Don't Know if I Should Take Part in Communion

[Ricky_C]

So today during the Easter Mass, I decided that it was better for me to not take communion, because a sin of mine hasn’t been confessed yet; our parish does confessions on Saturdays, and since yesterday was Holy Saturday, the church was closed, and I was unable to make a confession.
I’m definitely going to confession this Saturday, I’m just wondering about whether or not I had to skip communion, based on this particular sin.

The sin in itself is complicated; I’ll try to sum it up as briefly as I can.
When I was way younger (I’m 17 now) I built up a desire to dress in women’s clothing; there was a day where me and my younger siblings were playing around and dressing up in our parents’ clothes, and I got into my mom’s clothes. After that, I fell into doing it behind my parents’ backs (they know about it now). I considered it to be wrong, then made a promise to myself and to God that I wouldn’t do it again; then I broke the promise again, and I made a new promise that has not been broken. (I know now that I shouldn’t be making promises, but this was before I became stronger in my faith.)

My issue isn’t being tempted to crossdress again; I’ve been blessed with the self-control to not fall back into it. The issue is that I constantly find myself with this ugly feeling when I see the type of clothing I’d like to wear, and I try to fight my desire not to look. The bad times have been when I fell into looking up pictures of the clothes that I’m interested in. It’s definitely gone down recently, and I’m going to look into talking to a therapist about this to settle the issue itself, but here’s the main dilemma:

Last week, I went on Pinterest, and I feel like my subconscious desire to do it was to find pictures of crossdressers, which show up on the main feed once in a while; I managed to not look at any pictures, but the intent was there. I was unable to confess this because of Holy Saturday, and I’m wondering if I should have taken communion during Mass today. My thought process is this: the sin itself was intending to look at some pictures I never looked at (though there was one I quickly scrolled past), and I’m not sure if this is big enough a sin to not take communion, or if the size of the sin is even a factor. But even if it isn’t a big sin, this problem has been occupying much of my life recently, and I feel like it’s one of the biggest things in my life to deal with, so I feel like I can’t take communion without being in sin.

When I end up not confessing a sin, how do I know if my sin needs to be confessed before I can take communion without being too hard or too easy on myself?

Thanks in advance; in Christ,
-Ricky

 

[Ricky_C]

Also, I only mentioned the crossdressing situation to give a reference point to the sin I haven’t confessed; I am still struggling with that problem, but I’m using this thread to get an answer to the question on communion, not the crossdressing issue.
I’ll probably make another topic at some point asking for opinions on crossdressing, since I would still like to hear what others have to say, but if responses to this could be solely about the communion/confession aspect, it’d really help me out; thanks!

(Also, if this is the wrong forum, I apologize; I’m relatively new here. )

 

[GLam8833]

I know how you feel(about taking communion at Easter) I was
at mass and just as the priest was blessing the bread and wine,
I REMEMBERED that one person may have something against
me and my witness and I was reminded that if you are at
the altar and remember that your brother has something against
you GO AND BE reconciled to your brother and THEN come
and make your offering Matt. 5:23-24. I DIDNT take
the host!!!

 

[smead2942]

So today during the Easter Mass, I decided that it was better for me to not take communion, because a sin of mine hasn’t been confessed yet; our parish does confessions on Saturdays, and since yesterday was Holy Saturday, the church was closed, and I was unable to make a confession.
I’m definitely going to confession this Saturday, I’m just wondering about whether or not I had to skip communion, based on this particular sin.

The sin in itself is complicated; I’ll try to sum it up as briefly as I can.
When I was way younger (I’m 17 now) I built up a desire to dress in women’s clothing; there was a day where me and my younger siblings were playing around and dressing up in our parents’ clothes, and I got into my mom’s clothes. After that, I fell into doing it behind my parents’ backs (they know about it now). I considered it to be wrong, then made a promise to myself and to God that I wouldn’t do it again; then I broke the promise again, and I made a new promise that has not been broken. (I know now that I shouldn’t be making promises, but this was before I became stronger in my faith.)

