Faith

This is quite a personal post for me but I think it is time for me to admit it. I am struggling with my faith, I am practicing as much as I can and what I am going to write isn’t a criticism of the Catholic Church, far from it.

When attending mass we obviously have prayer mats or the little benches to kneel on and I don’t believe that I should use them. I don’t need comfort to express my faith and certainly don’t use them on my weekly visit to the Cathedral. I kneel on the concrete.

There is a belief that you must sing as much as possible during mass. I don’t have a problem with chanting but I have been to masses where the priest literally expects everyone to sing just about everything. I want and need to express my faith in a way that is comfortable to me and that doesn’t include singing prayers or responses.

For me the use on incense is an important part of the mass and when it isn’t used it doesn’t feel like a full mass. I have found that incense is being used less and less now and it doesn’t feel right.

Whilst I am self harming I find it impossible to take the sacraments. A practising catholic should not deliberately hurt others and I would have thought the same would apply to deliberatley hurting myself? I am not sure if it me punishing myself or something deeper.