Close to despair

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lucymeadhbh

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Hello everyone,

I’m finding it hard to meditate on my sins without despairing (thinking I’m disgusting, weird, and a horrible, unlovable person) even those I have confessed. I know it is because I don’t love myself enough and have low self esteem, and the trouble is I wouldn’t commit these sins in the first place if I loved myself more. So it is a vicious circle.

A major thought that keeps bugging me lately is that Jesus will read out our sins in front of everyone on the last day. Does this include ones where we are truly contrite and have confessed and received absolution for? That would surely mean that there are no sins truly forgiven while we are here on earth, not even those in heaven have sins forgiven, they are almost placed in a sin cold storage area to be dredged up again on Judgement Day.

Your advice and prayers will be greatly appreciated.

God Bless,
Meadhbh
 
Many of the mystics of the Church believed in self-mortification. Watch out for self-esteem. When in the grace of God, self-esteem is as nothing. Fill yourself with God’s love and your sense of self will greatly diminish.

I WILL speak to my Lord, I who am but dust and ashes. If I consider myself anything more than this, behold You stand against me, and my sins bear witness to the truth which I cannot contradict. If I abase myself, however, if I humble myself to nothingness, if I shrink from all self-esteem and account myself as the dust which I am, Your grace will favor me, Your light will enshroud my heart, and all self-esteem, no matter how little, will sink in the depths of my nothingness to perish forever.

It is there You show me to myself – what I am, what I have been, and what I am coming to; for I am nothing and I did not know it. Left to myself, I am nothing but total weakness. But if You look upon me for an instant, I am at once made strong and filled with new joy. Great wonder it is that I, who of my own weight always sink to the depths, am so suddenly lifted up, and so graciously embraced by You.
-The Imitation of Christ
 
You may be experiencing what Saint John of the Cross called the dark night. I see the dark night as a transition from carnal desires to Divine Union. It’s God’s love that we’re after, but we must progress past things worldly.

Which is exactly what John of the Cross is saying: learn to be at home in the darkness, do not run away from it, do not fight it or even try to understand it, embrace it -‘the night has eyes’. A new and different world is being born, what seem to be death pangs are in fact birth pangs, the soul in darkness is being renewed and transfigured; a new and [wonderful] beauty is born. Painful though it may be, there is in fact no other way except the way of trust and surrender, and ultimately of belief in the creative and transforming power of love. John’s invitation to accept ‘the dark ray of contemplation’ may not be easy, but there is no other way.
-Eugene McCaffrey, OCD
 
Praying to the Holy Spirit to give you guidance, direction, strength, fortitude & wisdom in your time of need.
 
Do not meditate on your sins. Contemplate God. Go to adoration. Consider his goodness and mercy.

When you go to confession, God forgets all your sins. They are not read at the last judgement nor shall they be counted against you.

Make a good examination of conscience, but do not mediate on your sins…or at the very least, spending the same amount of time contemplating God- and the Truth, Beauty, and Goodness that are His attributes. Consider his great Mercy as this is one of his greatest attributes.

I encourage you to read St. Faustina’s diary as that speaks well of God unfathomable Mercy.

Get a Divine Mercy image and pray the chaplet of Divine Mercy!

God Bless You!!
 
Robert_Sock said:
You may be experiencing what Saint John of the Cross called the dark night. I see the dark night as a transition from carnal desires to Divine Union. It’s God’s love that we’re after, but we must progress past things worldly.

Which is exactly what John of the Cross is saying: learn to be at home in the darkness, do not run away from it, do not fight it or even try to understand it, embrace it -‘the night has eyes’. A new and different world is being born, what seem to be death pangs are in fact birth pangs, the soul in darkness is being renewed and transfigured; a new and [wonderful] beauty is born. Painful though it may be, there is in fact no other way except the way of trust and surrender, and ultimately of belief in the creative and transforming power of love. John’s invitation to accept ‘the dark ray of contemplation’ may not be easy, but there is no other way.
-Eugene McCaffrey, OCD
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No Robert, I’m sorry it isn’t the dark night I’m experiencing, I’ve had that before, I’ve felt its emptiness. This is where I just feel so depressed and disgusting that I would run from God if he ever manifested himself to me of fear of what he would say to me.

