Accepting Forgiveness - Help Please!

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Markie_Boy

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I went to confession yesterday, and received my absolution and pennance (have it written on my palm:)).

I have a tendancy of not accepting God’s forgiveness, and keeping my guilt and feeling of “I am not good, I don’t deserve it.”

Two things:

Am I sinning by doing this (even blaspheming the Holy Spirit?)

Any tips on how to let go, and open your heart to let God’s love and forgiveness in?

Thank you all - I love this place!
 
Markie_Boy said:
I went to confession yesterday, and received my absolution and pennance (have it written on my palm:)).

I have a tendancy of not accepting God’s forgiveness, and keeping my guilt and feeling of “I am not good, I don’t deserve it.”

Two things:

Am I sinning by doing this (even blaspheming the Holy Spirit?)

Any tips on how to let go, and open your heart to let God’s love and forgiveness in?

Thank you all - I love this place!
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You are a child of God. Remember always that God loves you & never leaves you. No matter what are sins are or how many, He still loves us. God in His infinite mercy & love always welcomes us back with open arms. God bless.
 
tawny said:
You are a child of God. Remember always that God loves you & never leaves you. No matter what are sins are or how many, He still loves us. God in His infinite mercy & love always welcomes us back with open arms. God bless.
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Your post brings up an interesting question. How do we know we are a child of God?
 
Ahhh, shades of the scrupulous conscience rising up again.

Markie, I do feel for you since I have been down this road many times. Do you have a spiritual advisor you can trust?
 
Ohhhh - thank you for your reply. I have our local preist, and he is a good man.

I was afraid I had blasphemed the Holy Spirit with an un-Godly thought.

Yesterday I confessed my issue with him, and he said I was OK. I want to love God, serve Him, and be with Him when my time comes, but just don’t feel at ease that I am OK.

Does this put me in the scrupulous forum? I don’t even know what that really is?

Any insight is like air for a drowning person - so thank you.
 
Markie_Boy said:
Ohhhh - thank you for your reply. I have our local preist, and he is a good man.

I was afraid I had blasphemed the Holy Spirit with an un-Godly thought.

Yesterday I confessed my issue with him, and he said I was OK. I want to love God, serve Him, and be with Him when my time comes, but just don’t feel at ease that I am OK.

Does this put me in the scrupulous forum? I don’t even know what that really is?

Any insight is like air for a drowning person - so thank you.
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Just ponder on the passage below:

1 Samuel 15:22-23
22 But Samuel replied:
“Does the Lord delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices
as much as in obeying the Lord?
To obey is better than sacrifice,
and to heed is better than the fat of rams.

You follow God’s will, you avoid sin, you confess, receive Him in Mass…now trust in His unboundless Mercy.
 
I tend to be forgetful. Writing it on my hand was a great reminder.
 
Markie_Boy said:
I tend to be forgetful. Writing it on my hand was a great reminder.
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Oh, ha. I happen to know somebody who actually does have something “written”, so to speak, on his palm: a great big letter X. And, his name is Mark. So reading what you wrote was definitely a wow moment. 😉
 
Markie_Boy said:
I went to confession yesterday, and received my absolution and pennance (have it written on my palm:)).

I have a tendancy of not accepting God’s forgiveness, and keeping my guilt and feeling of “I am not good, I don’t deserve it.”

Two things:

Am I sinning by doing this (even blaspheming the Holy Spirit?)

Any tips on how to let go, and open your heart to let God’s love and forgiveness in?

Thank you all - I love this place!
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I love this place too. 🙂

Guess what? We don’t deserve God’s love and forgiveness, yet He gives it to us anyway!!

Is it God’s love and forgiveness you aren’t accepting, or are you not forgiving yourself? We need to remember that God’s forgiveness (which is a gift) is bigger than ours, and if He can forgive us, we need to forgive ourselves. We are not bigger than God, or more important than God. When you give someone a gift, why? Is it because they deserve it? Or is it because you love them? It should be because we love them.
 
Markie_Boy said:
Ohhhh - thank you for your reply. I have our local preist, and he is a good man.

I was afraid I had blasphemed the Holy Spirit with an un-Godly thought.

Yesterday I confessed my issue with him, and he said I was OK. I want to love God, serve Him, and be with Him when my time comes, but just don’t feel at ease that I am OK.

Does this put me in the scrupulous forum? I don’t even know what that really is?

