Doubting how confession should be used (referance to explicit stuff)

[sidetrack]

Should you frequently confess even if you don’t have real regrets or should you only confess once you have real regrets?.Regardless of whether you confessed yourself with real regrets if you confess yourself on a weekly basis and if it’s at least marginally helps you be more mindful of when you sin should you keep doing that even when your regret (arguably) isn’t “deep enough”?.Do you do this even if what you sin “isn’t really a big dealing?” (ex.your only two sins that whole weeks were getting angry and swearing).These are the sort of questions that’ve been hitting me lately.

See yestreday I tried to go to a different church then the one I ussually go to for confession.I know this might so sound “bad” in a way but I ussually like to “rotate” btw which church’s I’m confessing at since I don’t like the same priest knowing I’m back so soon the next week around .I didn’t get to confess myself yestreday since the bus took me more off track then I thought it would.I was going to confess about a “certain impurity” problem which I’ve “sunk in” more today -_-.Here’s the thing though (and I

I don’t feel that bad (although there’s dozens of reasons why I should) partly b/c I’m reluctant to regret and I’m actually having trouble regretting b/c past experiences of regret include ussually being mentally groggy and frustrated with myself for a whole week,bitterly thinking how I deserve such punishment I interpret as coming with all this intefering with school stuff until I finally confess myself at the end of the week.This in turn makes me sin further and further b/c regret (where I mainly feel like I’m being pelted with rocks with fingers pointing/loudly yelling at me) is something I’ve developed sort of an aversion to.

Even once I confess with some level of regret I wouldn’t really say that my attempts at not doing it again are that good b/c…well I go to a whole different forum to explain that .For my “visual impurity” I* talk the talk* about how it’s bad but don’t walk the walk -_-…not really.

Also on certain special occasions (like recently) I get a tad “supersitious” (arguably --) with when I confess.For instance last week since it was the start of a new semester and I wanted to start off blank slate I wanted to confess myself but actually couldn’t think of enough things that are “big enough deal” to confess (-- yeah I know that sounds really stupid).

 

[Deo_Gratias42]

In order for absolution to be valid, three things are required, two of which are sorrow for one’s sins, and a firm purpose of amendment. It is an abuse of the sacrament to repeatedly keep confessing the same sins over and over again with no intentions of trying to not commit those sins again.

As for sorrow, it must be supernatural. In the case of confessing mortal sins, the fear of going to hell is sufficient. When it comes to venial sins, you must have some other supernatural sorrow for your sins. This doesn’t mean you have to feel sad emotionally.

Why do you keep going to confession to confess your sins if you don’t regret them?

 

[sidetrack]

In order for absolution to be valid, three things are required, two of which are sorrow for one’s sins, and a firm purpose of amendment. It is an abuse of the sacrament to repeatedly keep confessing the same sins over and over again with no intentions of trying to not commit those sins again.

As for sorrow, it must be supernatural. In the case of confessing mortal sins, the fear of going to hell is sufficient. When it comes to venial sins, you must have some other supernatural sorrow for your sins. This doesn’t mean you have to feel sad emotionally.

Why do you keep going to confession to confess your sins if you don’t regret them?

B/c like I said before even if I might not really regret something I find that it at least marginally helps me be more mindful of when I sin

Also how does sorrow count as two things needed for confession and what do you mean by supernatural sorrow?.How is it that something so “rare” sounding (like supernatural) actually takes precedence as a confession qualification more then something common like being emotionally sad?.

Sigh you know I don’t think that the “your going to perdition b/c you sinned” bit is going to work on me all that well.I heard it excessively before and as I’ve said in my previous posting

As I’ve said in another posting I still bad enough already thinking at times that God is punishing me for things I did a long time ago.I’ve also always been fearful and it was **extremely **worse when before being a preteen "quote,unquote -_- "

I was a misotheistic agnostic with a “bratty nihilism” and one of the major reasons for me not having a good relationship with God was becauseI defintely did’nt like the idea that I was being controlled by some omnipotent being.Maybe it was b/c I always noticed how extremely fragile life is and how many restrictions of different sorts there are?

I was very much also afraid of God in a distorted sense of the somewhat archaic “fear of God” phrase before it became “wonder and awe”.Also factor in how I never really conisdered/never really thought of the infernal stuff getting involved in my daily life.If the the infernal side of things had been thrown into that “bowl of troubles” of mine back then…I can only imagine what sort of fear would’ve clamped on me instead.Would it conceptually be even worse then what I already felt as a child?.I dont know,dont want to ever have to feel that *to *know and I dont even want to think about what it would as to have been done in my decsion making processes and doings.