Furthermore, I don’t have a massive “sense of self”, that is not my issue.
 
Those thoughts aren’t from God. God chose to become man and unite himself in some way to each one of us, out of love. This shows the dignity man has, including you. He chose to do this knowing that he would be with us in situations where we would turn away from him. The Cross is the supreme expression of this love: God chose to be with us even when we crucified him, and it is from that place that he forgives us. The Lord is merciful, trust in him.
 
Give yourself to Mary, your loving and caring Mother. Ask her to put you under her maternal protection. **Pray the Rosary.
**

Jesus died for us sinners.

May God bless you and keep you safe from all spiritual and physical harm.:hug3::signofcross:
 
Let your tears be tears of Joy. 🙂

“Let the greatest sinners place their trust in My mercy. They have the right before others to trust in the abyss of My mercy. My daughter, write about My mercy towards tormented souls. Souls that make an appeal to My mercy delight Me. To such souls I grant even more graces than they ask. I cannot punish even the greatest sinner if he makes an appeal to My compassion, but on the contrary, I justify him in My unfathomable and inscrutable mercy. Write: before I come as a just judge, I first open wide the door of My mercy

-Jesus speaking to Faustina
 
JamalChristophr said:
Let your tears be tears of Joy. 🙂

“Let the greatest sinners place their trust in My mercy. They have the right before others to trust in the abyss of My mercy. My daughter, write about My mercy towards tormented souls. Souls that make an appeal to My mercy delight Me. To such souls I grant even more graces than they ask. I cannot punish even the greatest sinner if he makes an appeal to My compassion, but on the contrary, I justify him in My unfathomable and inscrutable mercy. Write: before I come as a just judge, I first open wide the door of My mercy

-Jesus speaking to Faustina
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👍
 
"Yes, I sense that even if I had on my conscience all the sins which can be committed, I would go, my heart broken, to repent and throw myself into the arms of Jesus, for I know how much He cherishes the prodigal child who returns to Him…"

St. Therese of the Child Jesus
 
lucymeadhbh said:
No Robert, I’m sorry it isn’t the dark night I’m experiencing, I’ve had that before, I’ve felt its emptiness. This is where I just feel so depressed and disgusting that I would run from God if he ever manifested himself to me of fear of what he would say to me.

Furthermore, I don’t have a massive “sense of self”, that is not my issue.
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Do you consider your fear to be rational or irrational? It sounds to me to be irrational. Have you considered professional advice, either a priest or a therapist? (I’ll pray for you)
 
I Believe once you have confessed your sins,they are gone forever,
I myself,when I was in a Dark place many years ago,would confess my sins,and my Guilt was so great,I found it very Difficult to Forgive myself, perhaps this could also be your issue, difficulty in Self Forgivness, and no amount of Prayer or Confessing could help,
We MUST. Learn to forgive ourselves , one thing that helps to understand why we have this feeling of guilt , is to understand WHAT. Made us commit this sin in the first place ?
No one forces you or I. or anyone else to commit sin, we did it ourselves,
We have free will to do whatever we wish to do, we are in charge of our own destiny,
There are of course exceptions to that rule,
We all have spiritual and physical weakness of some kind and most of us give in to these weaknesses at some point, we must self analyse and explore our own weakness and find a way to strengthen our selves to combat this weakness, we need to find new avenues
To pre occupy ourselves so this weakness can not surface,
Are you able to self analyse as to what makes you feel guilt ?
 
