Facing Loneliness in Your Faith Journey

Ask Father Josh (Your Catholic Question and Answer Podcast)

Ascension

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4.9 • 2.6K Ratings

🗓️ 1 August 2024

⏱️ 6 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Dear Fr. Josh,

I am a 37 year old cradle Catholic from the Netherlands and the proud mom of a wonderful baby boy.
Over the last ten years (yeah I know) I’ve been slowly finding my way back to the church. I am now attending mass regularly, have made prayer a part of my daily life and am working up the courage to go to confession for the first time in my life. The journey has brought me closer to God and I am experiencing a profound feeling of peace, because I know God is with me always.

But this is also a very lonely journey. It is extremely difficult to find a practicing Catholic amongst my peers, my family and partner are not religious and a lot of people are downright hostile when they find out about my beliefs, or just think there is something wrong with me. This is very common in my country.
On top of that my fellow churchgoers are all senior citizens and the fellowship I’ve been craving is nowhere to be found.

I listen to some podcasts and follow a couple of YouTube channels to fill that void, but it’s a poor substitute.
My only friends who do believe in God are protestants, as most of the Netherlands is Protestant. I have even thought about converting. Not because I think their way is is the true way to God, but just to not feel so alone in my faith. I just want to share my joy. I could do with some advice. Keep on singing, I love it!
-Anke

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Hey y'all,
0:04.0	y'all welcome to the Summer edition of Ask Father Josh each week from June to July.
0:09.1	We're going to be releasing snippets from previous episodes of the podcast.
0:12.1	These snippets will be answers to some of the most popular questions we've had on the show.
0:16.0	Hope these short episodes offer you encouragement as you continue your walk towards eternity. God bless and I'll see you in the fall with all new
0:24.0	episodes to Ask Father Josh podcast.
0:26.4	Dear Father Josh, I'm a 37-year-old cradle Catholic from the Netherlands and the proud mom of a wonderful baby boy.
0:35.1	Shout out to all the mamas. Over the last 10 years, yeah I know I've been slowly finding my way back to the church.
0:40.8	I'm now attending Mass regularly have made prayer a part of my daily life and I'm working up the courage to go to confession for the first time
0:48.8	The journey has brought me closer to God and I am experiencing a profound feeling of peace because I know
0:54.7	God is with me always, but this is also a very lonely journey.
0:59.1	It's extremely difficult to find practicing Catholics amongst my peers, my family, and my partner are not religious and a lot of people are downright hostile when they find out about my beliefs.
1:09.0	Artists think that there's something wrong with me.
1:11.0	This is very common in my country. On top of that, my fellow
1:14.0	churchgoers are all senior citizens, and the fellowship I've been craving is nowhere to be found.
1:19.1	I listen to some podcast and follow a couple of YouTube channels to feel that void but it's a poor substitute.
1:24.0	My only friends who do believe in God are Protestants as most of the Netherlands is Protestant.
1:29.0	I've even thought about converting not because I think their way is the true way to God but just because I feel so alone in my faith I just want to share my joy I could do with some advice so keep on singing I love it
1:40.0	all right so a few things first of, I just want to acknowledge that is challenging. It must be very difficult to not have your peers who you are close to in your family, in your workplace environment, in your neighborhood, who are also
1:54.6	Catholic.
1:55.6	It must be very lonely.
1:56.6	So I want to acknowledge that weight you feel is very, very real.
	...

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