Has anyone else experienced this? Please help

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PiousTemplar

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Today I met with friends I used to have before I became Catholic. They reminded me of past times where I had sinned very very badly which is the opposite of what I am today. I was unbelievebly ashamed. I thought I was moving on with my life in the Catholic faith, I was so happy with my new Catholic friends, and my recent confirmation, and my new view on life. But being reminded today explicitly my past sins before I was Catholic that are just, unimaginable of me today just completely shatters my morale. I don’t want to associate with my old self but I find it hard when so many people I used to be friends with seem to get into contact with me and remind me of my past. I don’t know what to do. I feel miserable. I felt free after those first couple of confessions, but knowing my sins are out to be known to the world just destroys me.
 
It sounds like the devil is trying to discourage you. You may not feel like it, but as far as God is concerned, you’re a new creature.

The hardest part is going to be to forgive yourself.

And that will take time. In one way our weeds (past sins for example) serve a purpose. They help to keep us humble, and remind us they can come back to life with a vengenance if we let them.

Christ’s parable of the weeds has two meanings. The first and most obvious is external, where the weeds are the obvious enemies of the Christ and the church. But there are also internal weeds, our own faults and sins that we struggle with daily. They serve a purpose also, and sometimes God leaves them there. Paul asked for one of his weeds to be removed, the “thorn in the flesh” (and we still don’t know what it was), but God refused, saying “My strength is made perfect in your weakness”.

So you may be stuck with the reminder of your past sins for some time.

In the meantime, just keep keeping on.
 
I myself find it difficult not to feel a twinge of regret when looking back on my past transgressions, but nowadays instead of letting it get me down, I use my past actions as a measure of my spiritual progress.

I see how far I have come with God’s help and am thankful that he has looked upon insignificant little me and give me so much strength and willpower to seek Him and rely upon Him.

When I look back, I see the person I was then is not the same person I am now, and hopefully I will continue transforming as will you.

I’m not that good with giving motivational advice, so just letting you know you’re not alone:)

Btw, Nice to see a fellow Aussie on the forum
 
There are things that I’ve done, and things that have been done to me, where past decisions have led to hardship in one way or another, and I don’t forget them.

But I no longer feel guilt. Guilt is parasitic, and is what Jesus came to save us from. We had the “law of sin and death” before Jesus, so we had good behavior, etc. but we didn’t know there was a way we could be forgiven them without paying the “wages of sin” which is death. Jesus is that way.

Let’s turn this around a little. If God forgives you, then who are you to accuse yourself any more than anyone else Jesus died for? Jesus said “love your neighbor as yourself.” Not “love your neighbor but not yourself,” or “love your neighbor more than yourself.”

Many of us – Catholics in particular, have been conditioned by others to feel guilty all the time. That isn’t what Jesus is about. We have to move past that and accept His love and mercy, or His death and resurrection have no meaning.

It’s like if your daughter crashes your nice car, you may be upset and she may feel guilty. But 20 years later, you don’t sit down to table only to hear her apologize in tears every single time she sees you. What she did was damaging, and maybe she did it out of recklessness or maybe not, but whatever it is, it is an insult to you that she thinks you need her continued wallowing in guilt and shame, and it is destructive to her to do it. You have moved on, she needs to also or she has a serious problem and she misses out on the life you have brought to her.

Alan
 
I have the same problem with old “sins” from the past!!! But I quickly remind myself that I have gone to confession and was forgiven …I no longer do “this/this” “sin” and I place that feeling (which can be a very strong and hurtful feeling–been there) in God’s hand and I give it to God…and thank him for forgiving me I forgive myself.

Also when I am around people from my past who remind me of these sins…I quickly remind them that Iam no longer that person and I change the subject.

Hope this helps!! God Bless you!
 
My spiritual director used to tell me I needed to get some laughs, and suggested watching comedy.

There’s a movie that I think speaks very well to the issue at hand, and it is hilarious. No sex or nudity or anything like that. It’s called You Again, where high school enemies whom fate brought back together later in life, trying to put behind them how terribly they behaved toward each other in high school and it is quite a challenge for them to get it done.

We just rented it from Redbox the other day and watched it as a family. We have family members who are very touchy about movie content, and they roared with laughter with no awkward moments.

MPAA Rating: Rated PG for brief mild language and rude behavior.

Brief mild language? I guess I’d have to watch it again, because I didn’t notice it.

Rude behavior? LOL. They have that part right!
http://bestsmileys.com/lol/5.gif

The movie web site: youagain-themovie.com/

Alan
 
Some really good advice already…👍

Couple of things…

Are your friends explicitly reminding you as in, “Remember when we…”, or is it more just that contact with these old friends reminds you?
If they are explicitly bringing things up you can ask them to stop, OR you can simply respond to such things with, “yes I remember and am profoundly sorry I did that”.
If it is just contact with them that recalls these things, just recognize that you are no longer that person and give praise to God that you have turned away from such things.

Be who you are now. God may be bringing these people back to you so for two reasons.
  1. That you may know where Christ saved you from, and
  2. That you might be an example to your friends and through you, God’s grace might soften their hearts and perhaps they too might be saved.
Just some thoughts.

Peace
James
 
Humility and contrition are two characteristics you find in the writings of so many great saints. They feel their transgressions against God very keenly. So many of the rest of us just sort of muddle along and don’t pay much attention to what we do and how it affects others-- we know vaguely that Sin is Bad, but we have very little concept of just how offensive it can be.