I very much have enuff have a lot of fear related issues without throwing in the infernal component into the bowl.There’s enuff stuff in my daily life that makes me fearful and that’s** not **to include the infernal stuff which I know IS indeed fully terrifying even though I’ve been sick for most of my life of fear based stuff.

 

[DexUK]

First of all… all of us who go to confession almost certainly commit and confess the same sins again and again (or at least, the ‘normal’ sins, maybe not the out-of-the ordinary sins like murder, one hopes!).

Even if we are bound into committing sins by force of habit, regular confession at leasts gives the opportunity for us to be fed by the grace of absolution a little bit more each time so that, as you correctly identified in your opening post, “it at least marginally helps you be more mindful of when you sin”. The more often you have to confess, the more you are likely to think about why you’re confessing.

What qualifies as regret? What qualifies as a firm purpose of amendment?

Surely going to confession means that we’re regretting on some level and wish to be free of our sin. If we simply didn’t care about the sin and had zero intention of stopping, why would we confess in the first place? There has to be even if only a little regret and desire for improvement otherwise there’d be no motivation to be absolved.

So, even if you keep failing, keep on confessing, and hopefully you’ll gradually grow in strength against the temptations against which you apparently have little defence right now. You get that strength through grace.

And don’t worry about confessing to priests who don’t know you. Plenty of people prefer it like that - that’s certainly my personal choice, as the anonymity of the priest helps me to be more open as I’m not held back by any reticence that might come from knowing a priest on a social level. Priests are perfectly aware of this, and my parish priest - who knows I confess this way - was perfectly ok with it.

As for your view of God… he doesn’t punish you. He forgives you. If you feel punished, it’s because you’re doing it to yourself.

If you have a view of God as some sort of vengeful headmaster, it would probably be better to recast your perception of him in a way that was related by the late (great) Cardinal Hume of Westminster, London… He wrote (or rather recounted that which was said to him) in a book that it’s not so much that God is always watching you, keeping track of all your faults and failings… rather it’s that God loves you so much that He can’t keep his eyes off you. He wants nothing more than to welcome you back home with open arms and for you to be comforted in the knowledge that your sins are forgiven unconditionally.

If nothing else is going to help you feel sorry for your sins, it’s the outpouring of love and care and compassion that you’ll get from God when you say sorry… He doesn’t want you to be in pain, or locked in unhealthy behaviour, or berating yourself for anything you did wrong, or even to be stubbornly clinging on to sins that you keep committing because you don’t know how to be sorry for them… He just wants to love you. So just let go of all that bad stuff and go for the absolution and ask for the strength to be better.

 

[Vico]

…

Baltimore Catechism No 3:

Q. 753. What is contrition, or sorrow for sin?
A. Contrition, or sorrow for sin, is a hatred of sin and a true grief of the soul for having offended God, with a firm purpose of sinning no more.

Q. 754. Give an example of how we should hate and avoid sin.
A. We should hate and avoid sin as one hates and avoids a poison that almost caused his death. We may not grieve over the death of our soul as we do over the death of a friend, and yet our sorrow may be true; because the sorrow for sin comes more from our reason than from our feelings.

Q. 755. What kind of sorrow should we have for our sins?
A. The sorrow we should have for our sins should be interior, supernatural, universal, and sovereign.

Q. 756. What do you mean by saying that our sorrow should be interior?
A. When I say that our sorrow should be interior, I mean that it should come from the heart, and not merely from the lips.

Q. 757. What do you mean by saying that our sorrow should be supernatural?
A. When I say that our sorrow should be supernatural, I mean that it should be prompted by the grace of God, and excited by motives which spring from faith, and not by merely natural motives.

Q. 758. What do we mean by “motives that spring from faith” and by “merely natural motives” with regard to sorrow for sin?
A. By sorrow for sin from “motives that spring from faith,” we mean sorrow for reasons that God has made known to us, such as the loss of heaven, the fear of hell or purgatory, or the dread of afflictions that come from God in punishment for sin. By “merely natural motives” we mean sorrow for reasons made known to us by our own experience or by the experience of others, such as loss of character, goods or health. A motive is whatever moves our will to do or avoid anything.

