Dragon! Welcome aboard! As you can see, the sins of impurity plague a great many of us Catholics. If I knew exactly how to defeat it, I’d tell you. However, the questions you have are very, very common ones around these forums. Many young people are terrified that they’re going to hell because they masturbate, and
no one in their lives is giving answers. Why isn’t this covered in religion classes, I ask you? Why do we hear so much about contraception from the pulpit, but never a word about masturbation, the sin that so often acts as a prelude to contraception and failed marriages? Why do our religion classes spend so much time talking about capital punishment and just war (issues that affect 0% of Catholic high schoolers) but encourage silence on the sin that affects 99% of their male students?
In short, it’s an embarrassment to the Catholic community that you had to come to the Internet for answers,
Dragon, but it’s a credit to you that you saw what you had to do and did it.
Now, are you going to Hell? The answer to this question is
always going to be “We don’t know.” The Church tells us who the saints are so we can model our lives after them, but never once has the Church given us an example of someone who went to Hell. There are so many circumstances involved in judging a person’s guilt for a sin that–literally–the only people who truly know who’s going to Heaven and who’s going to Hell are named Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. There are many reasons why you might be spared the full guilt of your sin; the Catechism writes that:
Catechism of the Catholic Church 2352:
To form an equitable judgment about the subjects’ moral responsibility [for masturbation] and to guide pastoral action, one must take into account the affective immaturity, force of acquired habit, conditions of anxiety or other psychological or social factors that lessen, if not even reduce to a minimum, moral culpability.
…which means, in English, that, because you’re a young man dealing with feelings you don’t know how to cope with in a culture awash with messages that pervert and attack true human sexuality and you have free, convenient access to pornography (through the Internet) unprecedented in human history, there’s a very good chance that your soul is not as damaged by the sin as it could be, and you are not turning yourself into a demon as quickly as you might think. That being said, masturbation
is a grave sin, the opposite of true sexuality (which is a
union of
love between two people), and, anytime you commit a grave sin, you open the door to the possibility that you will throw yourself into Hellfire at the Final Judgement. Best not to risk it, I always say.
It would be prudent to attend confession weekly. If you have a Catholic Church within walking distance, I suggest you make use of it. If not, well, that’s another thing that isn’t your fault, and God won’t hold it against you if you can’t get there right away. At the very least, though, your parents should be willing to drive you to the church for confession once every three months. That’s hardly unusual, and you don’t need to tell them a reason for your sudden increase in confessions except that you’re taking your faith more seriously. (This is not a lie–by coming here and asking these questions, you
are taking your faith more seriously. Good for you.) Make use of the confessional as often as you can, and pray at least weekly for forgiveness when you cannot.
You should also be going to Mass every Sunday. I can’t overstate the importance of that. Christ gives us the grace to persevere through the sacrament of Holy Eucharist. We cannot conquer sin–especially stubborn sins like impurity–without His grace. Now, you say that you haven’t been “the best Catholic.” Well, none of us are. However, we all have to
try to be the best Catholic we can be. God sees that. That’s what God’s watching for.
Of course, I’m guessing that your parents aren’t going to Sunday Mass, and, if they’re not driving, you have no way to get there. Again, that isn’t your fault. Make the best effort you can to get to Sunday Mass–even if it isn’t easy at times–and, if you can’t do it, you can’t do it. I was once in a situation where, because I was with a student tour group and not allowed by my teachers to go off on my own, I was unable to make it to Sunday Mass
while in Rome. There was a church on every street–usually two–and there was nothing I could do about it. In situations where your legal status as a minor or as someone who can’t have a driver’s license somehow prevents you from getting to Mass, the sin is not yours. Just try.
The same goes for masturbation itself: keep trying. Stay strong. Pray often. It’s a brutal sin, and it entraps you like none other–often before you even know it’s wrong. It saps your freedom, takes control of your passions, and undermines your intellect. Sometimes, it becomes so strong that you begin to doubt that it’s even really wrong to masturbate. You’ve just got to have faith, use the sacraments, and pray.
It might also help to read books that explain true Catholic teaching about sex, so you understand just what makes masturbation so hostile to humanity. I recommend Christopher West’s
Theology of the Body for Beginners, if you can get your hands on it.
And when you fall–and you
will fall–pick yourself up again and keep at it. For me, it hasn’t gone away… but it
has gotten easier. And I know people who are even further along than I am. There
is hope, and, as Pope Benedict wrote, “In hope, we are saved.”
Hope that helps. I tend to get long-winded on this topic.
) Im going to confess my sins next time i can see a priest but i need to know, am i going to hell or am i really really close to damnation for waiting so long and for continueing the act event after i relised its wrong? Im not the best catholic (my theology teacher said its called not being a practicioner of my faith, but im still catholic). i know its gonna happen again, maybe even today or tomarrow. will i go to hell for doing it again even after confessing it/trying to stop doing it but doing it anyway?
As everyone is saying, just keep fighting and praying and receiving the sacraments as often as possible. God bless!
.