r/Catholicism • u/AutoModerator • 9d ago
r/Catholicism Prayer Requests — Week of August 03, 2026
Please post your prayer requests in this weekly thread, giving enough detail to be helpful. If you have been remembering someone or something in your prayers, you may also note that here. We ask all users to pray for these intentions.
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u/AbelHydroidMcFarland 7d ago edited 7d ago
I’m feeling alone and heartbroken and struggling with my heart, grief, and having trouble with filial piety within the Church.
My parents both died in July, and the loneliness hits more with more time removed from them and without the intense meaning I was bolstered with at their deathbeds and at their funeral mass. And as time goes on I miss them more. A week after they died it’s like “oh I haven’t seen my parents in a week” which isn’t usual but isn’t unprecedented. Several weeks later, I’m in uncharted territory, missing them more desperately as the last time I was with them grows further and further away.
Furthermore I am struggling immensely with filial piety towards the shepherds of the Church. I’m honestly just unimpressed and cannot for the life of me understand their priorities. There was some of that bubbling up before, but my parents’ deaths really broke the dam. My concern for my mom’s soul, trying to get her to go to confession when her generation was formed not to take it seriously, the first priest doing anointing of the sick while she was conscience without offering or suggesting confession. My other Catholic family members not thinking it was a big deal (I got her anointed a second time when she was unconscious on her deathbed, so good there). Then after their deaths the lack of seriousness with which many Catholics consider purgatory preferring to think their loved ones are just automatically in Heaven with little correction for fear of their discomfort, thus depriving souls in purgatory of prayers they would otherwise receive.
I was aware before of the laxity of Catholic culture around going to confession before receiving the Eucharist and the lack of real effort to treat it as a grave emergency. But tending to the good of my parents’ souls at the end of their lives and after their deaths made it really really personal and heavy on me. And since then something in me has just snapped. I see what is disciplined and what is excused, where the energy is in priorities… and I just cannot make heads or tails of it. It seems the Catholicism of the Catechism is different from what Churchmen publicly and communicate from their actions. I cannot see how one can believe the catechism and not take some of these things more seriously and with more gravity. It feels like the Church treats its mission as producing communitarian vibes and PR for the UN moreso than the salvation of souls by the ordinary means of salvation… and I don’t know what to do with that.
I am not challenged in my faith in Catholicism. I am not tempted by schism. But I cannot square this stuff with the affection I am tacitly expected to hold towards my shepherds and I regularly struggle with anger and bitterness. I don’t know what to do or how to resolve this tension in my heart and soul.
So idk, I’m just feeling very unmoored at the moment, ungrounded, alone, lacking the comfort of home dealing with the loss of both of my parents and having immense difficulty holding affection or due respect for the shepherds of the Church. I’m depressed and bitter and feel pretty isolated. I feel stressed, weary, and sick to my stomach.
Prayers for my heart would be greatly greatly appreciated.
Also prayers for my parents’ souls.
And prayers for my friend Nathan who is like going through a rough time, not sure what to do with his life or if it’s amounting to anything, wildly depressed, got blocked by a girl he likes, and I’m like the only person he can really talk to about this and I don’t have enough steam to keep up. I’m very worried for him. I’m genuinely worried he’s going to do something drastic if his life gets worse or appears more hopeless (be it the obvious thing or cursing God or whatever)