My issue isn’t being tempted to crossdress again; I’ve been blessed with the self-control to not fall back into it. The issue is that I constantly find myself with this ugly feeling when I see the type of clothing I’d like to wear, and I try to fight my desire not to look. The bad times have been when I fell into looking up pictures of the clothes that I’m interested in. It’s definitely gone down recently, and I’m going to look into talking to a therapist about this to settle the issue itself, but here’s the main dilemma:

Last week, I went on Pinterest, and I feel like my subconscious desire to do it was to find pictures of crossdressers, which show up on the main feed once in a while; I managed to not look at any pictures, but the intent was there. I was unable to confess this because of Holy Saturday, and I’m wondering if I should have taken communion during Mass today. My thought process is this: the sin itself was intending to look at some pictures I never looked at (though there was one I quickly scrolled past), and I’m not sure if this is big enough a sin to not take communion, or if the size of the sin is even a factor. But even if it isn’t a big sin, this problem has been occupying much of my life recently, and I feel like it’s one of the biggest things in my life to deal with, so I feel like I can’t take communion without being in sin.

When I end up not confessing a sin, how do I know if my sin needs to be confessed before I can take communion without being too hard or too easy on myself?

Thanks in advance; in Christ,
-Ricky

When in doubt, go to confession.

 

[OurLadysServant]

When in doubt, go to confession.

Say everything in confession and never do this again.
Do not receive communion unless confessed.

Wear a blessed brown scapular or miraculous medal. Sprinkle your room with Holy Water each night.

Satan is.trying to start you onto sins along the lines of homosexuality.
Also; a lot of female clothes this day are plain sinful to look at or wear, so you should not be looking at them for that reason.
“Whoever looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery in his heart.”

Find another healthy hobby, learning a music instrument, joining a choir, golf, reading catholic books,.lives of the saints, golf, bowling, snooker, tennis, painting pictures of nature, gardening,
Something that you love.

Also;
Pray the st michael prayer daily, and consecrate yourself daily to Jesus and Mary’s Two Hearts, Unite your day to Jesus in the Tabernacle/ Mass, And offer it up to Our Lady for her intentions.
Say three Hail Marys meaning eaeach word daily for puriTy, or when tempted.

You need to pray 10- 30 mins each day meaning the words, to be filled with God’s victory.

Also;
Your.thoughts need.to change.
You need to hate.this sin, Because its tending ttowards homosexuality (which Jesus.says can NEVER enter the Kingdom of Heaven, but will be.thrown into.the Outer Fire of Hell),
You need to love purity and Jesus more.

If you have any liking or attachment to this sin it can come back.

Faith and positive thinking gain God’s miracle ;

Repeat as often as you need each day in your mind while believing each word;
“No satan, that sin is disgusting, its.wrong, its evil, its homosexual, I hate.that.Sin, It leads to hell, I don’t want to end up burning in a pit of hell for all eternity chained to satan. In the Name of Jesus I am not.tempted by.that sin. I want to be.a.saint.in heaven. I want to remain in a state of grace with Jesus. I love Jesus more. Drink your own poisons yourself satan and be gone from me. I command you to go directly to the Presence of Jesus, where Jesus will dispose of you according to His holy wishes. I’m not tempted by mortal sin.”

Make up your own liner prayers on this.

God works miracles based on your faith.
“Believe you have received it and your Heavenly Father will give it to you.”

Each day pray and believe: "I am delivered from that sin in Jesus Name. It is gone forever. Thank you Jesus for delivering me and giving me complete purity!’

 

[Neofight]

Relax…there will be other opportunities to receive the Eucharist.

Still, I’m not sure any of us, short of your confessor, could give you an exact answer as to whether you should or should not receive…no body here has enough details or an opportunity to examine your conscience further…or the qualifications to do so, for that matter.

There is, in my opinion, an unhealthy desire for a lot of Catholics to receive at every Mass they attend. Its a noble thought, but it leads to “pushing the envelope” broader and broader each time they do…I often wonder, despite it being non of my business, how many receive when they shouldn’t.

If you are in doubt, and you did not receive, you did the right thing.

I heard of an African priest who was asked by an American Priest about the fact that he, and many Africans are children of mothers who are married to men who, culturally, have man wives, and whether their mother’s converted to Catholicism.

