How to avoid venial sins?

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InJesusItrust

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I was just baptized this Sunday. Even without consent I have committed at least 7 venial sins. I haven’t had confession or communion yet. Does the Eucharist make it easier to avoid venial sin? How do I stop this?

Purgatory scares me.
 
lol good!

Yes, a good and worthy reception of communion in which you prepare yourself and partake of it properly will do wonders for your soul.

It brings you closer and makes you more like Christ. Also, ALL your venial sins are taken away by worthy reception of the eucharist.

Keep striving for perfection and make confession a habit (many saints went daily!) . , put religious pictures/crucifixes statues throughout your home! Have them blessed by a priest (maybe see if a priest can come for dinner and bless and dedicate your home). These blessings and pictures/statues are sacramentals and help direct your mind and heart to God and offer His protection and graces. Also, get a small holy water font for your door…so you can bless yourself with holy water throughout the day.

These are all amazing tools to help protect against sin and form your soul by keeping your mind and heart close to Him.

Lastly your prayer life and biblical study is paramount! The deeper you create a relationship with God by spending time with Him in prayer and learning of Him in scripture, recieving the sacraments of penance which gives you a fresh start and strengthens you to not sin again and recieving the eucharist (which is like saying your marriage vows to Him and consumating that lifegiving marriage!) and having all those sacramentals around which keep you under protection and redirecting you…you can become a saint!
Also…remember this life that is welling within you MUST spill out to those around you…so you gotta get your hands dirty as well and bring this out into the world.

The church gives you allll kinds of tools! and all kinds of forms of prayer that have gifts placed on them by the church.

You’re gonna sin…it’s going to happen (and that’s biblical - "the just man sins 7 times a day). The little tiny slip-ups in life…it’s ok in that Jesus knows your heart and your true intention…it keeps us relying on Him and on His grace and causing us to place our trust in Him always.

God bless
 
How do I prepare for communion? My priest said that he would bring communion since I am disabled and don’t always have a ride available. How can I prepare for it?
 
You get better at it with practice. If you focus too much on failures, you only make it worse. Keep the focus on Christ and ask Him to help you.

There are some really good books by Saints and Doctors of the Church on Christian perfection and virtue. You might want to start with something like Introduction to the Devout Life by St. Francis de Sales.

Preparing for Holy Communion – great books on this, too. I personally like Book IV of the Imitation of Christ by Thomas a Kempis.
 
Making a point to not eat an hour before (except medication that is necessary) - this is a ritual fast the church insists on to help prepare our mind and our heart to recieve something special.
Also, to not be conscious of any grave sin (it’s always good to make a GOOD examination of your mind and heart and ask God for forgiveness of any of those venial sins you’re aware of - if you have any serious sin you MUST go to confession first before recieving).

Also, spend some time in deep prayer with Christ. tell Him how much you love him, to him about your days, your fears and joys, trials and sorrows, any questions you have and just take some time to just sit at his feet in quiet and listen. Lastly, offer to him all that you are and all that you have with all your mistakes and good works and your future…give your future to Him to do with it as he will.

Since you’ve cleared up any issues between the two of you, tried to get closer to Him yourself through honest open prayer and stating your willingness to belong to him alone…you’re ready for marriage in the eucharist you’re about to partake!

God bless
 
Don’t be scared of purgatory. I’ve been through the Dark Night, essentially purgatory on earth, and now that it’s over I can see how everything worked together. It was scary at times and in some worldly ways it was destructive but it all fits. It all makes sense. Everything was beautiful, although it may not have seemed like it at the time. Basically I was “under construction.” Just like construction trucks have to tear up some things and get other things muddy in the process of building a beautiful palace. I cannot imagine “real” purgatory as being anything less wonderful.

Faith + trust = peace. 😉

Alan
 
MichaelHowling said:
…You’re gonna sin…it’s going to happen (and that’s biblical - "the just man sins 7 times a day). The little tiny slip-ups in life…it’s ok in that Jesus knows your heart and your true intention…it keeps us relying on Him and on His grace and causing us to place our trust in Him always.

God bless
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👍 nicely stated…
Ad_Orientem said:
**You get better at it with practice. If you focus too much on failures, you only make it worse. Keep the focus on Christ and ask Him to help you.
**
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A nice statement for all of life, as well.
AlanFromWichita said:
Don’t be scared of purgatory. I’ve been through the Dark Night, essentially purgatory on earth, and now that it’s over I can see how everything worked together. It was scary at times and in some worldly ways it was destructive but it all fits. It all makes sense. Everything was beautiful, although it may not have seemed like it at the time. Basically I was “under construction.” Just like construction trucks have to tear up some things and get other things muddy in the process of building a beautiful palace. I cannot imagine “real” purgatory as being anything less wonderful.

Faith + trust = peace. 😉

Alan
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👍
 
Since you mention that you’re scared of Purgatory, you will want to make use of indulgences. To gain an indulgence it is required that you have the desire in general to receive them, however it is not required that you desire each specific indulgence in order to gain it.
 
InJesusItrust said:
How do I prepare for communion? My priest said that he would bring communion since I am disabled and don’t always have a ride available. How can I prepare for it?
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Your priest is going to bring you communion right? You could ask him to hear your confession also when he comes to your home. In the mean time for venial sin, call all that you can remember to mind, make a good act of contrition, and increase your prayer life. I suggest praying the rosary. Be careful not to obsess over venial sin, this can become scrupulosity. I also recommend the Divine Mercy Chaplet. Also, say throughout the day. Jesus I love you. Jesus I trust in you. :knight1:
 
InJesusItrust said:
I was just baptized this Sunday. Even without consent I have committed at least 7 venial sins. I haven’t had confession or communion yet. Does the Eucharist make it easier to avoid venial sin? How do I stop this?

