I’ve struggled with masturbation and pornography and other sons for a while yet i always asked for forgiveness and prayed and all but recently its almpst like im afraid to pray and sinning is like the norm for me it causes me no issue and its scary for me sometimes when i think i should pray and can’t bring myself to do it. I cant drive yet so its really hard to get to confession and at my catholic school we have it twice a year. So i remembered that i had an account on jear and so i brought myself to come on here and ask for help. Its almost like im looking for any sin i can commit… I want to smoke for some reason and ive never even tried to before! And i still go to Mass and i am a altar server/ master of ceremonies and its almost like im just going through the motions ive gone through foreber and they dont mean anything anymore. Finally(sorry for making it so long) when evr i hear about a chance to go to confession my heart rate spikes and i freeze up… One issue is that i know alot of preists in my area and i am afraid of what they will think and i know all the sins and stuff but i cant live em about so any help and prays will be appreciated so plzz help thanks for reading.
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God is your Father. He loves you and hopes you learn to begin again with Him.
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You’re not alone. It’s a struggle. When you realize it’s a struggle, and it’s a normal struggle, it changes the dynamics a bit. You adopt a sporting spirit. You fall, you smile, you get back up, you go to confession, you confess like a man, you don’t mamby pamby your way through confession. You keep going and you keep your sense of humor about it. Yes, it’s a serious sin, but that’s why God gave you and me the Sacraments.
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Watch the little lapses, the little occasions where you’re losing the battle for temperance without realizing it. The small glances, the memories, the loss of control of your imagination, the extra glances.
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Attack the problem from another angle. Control your other appetites. Put up with small annoyances…the music you don’t like, eat the food you like least first. Eat less, Drink more water than Coke. Pray more, pray with more attentiveness and love. Get up 10 minutes earlier, go to bed 10 minutes earlier, take shorter showers. Push off your breaks in work by 5 more minutes. Small mortifications.
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Examine the occasions that enable you to engage in this kind of behavior. Move the computer to a public area. Make it a little less possible to look at porn or to masturbate.
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Examine your conscience at night. Talk to God more through out the day, especially when something comes across your scan. In that nanosecond, bring God into your presence. Convert that temptation into a prayer. Sanctify the moment.
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Manly confession once a week.
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When you fail, don’t talk yourself into sinning again. Do you think the second time offends God less?
Edward’s advice is perfect.
Additionally, all those priests you know would be ***more suprised ***if you did not struggle with these sins than that you do. It’s that common. So please go to confession before you receive Communion again.
Betsy
This is a serious situation in that the pull of evil is leading you to sin and to want to sin. Once you confess and work toward God by correct acts and correct use of His Creation, the spiritual pull to want to sin, to deliberately offend God, will stop, I believe. God’s Grace helps us but we cannot deliberately give in to offending Him as this is far worse than merely the incorrect use of creation contrary to reason. Confess, it will get easier and this is a quite serious situation in my opinion.
Oh amd one more thing ivE also not been “able” to abstain from communion in mortal sin so thats another one.
You go to Catholic school right. You mean to say there’s not at least one priest there other than twice a year? I think there are priests at your school more than twice a year. You don’t have to wait until they have confession. Pull a priest aside between classes, before or after school and ask for the sacrament of confession. I doubt they’d refuse.
You walked up under your own power? You reached your own hand out or opened your own mouth?
I was going to ask about communion but I really didn’t want to know. It is up to you to do something about this.
The “pull of evil” that you are referring to I think is really just lots of testosterone…very common among younger folks…to attribute it to Satan or some dark evil is ridiculous…now that I’m much older this “evil” doesn’t seem to bother me much anymore, thank goodness!!
Dnorris
What you are experiencing is very common for young teens…your strong sexual feelings are caused by testosterone…what helped me when I was your age was to try and avoid porn as much as possible…also stay active in sports and other activities in your school and community,.staying busy with these activities should help…there may be times when you “fall”, (we all did at some point in our lives),just get up and try harder next time…
Well aren’t you the lucky one:)
I am over 40 and still stuck in overdrive in the “testosterone” fuelled thoughts.:o
The devil will push all the buttons he can use never forget that.
Please never let the thought of “what will the priest think of me” interfear (sic) with you recieving the sacrement of reconcillation. What do you recieve in this sacrement is healing, it may take a few applications but you will be healed and the only one who doesn’t want you to healed is the devil…for it is written “fear no man …but God” St.Matthew 10 and St.Luke 12 very good chapters to read to help ovecome your “fear”
If I may add my humble opinion:
Edward’s advice is great. Speak to your priest. Grace perfects nature, and the more grace you can get, the better you are going to be. Even if you have to confess the same sin or sins every time, you know what they are, and you can work on them. Sin is like drowning in an ocean, and grace is a lifeboat. Do you think God is going to not give you as many lifeboats as you need?
Testosterone is natural, as are the other hundreds of hormones in your body which God created. Masturbation and lust throw them out of whack, and make it worse, not better. Satan knows this, and knows how easy those temptations are, which is why he pushes so hard. I’ve found that 21 days is about the period of “withdrawl” or detoxification for this; some others I have talked to have said similar things. After that, the physical feeling of needing “release” seems to fade away greatly. However, that three weeks can feel like hell. I won’t sugar coat that.
Do what Edward suggested. Make small sacrifices. You don’t run a marathon without preparing, and you don’t learn to resist temptations by saying no to the big ones first, but by starting with the little ones. Say no to a dessert, or to snacks between meals, or get up 10 minutes early, or fast for a day. Start with what you know you can do, and pray pray pray for help. When you are tempted, stop what you are doing and do something else. I have found that Psalm 117 helps me a lot. It is four lines, and easy to remember:
“O praise the Lord you nations
Acclaim him all you peoples
Strong is his love for us
He is faithful forever”
It helps “reset” your line of thinking. If I’m in the middle of a temptation, and can’t think about anything else, I just say that one over and over until I can start putting together a sentence and ask God for help.
Believe that God will help you.
In the struggle with prayer, that’s Satan, pure and simple. He doesn’t want you to pray, because he knows how powerful it is. Make a regular habit of it. Every day, stop at a certain time, and pray something short. Even just “Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on me, a sinner.” But do it every single day, whether you feel like it or not, whether you think it will “get” you anything or not. Prayer is about what we can give, not what we can get.
And know that we are praying for you too. The power of prayer is incredible.