The African Priest said she did. He noted the difference was, that because they were still in a culturally accepted plural marriage, many of the women attended Mass, but did not receive the Eucharist. He added, that he found it interesting that so many American Catholic women have admitted to him that despite using contraceptives, they still attended Mass and received the Eucharist.

That just seems to show that integrity in following the teaching of the Church is up to the individual, and you are to be congratulated!

Peace and all Good!

 

[Ricky_C]

When in doubt, go to confession.

Ah, I definitely plan on going to confession this Saturday; I would’ve gone this past Saturday, but the parish was closed for Holy Saturday. I was just wondering what I was supposed to do in the meantime as far as taking communion goes, but thank you regardless.

Also, for the record (in response to OurLadysServant), I’m not homosexual at all; the crossdressing stuff has nothing to do with my sexual orientation, though that definitely wouldn’t excuse any sin that comes with crossdressing. I’m still in the process of figuring out the sinfulness of the crossdressing problem, and I’m going to try to talk to as many people as I can about it. But either way, the Lord has helped me to not crossdress at all for the time being, and of this I am very thankful.
I’ve definitely been working towards getting this problem behind me; as much as I talked about the problem in my original post, it’s declined so much recently, and the prayer I have been doing and the conversations I’ve had with my pastor have helped me immensely; it isn’t completely gone, but it’s become easier to fight the urges I’ve had to look.

But I’ll post another topic about that, since this thread was just about the communion part of my problem.

 

[Ricky_C]

Relax…there will be other opportunities to receive the Eucharist.

Still, I’m not sure any of us, short of your confessor, could give you an exact answer as to whether you should or should not receive…no body here has enough details or an opportunity to examine your conscience further…or the qualifications to do so, for that matter.

There is, in my opinion, an unhealthy desire for a lot of Catholics to receive at every Mass they attend. Its a noble thought, but it leads to “pushing the envelope” broader and broader each time they do…I often wonder, despite it being non of my business, how many receive when they shouldn’t.

If you are in doubt, and you did not receive, you did the right thing.

I heard of an African priest who was asked by an American Priest about the fact that he, and many Africans are children of mothers who are married to men who, culturally, have man wives, and whether their mother’s converted to Catholicism.

The African Priest said she did. He noted the difference was, that because they were still in a culturally accepted plural marriage, many of the women attended Mass, but did not receive the Eucharist. He added, that he found it interesting that so many American Catholic women have admitted to him that despite using contraceptives, they still attended Mass and received the Eucharist.

That just seems to show that integrity in following the teaching of the Church is up to the individual, and you are to be congratulated!

Peace and all Good!

Thank you very much; I’ll definitely ask my pastor about that next time I talk to him; God bless!

 

[Brant]

Your statements here are VERY judgemental. Just because one cross dresses does not mean they will become a homosexual. Your feeding into the media way of thinking. As the poster has said he is heterosexual. I just personally think your statements were over the top and rather flamboyant in there assumption.

Regarding the poster. Keep God first and pray. He will be your rock through this.

God Bless!

Say everything in confession and never do this again.
Do not receive communion unless confessed.

Wear a blessed brown scapular or miraculous medal. Sprinkle your room with Holy Water each night.

Satan is.trying to start you onto sins along the lines of homosexuality.
Also; a lot of female clothes this day are plain sinful to look at or wear, so you should not be looking at them for that reason.
“Whoever looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery in his heart.”

Find another healthy hobby, learning a music instrument, joining a choir, golf, reading catholic books,.lives of the saints, golf, bowling, snooker, tennis, painting pictures of nature, gardening,
Something that you love.

Also;
Pray the st michael prayer daily, and consecrate yourself daily to Jesus and Mary’s Two Hearts, Unite your day to Jesus in the Tabernacle/ Mass, And offer it up to Our Lady for her intentions.
Say three Hail Marys meaning eaeach word daily for puriTy, or when tempted.

You need to pray 10- 30 mins each day meaning the words, to be filled with God’s victory.

Also;
Your.thoughts need.to change.
You need to hate.this sin, Because its tending ttowards homosexuality (which Jesus.says can NEVER enter the Kingdom of Heaven, but will be.thrown into.the Outer Fire of Hell),
You need to love purity and Jesus more.