Purgatory scares me.
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Purgatory should scare you 😃 The saints all coincide in that its pains are equivalent to those of hell, though they are temporary.

That being said, you can direct your will, for it is the intention what matters most. Directing your will means to decide by an act of will that you do not want to commit sins or consent to them. We do this for mortal sins in the act of contrition, but it is good to do it often for venial sins as well. When we do this, we reaffirm or decision and we stay “sober and alert” 🙂

Ultimately, it is impossible for us to avoid sin. It is by God’s grace that we are sanctified and purified 🙂 The Eucharist is the living God united to you in ways that we cannot even fully understand, so it helps you avoid all sins and reach out for heaven. Other things that help are the sacramentals (ex. holy water, prayer of the Rosary, etc.) and Confession (even if not conscious of mortal sin, it is good to confess every 1 or 2 weeks). Reading the Scriptures and the books of saints is also very beneficial and spiritually edifying. (Edit: and indulgences, as mentioned above.)

Remember that we all long for the sweetness of the bread of life at first. Only later in our devout life we will naturally long to embrace the Cross for the sake of souls. When you reach that moment, you will no longer fear suffering and purgatory, but you will long for it and be willing to bear an eternity of purgatory if just one other soul could be released in exchange. “There is no greater love than this: to lay down your life for your friends.” 👍
 
I think Purgatory gets a bum rap. When I find myself in Purgatory, I shall rejoice! :extrahappy:

Alan
 
devoutchristian said:
The pains are not equivalent.
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Equivalent is not the right word, but it is not less painful.
“No tongue can express, nor any mind form any idea of what Purgatory really is. As to the suffering, it is equal to that of hell.” - St. Catherine of Genoa, who was shown Purgatory by God,
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“It is the same fire that torments the reprobate in hell, and the just in purgatory. The least pain in purgatory surpasses the greatest suffering in this life. Nothing but the eternal duration makes the fire of hell more terrible than that of purgatory." St. Thomas Aquinas
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devoutchristian said:
The Catechism is superior to the writings of the saints.
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Now I understand what you mean. Obviously I agree and I know that the saints subjected themselves and their writings to Holy Church. However, just to clarify:
1031 The Church gives the name Purgatory to this final purification of the elect, which is entirely different from the punishment of the damned.606 The Church formulated her doctrine of faith on Purgatory especially at the Councils of Florence and Trent. The tradition of the Church, by reference to certain texts of Scripture, speaks of a cleansing fire
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Here it does not say that the sufferings of Purgatory are less painful than those of Hell. It simply does not get into the argument. It says that the punishment is “entirely different”, but does mention the “cleansing fire”. Pope s. Gregory I also argued - quoting St. Augustine - that “even as in the same fire gold glistens and straw smokes, so in the same fire the sinner burns and the elect is cleansed.” But even if we were to agree (though it would be a mere opinion) that Purgatory is less painful, that is not quite the point anyways:

From Catholic Encyclopedia:
  • s. Augustine (Enarration on Psalm 37, no. 3) speaks of the pain which purgatorial fire causes as more severe than anything a man can suffer in this life.
  • s. Gregory the Great speaks of those who after this life “will expiate their faults by purgatorial flames,” and he adds “that the pain be more intolerable than any one can suffer in this life” (Ps. 3 poenit., n. 1).
  • St. Bonaventure agrees with St. Thomas Aquinas and adds (IV, dist. xx, p.1, a.1, q. ii) that this punishment by fire is more severe than any punishment which comes to men in this life.
So it’s still bad :o It’s not this peaceful, happy place, as some may think. It’s better to endure sufferings down here in order to expiate our temporal punishment (at least some of it) by good works than to endure a greater time in that cleansing fire 🙂 Also, we should always pray and gain indulgences for those souls, because they really want to get out of there and be in heaven 👍
 
How does Purgatory compare to episodes of contemplative purgation as in the Dark Night? After all, they serve the same purpose – purification of the soul. I’ve experienced the latter, all the way through until it was over. It is on that basis I am not afraid of the former. Why should God make it less glorious after death than before?

For someone who is experiencing a heavy mode of contemplative purgation and never actually “completes” it to the point it calms down and becomes serenity, I can certainly see how they would have expected purgatory to be a frightening and painful place. Contemplative purgation can certainly be that way while still in the thick of it. But afterwards it’s a new birth. And the purgation relegates itself to labor pains for that birth, and become insignificant compared to the glory shown. And if it’s that way on earth, how can it not be even more glorious when one completes purgatory and enters eternal heaven?

Heaven rejoices over someone who repents over 99 others who have no need to. Maybe that’s because heavenly souls follow the progress with encouragement? Huge amounts of love were instrumental in getting me through the Dark Night. In purgatory we have the love of people all over, past and future and present, praying for us. Like I said, I’m not scared of it and frankly I don’t think it’s healthy to be scared of it. Scared of venial sin for its own sake and its temporal and spiritual effects is one thing, but not because of purification. It’s like I might be afraid to do something that will break my leg, but because it is a bad experience in itself, not because I’m afraid of the healing process. Purification is the Good News, without which none of us would enter heaven.

As I indicated before, when I get into Purgatory, I shall rejoice. YMMV. 😉

Alan
 
Alan, as always, I bow my head before your post 🙂 I would be very glad if for some/many souls Purgatory was not as painful as I read.
 
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