Any insight is like air for a drowning person - so thank you.
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Scrupulocity is a particular cross that some people have to endure. It means thinking that some thoughts and actions are sins when they aren’t. I personally have a very mild form of it. Others have it much more extreme. Make sure your priest/spiritual director knows you may suffer from this, and they can work with you on it so that you can properly recognize what is sin, and what is not.

As to your feelings in this example, feelings are fleeting. Our faith and obedience to God is not about our feelings, but an action of the will. You have performed the correct action of the will, by going to Confession. If your feelings make you feel like you might not be forgiven, they do not affect that the sins were forgiven, and that you were obedient to God’s will.

Be at peace, and regularly speak with your spiritual advisor and go to Confession.
 
Markie_Boy said:
I have a tendancy of not accepting God’s forgiveness, and keeping my guilt and feeling of “I am not good, I don’t deserve it.”

Two things:

Am I sinning by doing this (even blaspheming the Holy Spirit?)

Any tips on how to let go, and open your heart to let God’s love and forgiveness in?

Thank you all - I love this place!
Click to expand...
I don’t think you are blaspheming. You just don’t understand totally the greatness of the Mercy Jesus extends to you and the depth of His suffering for your sins. Who really does? However, there may be a bit of pride involved here in that you may think your sins are worse than the sufferings of Jesus on the Cross. Or that your sense of justice exceeds God’s. Or that He could not love you enough.

However, you do have faith and wish to repent. And that is all that is needed to ensure one has not blasphemed.

Just look at it this way. The Devil is tempting you, through your imperfect intellect, to think that your sins cannot possibly be covered by Christ’s sacrifice, because your understanding of justice and propitiation are not perfect, and he plays upon our natural wish to have such perfect knowledge. He offers an easy out to the hard work of understanding God and His Love by following Jesus.

I would suggest watching the movie “the Passion of the Christ” 2 or 3 times, to get any inkling of the meaning of “self sacrificial Love” as it relates to God. A perfectly innocent Man undergoes a horribly humiliating, and torturously painful death. Just to show, on our behalf, a life of perfect obedience to the Father’s will. So we can share His Life.

And so we are to do the same for others.

And you will indeed understand when you are called to do similarly.

peace
steve
 
Thank you all.

From what I have learned, if you have a desire to love God and follow Jesus’ teaching, and to be filled with the Holy Spirit, all sins can be forgiven.

Right?

If so, there would be no worries in this life or the next.
 
Markie_Boy said:
Thank you all.

From what I have learned, if you have a desire to love God and follow Jesus’ teaching, and to be filled with the Holy Spirit, all sins can be forgiven.

Right?

If so, there would be no worries in this life or the next.
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All sins can be forgiven, but we mustn’t presume His Mercy; we are not deserving or worthy of it, and we will continue to sin until the end of our time on Earth. We must be contrite, ask forgiveness, and resolve not to sin again. Jesus died for our sins so that we can go to Heaven, not that we WILL.
 
Thank you.

I totally agree - and resolve not to sin again (although in some form I will). But I can say I am seeing my sins further spread out, and much less repeating the same sin.

I am so thankful of His mercy and free gift of salvation, but would not want to become cozy and walk around thinking “I’m forgiven, on my way to Heaven.” That is for Jesus alone to decide.

I hope and pray for this, and will work out my salvation with fear and trembling.

Thanks again - may your day be filled with Joy!

Marc
 
Marc, having suffered from some similar stuff in the past, I’m going to give you some advice. This advice may come off to you as hurtful, or flippant, or mean. I assure you it is not meant in this way whatsoever.

That advice is: Get Over Yourself.

I can say this to you because I was in the same boat until I started asking myself questions. It ends up being pretty simple-- Do you trust God or don’t you? Who do you think you are that you think you can somehow counteract God’s forgiveness right after He so lovingly gave it to you???

Trust is what’s needed. Don’t burn yourself out by fretting and worrying on YOUR abilities regarding sin/confession/repentance. Accept the wonderful gift you have received with humility and thankfulness. And don’t worry-- there will be plenty of falls in the future to go back to reconciliation. Worry about the ones in the future, not the ones in the past.

Perhaps read this: opusdei.us/art.php?p=53461
 
All the sins of the world, from the Fall in the Garden until Doomsday, are but a grain of sand compared to the ocean of God’s mercy.

That’s how great God’s mercy is.
 
Our new parochial vicar has suggested I read (and actually purchased for the parish with me in mind) The Diary of Saint Maria Faustina Kowalska.

It’s 700 pages of small print and includes photographs. Father says this will help me to better understand Christ’s sacrifice and God’s mercy.

I’ll pray for you… it can be a difficult problem to overcome.
 
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