Frankly, I wouldn’t get too stressed about this, remember, our priests are human too! They laugh, they tell jokes, and as men many have suffered from this same temptation; thus, they know and understand your position (even if you are a woman they will understand! Sorry, “meagannd” I just can’t tell if your a boy or a girl
from your user name and profile) . ( IDK; however, with our Lord having been fully human (of course without sin) and fully divine, I suspect he understands our position too
)
I simply go behind the screen and use the term “impure acts with myself,” and should you need to “impure thoughts about (wo)men” as there is usually a root cause, along with the number of times - go at least once a month while you struggle with this habit/addiction. If you fail, please, forgive yourself, goto confession at your next opportunity, God knows your heart… breaking this habit is like breaking a drug, tobacco, or alcohol addiction… it will take time, it will take some effort, and it will not be easy because you are fighting one of the strongest urges within our natural body - but we’re not animals, we do not have to give into the urges of our flesh. I have a finger Rosary with me at all times and will start to pray the Rosary or the Divine Mercy when these urges strike… idle hands and idle mind… the playground of demons.
Besides, in the moment you leave, your priest will forget about your sins… the next lamb to be fed is in the stable, and the next, and the next
… try this, have ten people come to you and tell you two random primary colours and two random numbers between 1 and 10 in any order they feel like. After the tenth person has talked to you, write down the second colour the third person told you and the first number the sixth person told you, and both of the colours and numbers the first person told you in the order the first person told them to you…write these all in the order I’ve listed!
– it is very unusual for most people to do this successfully ( I do this with my third year PRE/CCD class when they balk at going to confession, haven’t had a single one do it correctly }
). Now the priest just heard the confession of 20 people and a few may have told long stories about their sins and what lead up to the act and bleet, bleeet, bleeeet.
No, Fr. doing good to keep the current person’s sins straight.
Being a convert, this was and is something I still struggle with, quite simply for the majority of my life, this wasn’t something I thought about or that my family even considered an issue… not even within my marriage, my wife and I didn’t consider it an issue. Once we came into the Church and started NFP, :banghead: yep, now we have an issue… now the first time I confessed the impure acts, I told Father about the fact of being a convert (briefly of course) so that there was some context and left it to the mercy of God after that. Now, it’s just sin and number…
–
I hunted all over the place for this story, I don’t have a primary source for it so I only quote in part (emphasis is mine):
There is a story of St. Claude de la Colombiere, the spiritual director to St. Margaret Mary Alacoque.
At this time of this story, he was not yet her spiritual director. St. Margaret Mary is the one to whom Jesus appeared in the apparitions of the Sacred Heart, and He said to her, “These things are going to be happening to you, so you need to have a spiritual director, somebody who is going to help you through this.” He told her that He wanted her to go up the street and talk to Father Claude de la Colombiere and that he was to be her spiritual director.
Well, Father Claude was no dummy. She comes trooping in and says that Jesus appeared to her and that Father Claude was supposed to be her spiritual director. He did not go for that idea too well. All you have to do is ask yourself what you would think if your next-door neighbor came over and said, “Guess what, Jesus appeared to me!” You would probably say, “Sure He did. Uh-huh.” You are going to be skeptical; at least I hope you are.
St. Margaret Mary was rather insistent, and so finally after a while he said, “Fine. If Jesus appears to you again, ask Him what my last mortal sin was. If you can tell me my last mortal sin, then I will be your spiritual director.” So she went off, and sure enough Our Lord appeared to her. You can only imagine the conversation, but she got her answer and she went back to Father de la Colombiere.
He asked,** “Did Jesus appear to you?” “Yes, He did.” “Did you ask Him what my last mortal sin was?” “Yes, I did.” “What was His answer?” “When I asked what your last mortal sin was, Jesus looked at me and said, ‘I don’t remember.**’” And so Father Claude said, “I’ll be your spiritual director.”
He had confessed his sin and it was gone, so when Jesus looked at his soul, it was not there and He could say, “I don’t remember.”
My prayers for you, that you may, as did the prodigal son, come to our Lord with a humble and contrite heart, ask for forgiveness, and receive his grace.
