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    Through Spiritual Trials
    Through Spiritual Trials
    Through Spiritual Trials
    Ebook42 pages33 minutes

    Through Spiritual Trials

    By Francis Wagner

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    About this ebook

    Seen and largely unnoticed, the “inner dialogue” of the wounded soul contributes greatly to the collective, exterior troubles of the world at large, which are really only symptoms of a much deeper problem. Doubt, anger, malice, sorrow, and fear are just a few of the spiritual trials that afflict the human heart. However, the Catholic tradition offers us sure-fire remedies—not to remove our trials, but to transform them by God’s grace into good, for ourselves and the world around us. This book presents valuable insight into how we can move through our spiritual trials and be renewed in faith, peace, mercy, joy, and love—for the good of all. This five-chapter book focuses on themes originally published as individual titles in our Catholic Perspectives CareNotes series. Softcover volume is edited by Br. Francis Wagner, O.S.B. and features an introduction.



    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherOpen Road Integrated Media
    Release dateAug 12, 2014
    ISBN9781497678675
    Through Spiritual Trials

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      Book preview

      Through Spiritual Trials - Francis Wagner

      Chapter I

      How Spiritual Doubt Can Make Our Faith Stronger

      By Br. Francis Wagner, O.S.B.

      It was a child’s—and mother’s—nightmare. We were lost, and our mother was nowhere to be seen. I was six or seven years old at the time, my brother three years younger. Mom had taken us to the mall with her, and somehow we got separated.

      My brother and I anxiously looked for our mother from one end of the mall to the other while she searched for us. My brother was crying, and I was frightened, too. Where was she? Maybe she had left us there. What would happen to us? Those were the questions in my mind as we continued walking and searching.

      We were eventually reunited, to the relief of all. Our mother will be mortified to discover I’ve offered up this story for print, but in a very simple way it illustrates our journey of faith as Christians. I didn’t know where our mother was or how we would find her, but deep down I believed that she would never leave until we found one another. So we continued searching. However, I was full of doubt.

      Working your way through

      We walk by faith, not by sight, writes St. Paul (2 Corinthians 5:7). For now we see in a mirror, darkly; but then face to face (1 Corinthians 13:12). Ultimately, it is God’s face we seek, and it is a journey laden with doubt. Is there a God? Why did this happen? What is going to happen to me? Why am I here? What is God’s plan for me? Am I headed in the right direction?

      It is in starting from the experience of the desert, from the void, that we can again discover the joy of believing, its vital importance for us. In the desert we rediscover the value of what is essential for living.

      —Pope Benedict XVI

      Each of us has asked these and similar questions. They transcend the circumstances giving rise to them and strike at the very core of our being. Yet, posing them sometimes prompts feelings of guilt. By asking such things—or by doubting—we can be tempted to feel that we have no faith at all.

      However, "faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things unseen," promises the Letter to the Hebrews (11:1). It means believing without fully knowing or understanding. It means questioning while continuing to search, just like two lost children looking for their mother in a crowded mall.

      Engaging doubt in faith. In philosophical and theological terms, such questioning means to consider with assent, as St. Augustine put it. That is a far cry from voluntary, skeptical doubt. Thoughtful consideration with the goal of seeking understanding and doing God’s will—even amid mental unrest—will always gain God’s abundant

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