The enemy leaves people who are far from Christ alone for the most part, because he already has them. When you start to make an effort to grow closer to Christ you will notice spiritual warfare, and it will vary in intensity over time.
Indeed. It's not uniform though, by which I mean that varied temptations will come and go with varying intensities over time. In the midst of one temptation it can seem like it will bear down on you for the rest of your life. On a day you do not expect it will subside and you may have a longer period of peace. You will then think you're in a better place and a new passion will assail you, or an old one will revisit you. Such is the spiritual life. The struggles are usually intensified during fasting periods, visits to monasteries, critical moments in life (decisions relating to marriage or monasticism or the choice of a spiritual father), when we try to help others who are weighed down by passions (and therefore take on a share of their burden) etc. I don't have personal experience of being assailed whilst being a catechumen (given I was baptised as a baby) but its absolutely to be expected for those approaching the Church as adults.
Take it in stride brother.
My priest gave me a book by saint silouan about keeping your mind in hell and dispair not, i think thats been helping haha
I assume you're referring to St Silouan the Athonite - that book is gold. St Silouan is beautiful example of a saint who was almost completely unknown and hidden from the world in his life time. Praise the Lord for revealing him to us. There was one time around a decade ago that I was undergoing relatively severe temptations. I remember sitting in a Serbian lawyer's office whilst he was speaking about some fairly inconsequential legal matter. I was being assailed by thoughts of despondency and wasn't really listening to anything he had to say. I'd read the book St Silouan the Athonite not long before that and the particular citation that kept returning to my mind was "keep thy mind in Hell and despair not". At that point it did feel like I was experiencing a foretaste of hell and so I struggled to put into practice what I'd read. I had meant attend Vespers that evening but the lawyer kept me longer than I had anticipated. By the time I reached the nearest church the service was already over and there was noone else around. Given I was already there I decided to head over to the church bookshop. As soon as I opened the door there was one new publication that was prominently displayed above the counter and facing the entrance. I recognised the face of St Silouan on the cover. I took a closer look at the title and was greeted by the words "Keep thy mind in Hell and despair not". A Serbian publisher had, unknown to me at the time, decided to put out a Serbian-language book about St Silouan and had chosen that particular citation as the title. The Lord sends us what we need at the appropriate times, ours is to despair not.
Im in South Africa, but just because Im going through this I dont know if everyone goes through this but I know thay you will go through some testing thats for sure, as father Josiah Trenham says that Catechumans go through extreme demonic attack, so about the Roman Catholic thing I dont think its a good idea to join them just because its convenient to you guys and your family, you join a church because of Christ and truth, for example, when I found out about Orthodoxy I realized theres only 1 church and I wasnt part of that church so thats one of the many reasons I converted, look whats happening with the pope for example he just basically blessed same sex couple, a sin, how can you bless sin?
Thats the book, yes Im going through that same thing now it is good advice, it also talks about the humble road we got to take, like going down the same way Christ did and hitting rock bottom, there are so many temptations and comforts around us trying to pull us away, one thing about me personally is when things get bad for me I turn to God and want to go to church more than ever, whats really helped me is also having a prayer corner in my garage thats where I go when things are bad and I have my candles, prayer book, incense and I do my prayers there.
Its not something I've heard of, but Saint Benedict is an Orthodox Saint. My suggestion would be to talk to a priest, rather than just going out on your own and doing this. And if you are going to undertake it, with a blessing, do not learn the practise from post schism Roman Catholic sources, because it's liable to have devolved.
