Am I Culpable? (Masturbation)

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(P.S. You will be answering a question to a 13-yr old in middle school… Oh yeah, and, I’m sorry if I put this in the wrong section, I just thought that because it deals with “is this a sin” it should be okay. Sorry if I made a mistake!)

Hi everyone! This is my first thread on CAF and I’ve been stalking here for awhile. I decided to finally make an account so… :extrahappy:

I will be going to confession in the near future and I need some help. This deals with culpability, contrition, confessing it, and other awkwardness.

You see, when I was about… 10 maybe, I stumbled across the grave sin of masturbation. Of course, when I first did it (no pun intended), I had no idea about it. In fact, I barely knew the word “masturbate” at the time! However, I masturbated about once every 3-4 months and I felt really guilty after. (Of course, the internet reassured me it was normal and healthy. 🤷)

Then, one night, after masturbating, I decided to look online about the Catholic point of view. I came to CAF, searched it, and found out it was a mortal sin! You wouldn’t believe the amount of guilt I felt! I wanted to cry! And… I almost did. I had so many questions! Was I guilty of mortal sin? If I died, would I got to hell? Am I… culpable?

A mortal sin has three requirements.
  • It must be a grave or serious sin. Check. 😦
  • You must consent to it. Well, I did it, so I must have consented to it, right? Check. 😦
  • You must have knowledge that it was a sin. :confused:
Now, I struggle with that last part. I always feel guilty after masturbating so I wasn’t sure if I had knowledge of the sin. I felt that masturbating was wrong, but the internet (which I now know NOT to trust) told me otherwise. So, I don’t know if I was culpable at all.

Now, my next problem is the Eucharist. How funny, that I should be so worried about receiving Jesus. My next problem is that I would be doing something horrible if I receive Holy Communion in a state of mortal sin! So, if I was culpable, then I would be doing even more evil and evil is the last thing I want to do!

That leads on to my next topic. Imperfect vs. Perfect Contrition. I read that if you were sorry for your sins for the purpose that it hurt God, then that sin was forgiven as long as you had the intent to go to confession ASAP. I have a mix of both in me. One part is remorseful that I hurt God by doing what I did (perfect contrition) but the other part is scared of hell and eternal punishment (imperfect contrition). As I examine my conscience, I feel both, but I think that I felt sorry that I hurt God at the very beginning and then I began to realize that mortal sin could destroy the soul.

Finally, confession. I think I will confess these sins (masturbation and taking the Eucharist in a state of mortal sin) when I go to confession, but it will be really awkward for me. They have confession at my school in the near future (along with Masses) and I am not too sure how I should confess these sins. I think I may explain parts of the story to the priest, but I hope he doesn’t get too tired of me! And then, I don’t really want to say ‘masturbation’ because the word itself scares me now… Would ‘impure actions’ be okay or is that not specific enough?

Thank you for listening to my long story and rambling and I can’t wait to hear a response. 🙂 Oh, and by the way, I have not masturbated since that one night (but I have been having more frequent wet dreams. Oh well, that’s not a sin, right?)! Just please remember that I am quite young (13) and I don’t think it’s normal for a teen my age to be so… bad! Thank you!
 
You are not “bad” in any way whatsoever - you are a normal adolescent!! Please don’t worry.
 
Yes… maybe I got a little over worried… Thank you for your kind reply! 🙂 When confession does come around, I’ll probably ask for guidance from the priest about this incident.
 
How to confess the sins?

“I masturbated approximately this many times.”
“I received the Eucharist in a state of mortal sin approximately this many times.”

Relax, buddy. 🙂
Once you’ve finished with confession, you’re in the clear. It’s far easier than you think it’s going to be.

There exists not a priest who has not heard these sins thousands of times. He will give no special attention to you.

Something to note is that the times you masturbated when you didn’t know it was a sin were not mortal sins. The same goes for any serious sin. You have to be fully aware of the gravity of the sin and consent to it freely for it to be mortal.

I’m very impressed by how educated you are in your faith and how much you care about the faith at the age of 13. Wow! God bless you, man,

P.S. In regards to avoiding the sin of masturbation, you have to broaden your focus. In order to do this, you must avoid any sins of impurity–lust and entertaining sexual fantasies, for example. It must be a full effort, or you will fall again. I have full confidence that you can do it! 👍
 
It’s really great that you are going to confession and are no longer participating in the behaviour. 🙂 Your priest will understand and he will have heard many other confessions before so don’t we worried. I would also suggest that you do not receive the Eucharist until you have gone to confession.
 
I would suggest a face to face confession, that way, you can sit down, explain exactly what you explained us. Either way, you will be forgiven, whether you are culpable or not, but you should not treat confession as some “big event”, you should go, I would suggest at least monthly.

Your first confession will be your longer one(5 minutes) and after that, now that you are culpable for any of those sins, go if you commit them again.
 
Thank you everyone for your replies.😃 I did some research on the closest church to my house and they have confession on Wednesday, Friday, and Saturday! :eek: Whoa! I’ll ask my parents if they can take me to confession sometime this week. They haven’t been to confession in years so I’m sure it would be good for us as a family. 😃 (Well, individual confessions of course, but you know what I mean…)

NeoSeraphim, when I truly think about it, I don’t ever recall knowing the gravity of the sin so I guess… technically… I’m in the clear. But hey, it would be nice to confess other venial sins and feel great then…

May God Bless You All!
 
I agree with the previous responses encouraging you for your good intention to confess, and saying not to worry.

There is one thing that is puzzling me - that is your question “Am I culpable?”. After reading the whole post, I’m still not sure why you are asking this. You have already accepted responsibility for the sin, and have resolved to go to confession. That should be enough - it doesn’t matter what the sin is, or how culpable you are - it will be absolved in confession.

Perhaps you are retrospectively assessing your own culpability, to know for sure whether you received communion in a state of mortal sin. If so, then that is a good reason for thinking about culpability - BRIEFLY. But still, it is not a reason for excessive worry - having resolved to go to confession, that should be the end of the matter.

However, I’m just feeling that you might be thinking unnecessarily about your culpability. The purpose of confession is to set you free from these worries, not to increase them.

Just make an honest examination of conscience, and an honest confession, and leave the rest to your confessor, and the God’s mercy.
 
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