If you have any liking or attachment to this sin it can come back.

Faith and positive thinking gain God’s miracle ;

Repeat as often as you need each day in your mind while believing each word;
“No satan, that sin is disgusting, its.wrong, its evil, its homosexual, I hate.that.Sin, It leads to hell, I don’t want to end up burning in a pit of hell for all eternity chained to satan. In the Name of Jesus I am not.tempted by.that sin. I want to be.a.saint.in heaven. I want to remain in a state of grace with Jesus. I love Jesus more. Drink your own poisons yourself satan and be gone from me. I command you to go directly to the Presence of Jesus, where Jesus will dispose of you according to His holy wishes. I’m not tempted by mortal sin.”

Make up your own liner prayers on this.

God works miracles based on your faith.
“Believe you have received it and your Heavenly Father will give it to you.”

Each day pray and believe: "I am delivered from that sin in Jesus Name. It is gone forever. Thank you Jesus for delivering me and giving me complete purity!’

 

[GLam8833]

Say everything in confession and never do this again.
Do not receive communion unless confessed.

Wear a blessed brown scapular or miraculous medal. Sprinkle your room with Holy Water each night.

Satan is.trying to start you onto sins along the lines of homosexuality.
Also; a lot of female clothes this day are plain sinful to look at or wear, so you should not be looking at them for that reason.
“Whoever looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery in his heart.”

Find another healthy hobby, learning a music instrument, joining a choir, golf, reading catholic books,.lives of the saints, golf, bowling, snooker, tennis, painting pictures of nature, gardening,
Something that you love.

Also;
Pray the st michael prayer daily, and consecrate yourself daily to Jesus and Mary’s Two Hearts, Unite your day to Jesus in the Tabernacle/ Mass, And offer it up to Our Lady for her intentions.
Say three Hail Marys meaning eaeach word daily for puriTy, or when tempted.

You need to pray 10- 30 mins each day meaning the words, to be filled with God’s victory.

Also;
Your.thoughts need.to change.
You need to hate.this sin, Because its tending ttowards homosexuality (which Jesus.says can NEVER enter the Kingdom of Heaven, but will be.thrown into.the Outer Fire of Hell),
You need to love purity and Jesus more.

If you have any liking or attachment to this sin it can come back.

Faith and positive thinking gain God’s miracle ;

Repeat as often as you need each day in your mind while believing each word;
“No satan, that sin is disgusting, its.wrong, its evil, its homosexual, I hate.that.Sin, It leads to hell, I don’t want to end up burning in a pit of hell for all eternity chained to satan. In the Name of Jesus I am not.tempted by.that sin. I want to be.a.saint.in heaven. I want to remain in a state of grace with Jesus. I love Jesus more. Drink your own poisons yourself satan and be gone from me. I command you to go directly to the Presence of Jesus, where Jesus will dispose of you according to His holy wishes. I’m not tempted by mortal sin.”

Make up your own liner prayers on this.

God works miracles based on your faith.
“Believe you have received it and your Heavenly Father will give it to you.”

Each day pray and believe: "I am delivered from that sin in Jesus Name. It is gone forever. Thank you Jesus for delivering me and giving me complete purity!’

You seem to hate the sin of homosexuality A LOT, there
are WORSE sins than homosexuality, like the sin of Pride,
which WILL bind you to satan for eternity because he majors
in that sin.

 

[lake]

Ah, I definitely plan on going to confession this Saturday; I would’ve gone this past Saturday, but the parish was closed for Holy Saturday. I was just wondering what I was supposed to do in the meantime as far as taking communion goes, but thank you regardless.

Also, for the record (in response to OurLadysServant), I’m not homosexual at all; the crossdressing stuff has nothing to do with my sexual orientation, though that definitely wouldn’t excuse any sin that comes with crossdressing. I’m still in the process of figuring out the sinfulness of the crossdressing problem, and I’m going to try to talk to as many people as I can about it. But either way, the Lord has helped me to not crossdress at all for the time being, and of this I am very thankful.
I’ve definitely been working towards getting this problem behind me; as much as I talked about the problem in my original post, it’s declined so much recently, and the prayer I have been doing and the conversations I’ve had with my pastor have helped me immensely; it isn’t completely gone, but it’s become easier to fight the urges I’ve had to look.

