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Were you baptized using the Traditional Rite of Baptism or the New Rite? Was the minister a validly-ordained priest using the Traditional Rite or someone else?

The reason I ask is that the New Rite of Baptism removes certain exorcisms and anointings that St. Thomas Aquinas says are critical to remove the obstacles to divine grace:

https://aquinas.cc/la/en/~ST.III.Q71.A3

If you were not baptized using the Traditional Rite, you can have a traditional priest provide the "Supplying Ceremonies of Baptism" The process takes approximately 15 minutes.
Let me find out from my godparent from RCIA and get back to you on this. I really have no idea :laugh1:
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ANY struggle you have, you can be certain many other Catholics have the same struggles even if they have been in the faith for many years.

Remember these basic ordinary daily struggles are your cross. All you have to do is carry it. Even Jesus needed help carrying his cross, so heavy was the burden of our sins. It wouldn't be quite so difficult if Catholics would help each other carry their cross, but we are too spread out and careless to do that, or we won't accept help from others. "Bear one another's burdens, everyone shall carry his own burden." "No greater love does a man have than to lay down his life for his friends." That doesn't mean we have to take a bullet for them, but give up what you want to do with your life, even if it's just a part of the day or week you would rather be doing something else for yourself, to help someone else carry their burden. You don't make a campfire with 1 piece of wood, it takes a few to share the heat between them so they burn all the hotter in this cold world.
I appreciate this. I kept assuming that there is something wrong with me or that I did not put myself in a proper state of mind before baptism and expected something splendous to happen. You just reminded me when we as catechumens were taught during RCIA that even after baptism, we were not excused from spiritual struggles and hardships, and it only intensifies if we intend to really carry the cross. Ugh...I see the immaturity in my expectations now. :facepalm:

Can I ask, what kind of community are you in, in order to stay close and tightly-knitted within the Catholic circle? Or what advice can you provide me if I am looking for one? I ask this because apart from the Sunday Mass, there isn't really much contact (at least from my observations based on my own experiences).
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PETITIONS OF ST. JOHN CHRYSOSTOM
TWELVE PRAYERS AT THE BEGINNING OF THE DAY
  • O Lord, do not deprive me of Thy heavenly blessing.
  • O Lord, deliver me from eternal torment.
  • O Lord, if I sinned in thought, word, or deed, forgive me.
  • O Lord, free me from all ignorance, the pettiness of soul, and hardness of heart.
  • O Lord, save me from all temptation.
  • O Lord, enlighten my heart darkened by evil desires.
  • O Lord, because I am a human being, I am a sinner; because Thou art the Lord God, forgive me in Thy love, for Thou knowest that my soul is weak.
  • O Lord, send Thy grace to aid me so that I may glorify Thy Holy Name.
  • O Lord Jesus Christ, inscribe me, Thy faithful servant, in the Book of Life, and give me a good end.
  • O Lord my God, although I have not done any good before Thee, nevertheless, grant me, with the help of Thy grace, to be able to begin to do so.
  • O Lord, freshen my heart with Thy grace.
  • O Lord of Heaven and earth, remember me, Thy sinful servant, impure and cold of heart, in Thy Kingdom.


TWELVE PRAYERS AT THE END OF THE DAY
  • O Lord, accept my repentance.
  • O Lord, do not forsake me.
  • O Lord, save me from temptation.
  • O Lord, grant me pure thoughts.
  • O Lord, grant me tears of repentance, the remembrance of death, and a healthy sense of my guilt.
  • O Lord, grant me humility, charity, and obedience.
  • O Lord, grant me the confession of my sins.
  • O Lord, grant me tolerance, kindness, and gentleness.
  • O Lord, place in me the source of all blessings: the fear of Thee in my heart.
  • O Lord, grant that I may love Thee with all my heart and all my soul, and that I may always obey Thy will.
  • O Lord, defend me from certain people and also from the demons and all errors.
  • O Lord, Thou knowest that there always exists agreement between Thee and Thy Will; may such also exist between us, for Thou art blessed forever and ever. Amen.
I have added these prayers among my list of My Prayer in my Laudate app. Thank you, RosaryTrad!
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Welcome to fight!  You are now in a war with the enemies of Our Lord.  Like others have stated, love is in your will, it is not a feeling.  Keep doing what you know is God's will for you no matter how dark and dry you feel.  Put yourself everyday into Our Lady care, trust her to lead you everyday and pray the rosary.
"Love is in your will, it is not a feeling." 
I like this sentence and will have to keep it in mind, because I am guilty of trying to 'feel' something which I shouldn't. Thank you, Michelle!
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Congratulations on your Baptism.

It is possible to take on too much too quickly.  If I want to train for a marathon after having been a couch potato for years, I'm not going to get up one day and run the 26 miles or even the 13.

