Can you help me with this battle?

[vjmj]

Hi everyone I am so happy to be part of this Catholic community.

This will be my first post and I am actually looking for some advice. You see I was baptized a catholic, raised as a catholic, and even went to catholic school from grade 1 through 12. But in my mid twenties I fell into grave and utter mortal sin. It was a life of partying, which eventually in my thirties turned into depression. I became a born again Christian in my mid thirties and was not happy at all. Late thirties I found my way back to the Catholic Church, but it was not until November of 2009 just a few months from my 40th that I really committed myself to my catholic faith. Everyday morning before work I go to Adoration and say the rosary, St. Michaels Chaplet, and mid day on my lunch hour find a quiet place and say the Divine Mercy Chaplet. I was doing this since November 2009 to present.

The problem I am facing is a very shameful one! When I first started to pray I was accosted by very violent thoughts that followed with sexual thoughts. I just kept paying hoping that it would pass. It has gotten 80% better, but It seems I can never pray the way I use to when I was in high school and focus all my Love on Jesus and Mary. It seems that pray now is a battle. A battle to keep violence and sex out of my mind while I pray, and it has gotten to the point were I do not even want to pray anymore, because I feel I am shameful in the eyes of God for thinking this way. The thoughts become more aggressive when I pray. I am at a loss. I confessed it to a priest but he seemed to ignore that part of my confession almost as if he did not want to deal with it.

So at the risk of sounding like a sicko, I am humbly asking this forum for your thoughts.
Thank you

 

[Fr.Vincent_Serpa]

Hi,

Well. you got another priest, but I will not run away from your question. It appears that Satan is not happy with your return to grace and would love to see you get discouraged and quit. The thoughts are involuntary. So you are not guilty at all. I strongly suggest that you sit before the tabernacle and allow the Lord to be your companion during this time. If the thoughts come, they are coming to Him as well. He is there with you and the thoughts have no power over you. I also suggest that you read the following reflection to help you focus on Him.

Fr. Vincent Serpa, O.P.

Reflection on the Passion of Our Lord Jesus Christ +

The agony in the garden was really the agony in His mind. He suffered the passion in His mind before He suffered it in His body—to the point of actually affecting the latter by sweating blood. But from then on, it was His bodily suffering that affected His mental suffering.

At the base of all His suffering was the one thing that human beings dread the most: rejection. He was betrayed by Judas, denied by Peter and abandoned by all the rest of His Apostles; those He had hand picked as His closest intimates. He was most rejected by those who put Him to death. They not only wanted Him dead, they wanted Him to suffer. They not only considered Him to be worth nothing, they considered Him to be worth minus nothing! This significance was not lost on Him. He felt fully the rejection as each physical agony reminded Him.

So we thank Him for joining us on our human journey and actually choosing to experience what we fear the most.

We thank Him for enduring the arrest and the cruelty of the guards and the Sanhedrin. We thank Him for enduring the cruelty of Pilate who allowed Him to be executed rather than risk his own political ruin—and for the cruelty of Herod who wanted to be entertained by having Him work a miracle. We thank Him for all the time He spent satisfying their preoccupation with themselves, just delaying His ultimate death. We thank Him for the anxiety of that night in a cell.

The next morning He was brutally scourged with such intensity and violence that He became as an aged man in a matter of minutes. His multiple wounds bloodied His entire body. The loss of so much blood not only severely weakened Him; it also caused a severe, throbbing headache that remained with Him for the duration.

We thank Him for this and for the mockery He received when they put a purple cloth on His shoulders and pushed a crown of thorns down into His head which intensified His headache. They blindfolded Him and slapped Him, insisting that He ‘prophesy’ who had hit Him. They spat on Him and beat Him. But it was they who were blind. He knew who they were. This is what we do when we sin. We blot him out of our consciousness as if He can’t see us. But it is we who choose to not see.

He stood at the praetorium in utter disgrace according to the attitude of the crowd—while in reality, He stood in utter glory: almighty God, being present to every person who has ever suffered rejection, joining them in their moment of pain. It was there that He was sentenced to death by crucifixion. As a further humiliation, He was forced to carry His instrument of execution. He revealed to St. Bernard that carrying the cross was His most painful agony. He was so weak, He could hardly walk. So the weight of the cross on His shoulder was unbearable. It most likely dislocated His shoulder. It is not surprising that He fell down on the stone streets that were filthy with animal dung—with the cross on top of Him. And He got up each time.

It was only with the help of Simon of Cyrene that He made it to the top of Calvary. There they drove the nails into the carpal tunnels of His hands, causing pain throughout His upper body. The nail in His feet registered great pain through all the sensitive nerves there. When the cross was righted, His up-stretched arms squeezed His lungs and He began to pant for lack of oxygen. So He had to push down on His crucified feet to push His body up in order to fill His lungs with air. This took great effort because He was so weak. Yet He managed to maintain such effort for three hours of agony which increased gradually as He became weaker moment by moment.

By the end of the third hour, His agony was at its peak and His self-gift was exquisite. He had come to the point where His strength simply gave out and He suffocated. In this eternal moment as He died, He gave us His life. Transcending time, this moment of divine love is present to us in the tabernacles of the world.

Thank you, Lord. We adore you O Christ and we praise you. By your holy cross, you have redeemed the world!