So you have a great advantage here-- you’re ahead of so many of the rest of us because you’re able to fully experience that contrition for your past wrongs. 🙂 But you shouldn’t promptly put yourself at a disadvantage by being burdened down by their memory, especially if they’ve been confessed and absolved. Use those feelings to spark your determination to continue to do better than the past, but don’t let yourself be bogged and discouraged by lingering guilt. You’ve grown tremendously from where you were— keep on growing. 👍
 
You’re not alone. When you convert, even though there’s great joy, there are people who maybe don’t understand the nature of Confession+Reconciliation, so they don’t get how you could be a good Catholic after all those sins. Also, Satan hates converts so pray to the Holy Spirit for wisdom, patience+fortitude. Stay strong and don’t completely avoid those friends; they’re your neighbours. But you could distance yourself a bit to protect yourself.
God has wiped the slate clean so the past is irrelevant now.
I’m going through something kind of similar, but I’m determined not to let satan win.
 
I know what you’re talking about, I’ve experienced it on quite a few occasions.

And, boy, does it sting to be reminded of certain things. The way I deal with it is that I don’t contribute to the ‘Remember when we used to …’ conversation when it is something that is against my faith. If I can, I stay silent and let others talk. I don’t want to discuss it because it would look like I’m ok with it. Another thing I do is I say that I have changed since then and that I don’t do that kind of thing anynore. Last summer I met up with a friend and her new boyfriend. Completely out of the blue she told him how we used to go out a lot and how wild we were when we were at university. I thought I was going to die, it was so embarrasing. I replied that was a very long time ago, and that my life is very different now and that I am very happy because of that. And I changed the topic.

Things like this happen. We can’t just erase past no matter how hard we try. This is one of the consequences of sin. Now, the important part is that you don’t despair and see yourself as a failure. On the contrary! We all sin but God forgives us when we repent and humbly return to Him. Try to view your past as lessons that you learned and that helped you to mature. Maybe your friends will see this as well and think about their own behaviour. You could be a good influence here.

However, if these friends insist on discussing things that you find difficult and damaging to your spiritual life, or even worse, if they are encouraging you to go back to the old lifestyle, then I suggest you stick to your Catholic friends. You are under no obligation to spend time with people who are a bad influence.

Hope this helps. God bless.
 
Even though I am a cradle Catholic, I had some “friends” that used to do that to me:
“dude you did that really stupid thing that one time”.

It took a while but I finally realized these weren’t really my friends. They knew I was ashamed about it but it seemed like they kept doing it to keep me down. Or they would call be out as a hypocrite.

I never claimed to be perfect nor was judgmental towards someone else. But they didn’t support me so ultimately the best thing for me was to gravitate towards a new group of friends that understood the faith and we supported one another.
 
You’re not alone. When you convert, even though there’s great joy, there are people who maybe don’t understand the nature of Confession+Reconciliation, so they don’t get how you could be a good Catholic after all those sins. Also, Satan hates converts so pray to the Holy Spirit for wisdom, patience+fortitude. Stay strong and don’t completely avoid those friends; they’re your neighbours. But you could distance yourself a bit to protect yourself.
God has wiped the slate clean so the past is irrelevant now.
I’m going through something kind of similar, but I’m determined not to let satan win.
 
If it weren’t for some of the wrong mistakes I made in the past, I wouldn’t have some of the blessings I have now. God can take the worst and make it into the best.

Mistakes in the past are gone, but doing them and experiencing the results have made you what you are. Heaven is rejoicing over you. It’s OK to rejoice with them.

Luke 15:7:
I tell you, in just the same way there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous people who have no need of repentance.

Alan
 
On EWTN there was a program…'Reflections"…i think. A Franciscan priest was speaking of confession, and said ’ when you receive absolution your sins are thrown into a deep lake. On the lake there is only one sign…“NO FISHING”.

peace
 
hazcompat said:
On EWTN there was a program…'Reflections"…i think. A Franciscan priest was speaking of confession, and said ’ when you receive absolution your sins are thrown into a deep lake. On the lake there is only one sign…“NO FISHING”.

peace
Click to expand...
I like that…👍
 
hazcompat said:
On EWTN there was a program…'Reflections"…i think. A Franciscan priest was speaking of confession, and said ’ when you receive absolution your sins are thrown into a deep lake. On the lake there is only one sign…“NO FISHING”.

peace
Click to expand...
Thank you for sharing that brilliant quote, I have written it down as I too am plagued by memories of my very sinful past. It seems that every time I’m about to make a spiritual step forward, I am brought crashing to the ground by either seeing someone from my past or being reminded in some way of the sort of person I was.

Then I have a choice - which direction will I go in? Backwards is not an option, staying in the same place crushed by despair is not too inviting either, so I plough on, and pray that God will give me the grace to learn from my past. And yes, as another poster said, it does keep us humble, as in, we know what we would be like without God, and how great God is.

I also find some of the convert saints very inspiring - St. Augustine, St. Mary Magdalen, St. Paul, etc.
 
AlanFromWichita said:
It’s like if your daughter crashes your nice car, you may be upset and she may feel guilty. But 20 years later, you don’t sit down to table only to hear her apologize in tears every single time she sees you. What she did was damaging, and maybe she did it out of recklessness or maybe not, but whatever it is, it is an insult to you that she thinks you need her continued wallowing in guilt and shame, and it is destructive to her to do it. You have moved on, she needs to also or she has a serious problem and she misses out on the life you have brought to her.

Alan
Click to expand...
This is an excellent example, thank you. 👍
 
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