people have told them, and so on back for thousands of years.
I did appreciate seeing them--at least the ones who didn't mob me. They were interesting people. A lot of the ones I saw as a kid talked about religion and tried to convert me, but after I made it clear I wasn't going to listen to things like that (and after that agreement the others made) most of the ones I saw were not trying to get me to do anything.
And why assume that you're alone? Just because you can't see them doesn't mean they're not there.
Reply
Because if everybody else can see such things or feel such presence or have such faith why am I consigned to the constant feeling of loneliness and appreciation of Christ in my head but not in my heart?
Spirituality has the ability to fill people with joy and goodness and power beyond understanding. It can take the sin and the darkness and monstrosity that lurks within us and drive it away. I know this, better than I have known anything. And yet, all but the tiniest glimpses of it are kept from me, and I remain a monster charging about in a world where an angel's song surrounds us with its sweetness but where I cannot hear. If I had faith the size of a mustard seed, it would be sufficient, but I don't, so I rely on the faith of others. You have seen such mysteries as I can but dream of, which means that either He has no plan or use for me, and will keep me in my hideousness, or He hears my cries and I am bound not to hear a response.
The next time you see such spirits as you have told to me, tell them I am a sinner, and ask them to pray for me.
Reply
I know I'm really no one to talk (after all, I spent months pining over people who may or may not have been dead and may or may not have cared), but maybe you should just look for company among the people you can see? And learn about the world, so you can get a sense of how everything is interconnected. Spirits are part of the world, not separate from it. Some of them do need your belief, but they don't need you to beat yourself up for them or ignore everything else.
I doubt that there's one deity who controls everything, but if there is, I can't imagine that he or she or it or they would want you to spend all your time worrying about how it feels about you. If it made you, it must have meant you to be the way you are. And if it doesn't talk to you directly, maybe it's because it wants you to find your own way--wants you to be your own, fully-formed person and not a little child tugging at its (metaphorical) sleeve. Although it's good to be childlike sometimes, so you don't get too caught in the rut of what you think you know...
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And he said "Amen I say to you unless you shall turn and make yourselves like little children, you will never enter the heavenly Kingdom."
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