phil_at_dayboro said:
I Believe once you have confessed your sins,they are gone forever,
I myself,when I was in a Dark place many years ago,would confess my sins,and my Guilt was so great,I found it very Difficult to Forgive myself, perhaps this could also be your issue, difficulty in Self Forgivness, and no amount of Prayer or Confessing could help,
We MUST. Learn to forgive ourselves , one thing that helps to understand why we have this feeling of guilt , is to understand WHAT. Made us commit this sin in the first place ?
No one forces you or I. or anyone else to commit sin, we did it ourselves,
We have free will to do whatever we wish to do, we are in charge of our own destiny,
There are of course exceptions to that rule,
We all have spiritual and physical weakness of some kind and most of us give in to these weaknesses at some point, we must self analyse and explore our own weakness and find a way to strengthen our selves to combat this weakness, we need to find new avenues
To pre occupy ourselves so this weakness can not surface,
Are you able to self analyse as to what makes you feel guilt ?
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Yes, I think I can. The thing is I’ve been struggling with these sins for a couple of years, but somehow in the last couple of days, its like I have been crushed under the weight of self-loathing because of them. The advice and prayers I have received from everyone here has helped me enormously. Thanks so much to you all.
God Bless,
Meadhbh
 
lucymeadhbh said:
Hello everyone,

I’m finding it hard to meditate on my sins without despairing (thinking I’m disgusting, weird, and a horrible, unlovable person) even those I have confessed.
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Why are you meditating on your sins? You should think of them only to confess them, and afterwards not think about them any more… Christ has lifted them from you and there is no need for you to think of them.

Remember that St Paul said: And now, dear brothers and sisters, one final thing. Fix your thoughts on what is true, and honorable, and right, and pure, and lovely, and admirable. Think about things that are excellent and worthy of praise. (Phil 4:8)
I know it is because I don’t love myself enough and have low self esteem, and the trouble is I wouldn’t commit these sins in the first place if I loved myself more. So it is a vicious circle.
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You need to stop allowing thoughts of your past sins into your mind. The enemy (Satan) will wave thoughts in front of our imaginations until our imaginations grasp one, and then continue to wave that one which worked. So a lot of tmes, we need help in ridding ourselves of bad thoughts like this. What I do is to pray to Christ, Our Lady, and St Michael the Archangel to help me, until the thoughts go away. At first, the thoughts may return again a few minutes or a while later, and I have to pray again until they go away. And sometimes a few weeks later I have to go through the process again. Basically, bad thoughts are not to be allowed into our minds, and we often have to pray for help to get rid of them.

Additionally, we have to pray for help to avoid committing sins. That is what God *wants *us to do, to rely on Him to help us! He doesn’t *want *us to be alone in our struggles against sin; He wants us to call on Him for the grace only He can deliver! So pray to Him, to Our Lady, to your patron saint, to the patron saint of those trying to overcome that sin, for their prayers to God to help you avoid that sin!

As long as you think that the reasons you keep falling into sin are that you have low self-esteem and don’t love yourself enough, you will have trouble. The real reason we fall into sin is by thinking we can avoid sin on our own. The only real way we can avoid sin is with God’s help, and we need to ask him for His help. I learned this from Spiritual Combat by Dom Scupoli, which is online and in book format.
A major thought that keeps bugging me lately is that Jesus will read out our sins in front of everyone on the last day. Does this include ones where we are truly contrite and have confessed and received absolution for? That would surely mean that there are no sins truly forgiven while we are here on earth, not even those in heaven have sins forgiven, they are almost placed in a sin cold storage area to be dredged up again on Judgement Day.
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We do not know what will happen on the Judgement Day, but whatever happens, those who are not in Hell will be totally ok with it.

My *own personal *idea is that God will show us what happened, but those who confessed their sins, those sins will be shown, but the person’s face will be blotted out. That’s my own personal idea, based on the thinking you had.

This I know for sure: If God were to show the faces, tho, the committers of the sins who had attained salvation would be prepared for it in such a way that they absolutely would not care.
Your advice and prayers will be greatly appreciated.
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God Bless,
Meadhbh
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