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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Ok, the withdrawal from the world a waiting for God to take over and wanting to become a saint part of this is a red flag for emerging disordered thinking. I'm Catholic, and if my 22-year-old became obsessive about religion and starting have grandiose thoughts of sainthood, I would do everything in my power (which you will soon find is limited by his status as an adult) to encourage him to get an evaluation.

You may want to actually go and talk to a psychiatrist and to a monk or priest yourself to get some clarity on the difference between passion for religion and disordered thinking. A psychiatrist can help you understand how to talk to someone having delusional thoughts if that starts to happen. There are several monasteries in the area and they are welcoming and might be helpful to you. They will tell you that "wanting to become a saint" is not the consistent with the humility the Church teaches and not how sainthood happens. One may strive to emulate the charity and faith and fortitude of a saint one admires, but to wish to become one (especially by sitting around waiting for it to happen) or believe you are destined to be one -- that's a whole different thing: usually a schizoaffective disorder of the grandiose type.[/quote]

OP, this is good advice. I would add asking to join him at mass and meeting his parish priest. Find out what Catholic organizations he belongs to. Be cause if he doesn’t really belong to any, that’s a red flag. If he has been spending time with a priest or others, they may have thoughts about him that can help assess potential mental illness, or maybe he is just devout. The minute information provided here is not nearly enough to determine and it’s coming from one viewpoint. I was educated in catholic schools and am a practicing Christian. A guy I grew up with in church became extremely religious, constantly quoting Bible verses in our late 20s early 30s. After some time it became obvious that something was wrong and he wasn’t just devout. His family got him mental health help and he received a diagnosis. This is at a conservative Christian church, we knew something was wrong with him. His religious community and priest may as well.

As has been mentioned already, the goal is not to become a saint, that is the opposite of Christian and Catholic teachings. Faith without works is dead, so sitting around doing nothing, red flag. If it isn’t mental illness, then his devotion maybe be well served in religious life.[/quote]

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