So just start with relatively modest goals, the minimum being, IMO, a Morning Offering followed by 5-10 minutes of mental prayer or meditation, evening examination of conscience and Act of Contrition, the 3 Haily Marys (morning and evening), and the Holy Rosary.  I strongly recommend 15 decades, the entire Rosary, each day.  I like to break it up to 5 decades 3 different times of the day.  Just stick to these practices no matter how "dry" you feel.  Dryness is actually one of the first steps toward progress in the spiritual life, and it can often develop into a "Dark Night of the Senses".  At the end of the day, love of God is in the will (informed by the intellect), not in the senses or the emotions, so God will sometimes withdraw the consolations of the senses in order to strengthen the will and the intellect, the higher faculties.  But fight through it and stick with those minimums you've set for yourself.  Once you get into a solid habit of the above, then you could gradually, little by little, introduce more, say 15 minutes of spiritual reading, 15 minutes of reading Sacred Scripture (or go back and forth), additional mental prayer, etc.

So set a modest/minimum routine or habit of prayer, and do not deviate from it, regardless of how hard it might see or how dry you might get, realizing that the dryness does not make you farther from God but is actually working to bring you closer to Him.

You may want to read from Fr. Garrigou Lagrange's Three Ages of the Interior Life, which discusses how one progresses to holiness, through the "dark nights".
https://tinyurl.com/4s899vzh

Baptism does not completely eliminate the consequnces of Original Sin, conscupiscence, a tendency toward sloth/laziness, gluttony, irascibility, etc.

If you like Three Ages, here's a link to Volume 2.
https://tinyurl.com/yfaneksr

Here's a similar book by Fr. Tanquerey, The Spiritual Life, which is a bit more compact / concise / terse.  We used this text at St. Thomas Aquinas Seminary as the textbook for the introductory class in "Ascetical and Mystical Theology".
https://dn790009.ca.archive.org/0/items/MN41530ucmf_5/MN41530ucmf_5.pdf
Thank you Ladislaus. This is both enlightening and comforting at the same time, to know that what I am going through helps me to make progress in the spiritual life. I will need to remember that.

Currently, I am saying the Morning Offering, 3 O'clock Divine Mercy Chaplet and the Evening Offering as my starting point. The Rosary might prove too much for me at the moment and I fear I will give it up halfway again.

Thank you for the links! I will bookmark this, so I can get back to it.
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Welcome to the Faith!

Try not to give yourself too hard of a time.  "Rome was not built in a day".  Perfection takes time.

I highly recommend the book "Patience" by Father Lasance:

https://truerestoration.org/press/patience/

Thanks for the recommendation, AMDGJMJ! :smirk:
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Might be you need to nourish your faith, which comes from hearing as St. Paul tells us. His channel has many great sermons:


Here is another good one.
Thanks for the resources! I will definitely subscribe and explore them.
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Thank you for finding that video, Black Trads Matter; it watched it all. Makes you wonder, if all these cases are true and terrible, how the perpetrators can live with their lifestyles. I pray they convert and repent...but we are all sinners too, and beg for God's mercy. The devil is busy: you can't make this stuff up! I read that Fr Groche would give a huge discount for school tuition to some Gabonese students, so these students were kindda trapped....At the end of the day, probably 97 % of newSociety priests are decent, morally speaking. Hopefully more will wake up and see the problems with neoSociety doctrinal position. Bp. Faure said that good bishops and priests must act like worthy dogs... bark when danger is present. Otherwise the dog is useless. But it sounds pretty quiet out there in neoSociety land +
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Fighting Errors in the Modern World / Re: "real and natural water"???
« Last post by Ladislaus on Yesterday at 08:05:38 PM »
I think we've discussed this before.  It basically has to look / feel / act like water according to common human perception.  Now, the more "polluted" it is and the less it resembles water, the less likely it is to constitute valid matter.  Thus, if the water is slightly mirky, most likely still valid.  If it's thick mud, less likely, etc.  But things like chemicals and pollutants that are largely imperceptible to the senses would not invalidate the Sacrament.  Tap water, despite the presence of chroine, chemicals, and other toxins, etc. ... would still constitute valid matter for the Sacrament of Baptism.  If your ordinary person would look at it, touch it, taste it, and say, "yep, that's water," then it's water.

By "hot or cold" is meant that the temperature doesn't matter and is not of the essence for validity.  Its temperature doesn't change the essence of water ... though I imagine that its state would, i.e. if it were frozen into ice or boiled into steam, but even then I'm sure touching ice to the skin would cause a tiny amount of it to melt into water, or a tiny bit of steam condensing on the head would not be difficult to achieve.  It has to flow on the skin and act like water, which obviously solid ice or steam can't readily do.
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Fighting Errors in the Modern World / "real and natural water"???
« Last post by AnthonyPadua on Yesterday at 08:02:00 PM »
The Church defines the element for Baptism as "real and natural water" either "hot or cold".

I have had some questions regarding this because many nations use recycled water that is heavily treated. And also does hot or cold exclude warm?
What is the proper way to understand the Church's meaning here?
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