So I was confessing a long list of sins. One of the sins in the middle of the list was unwanted lustful thoughts. While confessing this sin, I forgot some of the details (in fact, I still don’t remember the details). I also was embarrassed. I told him I wasn’t sure, but I think I saw an impure image online; However, I later remembered that it was probably text.
Was my confession valid? I think I was lying, but I don’t know.
There is much to say here.
First “unwanted lustful thoughts” describes a temptation…not a sin. The three loci of temptation, classically expressed, are the devil, the world and the flesh. Thoughts can present themselves without being consciously evoked by us. Sin occurs if we choose by an act of the will to focus on and develop the thoughts.
Classically, the resolution by masters of the spiritual life is that one does not “combat” thoughts against chastity – as, psychologically, that can fix them all the more in the mind. If you don’t believe me, try the thought experiment: “Don’t think about an apple.” The more you sit and try not to think about an apple, the more apples come to mind.
Rather, the masters of the spiritual life say that one is best served by a simple rejection of the thought by an act of the will and then move the mind to be occupied by something else or engage in some other activity. Simply. Without any perturbation. Rather like diverting and distracting the attention of a child.
As a confessor, I don’t want morbid detail. It is simply not necessary…neither for me as the confessor nor for the penitent. If you are confessing thoughts against chastity – which have been willfully consented to and entertained – I certainly don’t need the imagery depicted for me…you have told me what the sin is by saying “thoughts against chastity”. You move on to the next sin.
Details really matter when they change the nature of the sin or they alter culpability. Stealing is one thing. Stealing a chalice alters the sin by compounding the sin of theft with the sin of sacrilege, as an example. Lying under oath is a sin…if you say what you believed was true but later found out that it was, in fact, incorrect you have not lied under oath even though what you said was erroneous. I say this because lying is an act of the will…it is not possible to not know if you have lied or not.
Oneofthewomen’s advice was strongly worded…but essentially correct. You need to work with one confessor to address scrupulosity in the internal forum and, in the external forum, to help you have a better catechesis on sin so that you may have a healthier and more helpful understanding of sin and its distinctions as well as temptations and their confrontation and how to self-assess the acquisition of subjective moral guilt.
And, yes, I don’t hesitate to say that your confession was valid.
