Worried about losing your faith?

Mad Meg the Blogger*

Pieter Bruegel l'Ancien, Margot la folle, détail.

I noticed someone on Facebook said that about "leftist Catholics" ...

The loss of faith is always a danger, which is one reason we pray not to be led into temptation or hard testing.  St. Therese of Lisieux and St. Theresa of Calcutta lived out the end of their lives in a state wherein they felt as if they had no faith - Therese called it the trial of faith.  It was a terrible ordeal.

Today people question the Holy Father, condemn bishops and priests as heretics, and frequently back up their assertions with references to private revelations; messages associated with apparitions, and extensive locutions to various mystics, and so on.  In doing so it seems to me they attempt to fill in the void created by the 'apostates' and seek consolation to get them through 'the storm' until this pope dies and a new one more suited to their taste is elected to replace him.

I came across something else I had posted a few years ago regarding private revelations and not guiding one's life by them, or basing one's faith upon what they predict.  I'll share that now.

Morbid fascination with apparitions and visionaries can lead one into error and away from the Church, which is why the Church has rules governing discernment of private revelations, in order to guard the faithful from error. Naturally, I'm thinking of the 'consecrate Russia' and everything will be fine theories, as well as blame the apostasy on the bad council/bad liturgy groups who are engaged in a war against so-called Catholic leftists who support the Pope.

"Since the devil apes divine works, diabolical phenomena are known to occur at times among the mystics." (All quotations from Tanquerey.) "A revelation may be true in the main and yet contain some incidental errors." Thus, in private revelations the errors of the times as regards physical or historical science may get included in the interpretation of the revelations. So too the prejudices and training of the spiritual directors of the seers can affect the message. Details involving historical errors may also be introduced, sometimes arising from the seer's meditation or intelligence, often contradicting historical documents or revelations of the saints.

Private revelations may not only be wrongly interpreted, they "may be unwittingly altered by the seer himself as he attempts to explain, transcribe, record, or dictate the experiences to another. St. Brigid realized herself that at times she retouched her revelations, the better to explain them; such added explanations are not always free from errors. It is acknowledged today that the scribes who wrote the revelations of Mary of Agreda and Catherine Emmerich modified them to an extent difficult to determine." (Spiritual Life, Tanquerey, Book III, Chapter III.)

So yeah - we are all Catholics.  Like it or not.  Progressive, conservative, leftist, whatever you think you are - if you think you're standing, watch out.  St. Paul wrote on that.  Don't lord your superior faith over other people whose faith may be weak.

*Mad Meg reminds me of some of the bloggers online who rant about heretics and apostates and leftist Catholics.