But I’ll post another topic about that, since this thread was just about the communion part of my problem.

I am thankful to hear that you are making progress! Yes you must avoid this sin in the future, but I think you shouldn’t attempt this alone. These thoughts and feelings need to be discussed in a confidential setting and finding a good priest to talk to might be just the thing you need to overcome this once and for all.

But as long as you don’t entertain these thoughts or desires, you need not confess before communion. If you have them simply say “Jesus I don’t want these thoughts and feelings, please take them from me!” Then get busy and start doing something active with your brain or body to distract yourself. The priest will help you to know how much culpability you have in these thoughts and desires.

 

[OurLadysServant]

Hello,
Two posters said comments.about my post,
Someone accused me of hating the sin of homosexuality.

You seem to hate the sin of homosexuality A LOT, there
are WORSE sins than homosexuality, like the sin of Pride,
which WILL bind you to satan for eternity because he majors
in that sin.

Did Jesus not say in the bible; "Detest sin.?
Did he not say, “He who breaks the least of the Commandments Has broken all of them? for He who said.thou shalt not kill also said do not commit adultery”.

Is it the sin of pride. To hate a sin?

Just in self defence, I did not like being told I have the sin of pride which Leads to Hell.

Saying homosexuality is Grave matter doesn’t mean I have pride.

Just to make it clear,

No judgements on the OP. I actually didn’t read all his post before I started writing, so apologies on judging whether there were homosexual tendencies behind this.

I’m a big sinner myself and I know it.

I was arguing that maybe crossdressing was a homosexual tendancy in this scenario.
But

I do not know the OP so maybe its not. Maybe its just a clothes thing that he is dealing with.
But, the two posters who repramended me also agreed to stop this tendancy.

And I agree with the posters comments on not to judge,
“Judge not. For whatever judgement you judge with, will be the judgement measured back upon you.”

Apologies to anyone offended!

 

[OurLadysServant]

Your statements here are VERY judgemental. Just because one cross dresses does not mean they will become a homosexual. Your feeding into the media way of thinking. As the poster has said he is heterosexual. I just personally think your statements were over the top and rather flamboyant in there assumption.

Apologies!
My intention was not to be judgemental at all,

I was arguing satan could draw some souls to homosexuality by making them want to be a woman and take actions to become one
Which was a big misassumption on the OP who stated homosexuality was not a root sin in his situation

The OP said that’s not the case.

Very sorry!

But we agree this tendancy should stop?

I too am happy that he’s experiencing God’s victory that he was looking for.

(Apologies again, I had best interests at heart, just trying to help, but put my foot in it)

About this thread;
Catholic Teaching on cross dressing? Can it be.grave matter? Can it be mortal sin? Can satan lead people to crossdressing then to homosexuality?

 

[Ricky_C]

About this thread;
Catholic Teaching on cross dressing? Can it be.grave matter? Can it be mortal sin? Can satan lead people to crossdressing then to homosexuality?

What’s the question you’re asking here? I do think that Satan can lead people from crossdressing to homosexuality, but from what I know, most crossdressers are heterosexual. As to whether or not it’s a sin, a grave matter, and all that, I did start another thread on it; there are mixed views on it, but I know that in my case it wouldn’t be good for me, since I think it’s linked to some sort of sexual desire in my case, and because it has so much potential to interfere in my relationship with the Lord.

Also while you did make an assumption of my case, I still very much appreciate your intention in trying to help me. I hope you continue to try to help people, and I’m praying that you’re received well with those you try to help out in the future, as it looks like you misspoke a bit. God bless!

 

[Ricky_C]

Also just to update, I talked to the pastor at confession today, and he said that it shouldn’t be a reason to not get communion; I feel like he was talking about it as a general case, but I’m not sure about that too much because I don’t think I’m supposed to if I’m in a case of mortal sin. But regardless, that’s the advice I was given and I guess overall I need to be less hard on myself? I don’t know, but that’s where everything stands as for now.

Thanks for helping and offering advice, everyone; God bless! :thankyou: