B
BenM
Guest
Hi everyone,
This might sound like a strange problem, but its something that happened yesterday and its been bothering me ever since. I hope this has been posted in the right forum and I’d appreciate any advice or information you might want to share!
A little information first, I’m currently attending RCIA and will be attending the Rite of Election/Affirmation in Februrary (I’m baptised, but this also means I have no idea yet when I’m allowed to confess). Before becoming a Christian, I pretty much completely buried my conscience my entire life by constantly pushing its influence away in almost every situation.
My problem now is I’m trying to rediscover again whats truly right and wrong and the gravity of my actions. This is what happened: A relative of mine takes supplies from their employer often, using it in our house (me benefitting from it a lot) and has done it my entire life, so its always been assumed ‘normal’ with us, as it probably is in a lot of families. In this case, it was some gravel used in the garden.
This happened about a year ago, so moving back to yesterday I was repotting some plants using this gravel and halfway through doing it I again realised that it was stolen - honestly I just went along with it and carried on because I wanted to get it finished, thinking to myself that I could just make reparation by giving the value of it to charity e.t.c.; it was a small amount used, perhaps $5-10 worth, but I’m sure that if I was already able to go to Confession and going regularly I probably would’ve told myself I could just do that, where I told myself I could just go make reparation and do it anyway.
In other words, I read in my examination of conscience document that profiting (here I suppose I would be benefitting from it willingly) or concealing stolen goods is grave matter and here I would’ve had full consent, plus by the sounds of it, if it is grave matter, it could be another mortal sin of presumption of God’s Mercy.
This might be a scrupulous question but the truth is I just don’t know; I have already repented of the whole thing to the Lord as if they were mortal sins and would confess to a priest as soon as I’m able, but with my conscience as it is its difficult to know the gravity of some situations. If any of you with better-formed consciences could give me some advice on this or what else I could do to become better at judging my actions and avoiding similar situations in future I would appreciate it a lot.
Sorry this turned into such a big post!
This might sound like a strange problem, but its something that happened yesterday and its been bothering me ever since. I hope this has been posted in the right forum and I’d appreciate any advice or information you might want to share!
A little information first, I’m currently attending RCIA and will be attending the Rite of Election/Affirmation in Februrary (I’m baptised, but this also means I have no idea yet when I’m allowed to confess). Before becoming a Christian, I pretty much completely buried my conscience my entire life by constantly pushing its influence away in almost every situation.
My problem now is I’m trying to rediscover again whats truly right and wrong and the gravity of my actions. This is what happened: A relative of mine takes supplies from their employer often, using it in our house (me benefitting from it a lot) and has done it my entire life, so its always been assumed ‘normal’ with us, as it probably is in a lot of families. In this case, it was some gravel used in the garden.
This happened about a year ago, so moving back to yesterday I was repotting some plants using this gravel and halfway through doing it I again realised that it was stolen - honestly I just went along with it and carried on because I wanted to get it finished, thinking to myself that I could just make reparation by giving the value of it to charity e.t.c.; it was a small amount used, perhaps $5-10 worth, but I’m sure that if I was already able to go to Confession and going regularly I probably would’ve told myself I could just do that, where I told myself I could just go make reparation and do it anyway.
In other words, I read in my examination of conscience document that profiting (here I suppose I would be benefitting from it willingly) or concealing stolen goods is grave matter and here I would’ve had full consent, plus by the sounds of it, if it is grave matter, it could be another mortal sin of presumption of God’s Mercy.
This might be a scrupulous question but the truth is I just don’t know; I have already repented of the whole thing to the Lord as if they were mortal sins and would confess to a priest as soon as I’m able, but with my conscience as it is its difficult to know the gravity of some situations. If any of you with better-formed consciences could give me some advice on this or what else I could do to become better at judging my actions and avoiding similar situations in future I would appreciate it a lot.
Sorry this turned into such a big post!
