Good day! How's it goin’? My name's Matt Fradd.
This is Ascension Presents,
and I'm just looking up some of your questions that you've been sending me over YouTube.
So the first question comes from Chris Thai who says
“I have many difficulties with doubt, whether it be doubting the existence of God in times of darkness,
doubting his love for me when ashamed,
or doubting in myself to be able to do God's work, etc.
Do you have any tips to overcoming doubt and learning to trust?
I’m a catechumen and it would be awesome to build my faith, further dispelling doubt...”
Thanks Chris. Look, first you have to understand:
no matter what religion or worldview you decide to adopt, you're always going to have doubts.
It's part of the human condition.
You're a finite, limited creature that doesn't understand everything.
We can't ... not only can we not know what God is in this life,
but we can't comprehend him, either in this life or the next.
So there are always going to be things that are mysterious,
and we're always going to have questions.
C.S. Lewis talked about this.
Back when he was an atheist, he would say,
“You know, I’d often have doubts that maybe the Christians were right.”
So realize that you’re always going to have doubts,
but that doesn’t necessarily need to be a problem.
But that said, it’s not enough just to have somebody tell you,
“Well, you just have to have faith!”
Because that doesn’t really help either, does it?
It would be like if I said “Would you do me a favor?
I need you, Chris, to drive my rusty car to California from where I live in Atlanta ‘cause I need to get it.
Would you mind doing it for me?”
And you’d come over and you look at my car and you're like,
“This doesn't look like it's gonna make it out of the city let alone across the country!”
If I was to say to you, “Well, you just gotta have faith,” you would say,
“No, that's a stupid thing to say! I need reasons to think that this is reliable.”
Catholicism in particular is a big proponent of faith and reason, okay?
So, rather than trying to address ALL of your doubts,
why don't you pick one of those doubts, right, and then do some research on it?
Go to Catholic Answers — that's a great website — catholic.com.
Go to my website, PintswithAquinas.com,
listen to some of my podcasts on things you might have particular doubts about
so that you can have reasons to believe in something
that up until now you've had trouble doubting.
Now you brought up some more sort of pastoral questions,
like doubting your ability to do God's will, doubting his love for you...
Let me suggest one book that I think would be really great for you.
It's a book based on the teachings of St. Therese of Lisieux.
It's called ‘I Believe in Love’ ...
‘I Believe in Love’ — it’s published by Sophia Press, so check that out.
Thanks very much Chris!
The next question comes from Ethan Noble.
He says, “What should I do when it's gotten so bad
where I can't even look at people without having an impure thought?
I haven't been able to receive communion for over a month because I feel like I'm in a state of sin.
What must I do?”
Thank You Ethan. Thank you for having the courage to ask that question,
and know that there's all sorts of people out there watching this who have the same question.
So I would recommend getting a good spiritual director,
because sometimes we can become too scrupulous.
Scrupulosity is not a good thing.
It's when we look at our behavior and think what isn't a sin IS a sin
and what is a venial sin must be a mortal sin.
We blow things out of proportion and sometimes that makes things very difficult.
I would recommend that same book that I just recommended to Chris actually —
‘I Believe in Love’ — for you, because it's a great way to beat scrupulosity out of you.
But if you're not struggling with scrupulosity, you say you look at people, you have thoughts.
Well keep in mind what I said in my talk on pornography.
We have all sorts of thoughts that bombard us throughout the day.
My goodness sake, I mean millions.
You know, you might sit there and all sorts of things — weird, bizarre things — might come into your mind.
It doesn't mean you're culpable for those things.
You're only culpable for something that you choose, all right?
You can't be culpable for something that you don't choose, or don't sufficiently choose.
So sometimes you might have an impure thought come to your mind,
and you might entertain it for a moment, right.
And then you realize what you're doing, you think “Ah, come on. No, I don't want to do that.”
Well that's not a sin.
So, it's a sin however, if you were to think “You know what? I know this is probably wrong, but...
whatever, I don't care, I'm just gonna do it” and then you...
Now if you're doing that that is a sin and I think that is something that you should confess.
But... I think a good spiritual director will help you decide whether or not you're being too scrupulous.
By the way, if someone's out there struggling with pornography and they're thinking to themselves
“How on earth do I recover from this? It's gotten so bad.
Just having a filter on my computer's not working, having accountability’s not working.”
The three things that I've discovered to be the best
would be finding a good, certified sex addiction therapist —
you can learn more about that at my website ‘LovePeopleUseThings.fm’ —
it’s a whole website and podcasts devoted to helping people overcome pornography,
we have a whole section there where you can find a certified sex addiction therapist in your area.
I would say getting a good spiritual director, and then, finally, finding a good SA group.
You can go to SA.org to find a group in your area.
And sometimes people will say to me, “Well, I don't wanna go to a group!
What if somebody sees me?”
And I think, well yeah, if they see you, you'll see them as well! It’s okay.
So check them out — SA.org.
Those would be the three big gun things I'd recommend for people
who've been trying to be free of porn for the longest time that have found little success.
Okay, so this bloke asked me a question and I'm pretty sure I'm gonna butcher his name...
El Planeta de Delfos... blame it on my Australian accent, would you?
He says “Dear Matt, I'm a philosophy professor.
Although I am in a Catholic university, I am always struggling with the students
and I’m spiritually tired of fighting.
How can I regain my strength? What do you do when you get tired?”
That's a very good question.
I guess it depends on what you mean by you're getting ...
when you're struggling with the students — are they not listening?
Or are they listening and not getting it?
Certainly I would recommend taking a retreat for a night or two, and leaving your phone behind.
One thing I like to do every weekend is to turn off the internet
and just to spend the weekend relaxing, reading good literature,
doing things that actually upbuild me
as opposed to things that merely distract me from pain.
I think very often that's what YouTube and Netflix does — they distract us from discomfort and pain.
But things that are beautiful, like going on a hike, taking a retreat,
going on a date if you're married — or not married.
Hanging out with good friends, having a beer, having a cigar —
just doing things like that to sort of rejuvenate you.
Having beautiful conversations with people that don't make you feel exhausted...
and then, of course, praying and asking our Lord to remind you that these students —
that in a sense, he's putting you in charge of —
he has done so, so that you might lead them to himself, by truth.
So I would recommend that, as you teach them, to try and pray that you can see them as God sees them
and that you would remember to smile as you speak.
Very often we can feel a little grumpy,
or we might appear grumpy just cause we're not smiling.
But smiling, I think, while speaking can make us happier anyway.
I mean, look at me, I'm thrilled right now.
And it also can make you seem a little more open,
and maybe the students will be a little more open to you.
Of course if the students are being belligerent and difficult then
you might decide to, I don't know, take further action.
All right, I think that'll do for this week. We'll do another one soon!
You can ask a question below if you want,
and you can follow me on instagram and twitter, my handle is @mattfradd.
Thanks so much!