Feelings: The Signs of our Times

We live in a world where so many are guided by their feelings. Following our feelings can lead us down the wrong road.

When so many are in mental or emotional crisis they turn to pscyhology and medicine alone without also turning to the Church.

I encourage parents, grandparents and friends to lead their loved ones to the Church when in the midst of a crisis.

Why do we trust a psychologist who we don’t even know but we don’t trust a priest, who we may or may not know?

I am not saying to not go to a psychologist or take medication if needed, but I am saying to also include the Church in your healing.

Too many are guided by their feelings and getting advice from others who are just trying to make the “hurt” party feel better. So many who are giving advice have no spiritual guidance themselves.

I hear often, leave them alone and mind your own business but yet these same people have no training in any field and are doling out advice based strictly on feelings.

We need the Church and the Sacraments for healing and it’s not a one time thing. It’s an everyday thing!

I have had people I know ask me to be their spiritual director. I respond, I will be glad to help you in spiritual matters but I always tell them to go to a priest as well as I am not trained in spiritual direction nor am I a theologian or doctor.

So many need help, and what they really need is the Church and the Sacraments, which has been my rock and refuge in times of crisis as well as in good times and in every circumstance.

The greatest thing I have ever done, I believe, (next to partaking in giving life to my children) was to help my dying friend, who I knew since childhood,  receive the sacraments before he died. He had cancer, and his life in this world was slipping away. He was honest with himself and realized the inevitable even though many were praying for a miraculous recovery.

I was meeting with him often and sent him a simple text about Anointing of the Sick and Confession and how those two Sacraments helped me when I received them in a hospital stay.

The next day he returned my text asking me to bring him a priest. I did and he went to confession and received Anointing of the Sick and Holy Communion on 3 different occasions before he died. It was the most beautiful thing for me to witness, something I will never forget.

As a former football player, I like to say My Bible is my playbook and The Cathechism of The Catholic Church is my weekly game plan. I need both to succeed in the game of life. I also like to say The Sacraments of Reconciliation or Confession and Holy Communion are oxygen and water to my soul. I could not survive without them. I really believe that, live it and practice it.

None of these things has to do with feelings, but they are life giving.

Truth is a person, not an idea or feeling. That person is Jesus the Christ! and the Truth will set you free. It certainly has for me.

I pray our country and world will seek Truth and not be guided by feelings only. Our feelings can motivate us to greatness but it takes so much more than feelings to over come mediocrity, spiritual mediocrity in this case.

Our Rock and Refuge is in the Church, go to it. When we rely on feelings, medicine, science, psychology alone without the Church we are not whole and we are not fully healed.

This will bring us to our final destination, our home, where God wants us to be and we will WALK BY FAITH TO LIVE JOYFULLY on the way.