Q. 759. What do you mean by saying that our sorrow should be universal?
A. When I say that our sorrow should be universal, I mean that we should be sorry for all our mortal sins without exception.

Q. 760. Why cannot some of our mortal sins be forgiven while the rest remain on our souls?
A. It is impossible for any of our mortal sins to be forgiven unless they are all forgiven, because as light and darkness cannot be together in the same place, so sanctifying grace and mortal sin cannot dwell together. If there be grace in the soul, there can be no mortal sin, and if there be mortal sin, there can be no grace, for one mortal sin expels all grace.

 

[Vico]

…

Q. 761. What do you mean when you say that our sorrow should be sovereign?
A. When I say that our sorrow should be sovereign, I mean that we should grieve more for having offended God than for any other evil that can befall us.

Q. 762. Why should we be sorry for our sins?
A. We should be sorry for our sins because sin is the greatest of evils and an offense against God our Creator, Preserver, and Redeemer, and because it shuts us out of heaven and condemns us to the eternal pains of hell.

Q. 763. How do we show that sin is the greatest of all evils?
A. We show that sin is the greatest of evils because its effects last the longest and have the most terrible consequences. All the misfortunes of this world can last only for a time, and we escape them at death, whereas the evils caused by sin keep with us for all eternity and are only increased at death.

Q. 764. How many kinds of contrition are there?
A. There are two kinds of contrition; perfect contrition and imperfect contrition.

Q. 765. What is perfect contrition?
A. Perfect contrition is that which fills us with sorrow and hatred for sin, because it offends God, who is infinitely good in Himself and worthy of all love.

Q. 766. When will perfect contrition obtain pardon for mortal sin without the Sacrament of Penance?
A. Perfect contrition will obtain pardon for mortal sin without the Sacrament of Penance when we cannot go to confession, but with the perfect contrition we must have the intention of going to confession as soon as possible, if we again have the opportunity.

Q. 767. What is imperfect contrition?
A. Imperfect contrition is that by which we hate what offends God because by it we lose heaven and deserve hell; or because sin is so hateful in itself.

Q. 768. What other name is given to imperfect contrition and why is it called imperfect?
A. Imperfect contrition is called attrition. It is called imperfect only because it is less perfect than the highest grade of contrition by which we are sorry for sin out of pure love of God’s own goodness and without any consideration of what befalls ourselves.

Q. 769. Is imperfect contrition sufficient for a worthy confession?
A. Imperfect contrition is sufficient for a worthy confession, but we should endeavor to have perfect contrition.

Q. 770. What do you mean by a firm purpose of sinning no more?
A. By a firm purpose of sinning no more I mean a fixed resolve not only to avoid all mortal sin, but also its near occasions.

Q. 771. What do you mean by the near occasions of sin?
A. By the near occasions of sin I mean all the persons, places and things that may easily lead us into sin.

Q. 772. Why are we bound to avoid occasions of sin?
A. We are bound to avoid occasions of sin because Our Lord has said: “He who loves the danger will perish in it”; and as we are bound to avoid the loss of our souls, so we are bound to avoid the danger of their loss. The occasion is the cause of sin, and you cannot take away the evil without removing its cause.

Q. 773. Is a person who is determined to avoid the sin, but who is unwilling to give up its near occasion when it is possible to do so, rightly disposed for confession?
A. A person who is determined to avoid the sin, but who is unwilling to give up its near occasion when it is possible to do so, is not rightly disposed for confession, and he will not be absolved if he makes known to the priest the true state of his conscience.

Q. 774. How many kinds of occasions of sin are there?
A. There are four kinds of occasions of sin:

1. 
   *]Near occasions, through which we always fall;
   *]Remote occasions, through which we sometimes fall;
   *]Voluntary occasions or those we can avoid; and
   *]Involuntary occasions or those we cannot avoid. A person who lives in a near and voluntary occasion of sin need not expect forgiveness while he continues in that state.
   
   Q. 775. What persons, places and things are usually occasions of sin?
   A.
   
   1. 
      *]The persons who are occasions of sin are all those in whose company we sin, whether they be bad of themselves or bad only while in our company, in which case we also become occasions of sin for them;
      *]The places are usually liquor saloons, low theaters, indecent dances, entertainments, amusements, exhibitions, and all immoral resorts of any kind, whether we sin in them or not;
      *]The things are all bad books, indecent pictures, songs, jokes and the like, even when they are tolerated by public opinion and found in public places.