At some point, almost everyone’s faith is going to be shaken. The apostles experienced this. Many of the great saints have as well. Mother Teresa lived for decades in a spiritual dryness that only her will allowed her to endure. Many things can contribute to a weakening of one’s faith, including laxity in prayer, infrequent reception of the sacraments, habitual sins, the temptations and allurements of the world, family members or friends challenging your faith, etc. Even God testing our faith can cause this to happen. Share with Jerry and Debbie if you have had a crisis of faith sometime in your life, and how you dealt with it and overcame it.
Take 2 with Jerry & Debbie 
April 25, 2017 at 1:12 pm
Hi Debbie, heh, first I want to say I love both of my beautiful parents; as a child my life and faith was dramatically shaken when my mother left my faithful father, I have to say God somehow had given me an inextricable- really an instinctual sense that I, my being and reality, was the love between my Father and my Mother, and now there was no such reality – I concluded that I therefore was a mistake even though I somehow knew God doesn’t make mistakes. I was very young God must have revealed this directly. Yet I perceived myself as nothing and relationship simply was not something that I knew existed as something I could belong to.
Long story short God used this opportunity to show me what the reality of family and love is, what it would be and so what or whom God completely IS, and that this was what He intended and as he would reveal the foundation for my reality and the this was the first union from which my reality came to exist and for which I rightly belong.
God helped me to see what family and love is. Who God is.
This would help me a lot later when it would become needed that I see the reason I felt so powerless in struggling against sin, which was shacking me at my foundations, was not because I was a mistake or because God was being unfair but because I was not remaining rooted in Him and he wouldn’t force me to depend on Him in a living relationship for all of my life and strength and love. No the love that we belong to is free. So truly God can use very unfortunate circumstances by meeting us there. Amen.
God bless and thanks for the show, it’s great!
Sincerely Andrew,
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April 26, 2017 at 12:55 pm
long story short here, too. You NAILED it, ANDREW! See my more extended comment about the book Jesus of Nazareth by Pope Benedict XVI. YES, WHO IS GOD? That is exactly the theological perspective for each of us, as Benedict describes in his book. This is exactly what he talks about.
And, really, when we say the Lord’s prayer, we pray THY WILL BE DONE and that is among other things, to believe in God and trust in Him, no matter what. I invite you to read the second chapter of volume 1 of that book, to see how this great Catholic biblical scholar and theologian shows how important our faith and trust in God really is. As it says in James, the Holy Spirit generously gives wisdom to those who seek it.
On a more historical theme, my niece had the same sort of crisis when her parents divorced — they divorced when she was still an infant. She had no idea what was hitting her. And, me, “uncle,” “godfather,” had to reassure her that she had nothing to do with that event. My father died when he was 37 and my step-father was murdered two years later, when I was 11. I had to cry and pray, “God, you’re all I’ve got, please don’t abandon me.” I earned 3 college degrees, I retired at 51, took care of my mom for 12 wonderful years before she passed, AND I’M STILL HERE singing and praising God, and counting His blessings.
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April 26, 2017 at 11:08 am
I think this is one of the topics where you really have to be prepared to speak to callers who have gone through a spiritual crisis. By coincidence, I was re-reading the first volume of Jesus of Nazareth, by Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI, the second chapter on the temptations of Christ. And Benedict talks about SPIRITUAL CRISES and the Biblical point of view on them. You had a caller who prayed so hard for a sick relative who died anyway. That’s pretty hard to handle on a live call-in show, and Debbie’s response wasn’t even close to the seriousness with which Benedict discusses such things.
If you have any time to prepare for these programs, you should do some research on the theological aspects of “spiritual crises.” On page 37 he cites the example of the Israelites in the desert with little water and they complain “Is the Lord among us or not?” (Ex 17:7), and, briefly, he is discussing how the Antichrist tempts us to put God to the test over “whatever” — we need this or that or this person is ill, etc. On the previous page (36) Benedict says “The theological debate between Jesus and the devil is a dispute over the correct interpretation of scripture and it is relevant in every period of history.”
(p.37) “if [God] doesn’t grant us now the protection he promises in Psalm 91, then he is simply not God.”– that’s what leads to a spiritual crisis. (p.38) If you follow the will of God, you will know that in spite of all the terrible things that happen to you, you will never lose a final refuge.”
I don’t think the Catechism discusses spiritual crises but you need some other basis for dealing with callers with spiritual crises, like reading how a “spiritual crisis” is really a temptation of the devil to knock God off the throne of our life — like this chapter in Benedict’s book. You have to read this chapter on how Christ was tempted to see how WE are tempted, with,for example, spiritual crises. And, you should really have the Biblical and theological answer for EVERY spiritual crisis before you open those phone lines.
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