How to lessen guilt after sin?

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A few days ago, my boyfriend and I got too physically intimate. We managed to stop before we had actual sex (sorry for the detail), but I still have lingering guilt. I have gone to confession and my boyfriend and I have set stricter boundaries and are choosing to abstain from physical contact for a couple of weeks but I still feel a horrible guilt. I am legitimately sorry for what I can’t seem to forgive myself. How can I move on from this and restore a healthy relationship with God and my boyfriend?
 
Well, if you’ve gone to confession, then realize you are not the same person who did that.
You’re different in the state of Grace.
 
Every time you feel the guilt, pray “Thank you, Jesus, for the Sacrament of Reconciliation. Help me to stand strong against temptation”.
 
Yes you are the same person … which is why you need to take the wise precautions you have so it doesnt repeat.
 
Personally I find centering prayer helpful for exploring my confused emotions before God.
Basically one spiritually sits in deep calm upon a mountain top as it were…and with God beside you you allow sun, warmth, rain, wind snow to ravage that mountain top without resistance or panic.
You dont run for an umbrella from the rain, a blanket from the snow or wind, you dont get attached to the warmth or the light.
You just sit there with God observing all these things with calm and peace because God is there. No thoughts of why or why not, good or bad. Just let whatever come come and spend itself.

The elements of course are your confused thoughts and emotions. Do not think of them always as distractions in prayer that must be thrust from consciousness. Nor should they be embraced. But if they are allowed to “play out” at an impersonal observed distance they will eventually dissipate because you have respected them…and in return for that respect these wild feelings will be tamed and allow you to understand their hidden meaning and message. And so you will find peace outside of prayer.

Our obsessive emotions often have something to teach us we still arent getting. I cannot tell you what your guilt is trying to say to you, you have to learn it for yourself. But we humans are all pretty much the same.

When I was young and did similar to you the guilt was not simply about God. Only when I finally realised that it was also about me did it make more sense. I had to accept I wasnt the superman I thought I was…that we dont deserve God because we are in control and strong. Its simply a gift that requires humility not perfection or strength. My realisation of sin was not just about offending God but also a silly guilt at not living up to my own egotistical view of myself. That was pride…more concerned about not being strong than about loving God.

But that was what this ancient hesychastic form of praying (often taught as Prayer of the Heart or Centering Prayer) taught me…you may well find a different understanding on your mountain top.
God’s peace.
 
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Welcome to Catholic Answers Forums!

My first thought was that you are suffering from simple remorse, which I think is not too difficult for a contrite sinner to overcome. Then I started to think about how physical intimacy ties into many different aspects of life and affects us at many levels. There might be factors below the surface, which folks like me on the internet shouldn’t speculate about and can’t even guess.

@BlackFriar described centering prayer as one way you could sort out your feelings. I myself don’t have such a well-defined system, but I do have opportunities for unstructured thoughtfulness in the absence of distractions, for example, while I’m occupied with manual tasks like cooking or washing dishes, and also the quiet time I have in the morning while I get dressed and have breakfast.

Whatever approach you might use, it’s important to put away the external distractions: social media, TV, songs, news, conversation, reading matter. Then you can be more attentive to your internal feelings, processes, and thoughts.

A prayer for you: May the Holy Spirit strengthen and guide you in your troubles and lead you to peace and joy.
 
Do more penance.

i.e. Pray more Rosaries or Divine Mercy Chaplets; start a novena, etc.
 
Think about the reason for guilt.
Because it offends God.
Now, if God has forgiven and “forgotten”, why still feel guilty about it?
 
Please, you do not know what you are talking about.
This is fake news, the article writer himself admits the Vatican mentioned Yoga, Zen TM…and NOT eastern catholic hesychasm. The ancient tradition of hesychasm was of course not mentioned because it was always Catholic. Centring Prayer or Prayer of the Heart is simply that old forgotten eastern desert tradition revived by the respected Cistercians named and others.

Yes it is influenced by an eastern religion - early monastic Christianity. Christianity is also an Eastern Religion! Some US Catholics somehow forget that small historical fact.
No need for chicken lichen fears.
 
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I assumed you had a justification for it. My point was not to convince you, it was to make the OP aware that the Church has warned against mingling Christian prayer with Eastern meditation techniques, and that she should therefore not do so.
 
Wow! That has just become my favorite Fr. Mike video. Thanks.
 
There’s a simple old prayer that goes, in pertinent part, “Blood of Christ, wash me of all my and others’ guilt of sin.”

Once you have confessed and taken steps not to repeat the behavior, guilt is an unproductive emotion and you should say the above prayer, or something else similar, and just let it go. It’s a bit presumptuous to keep hanging onto your guilt after confession, because God has forgiven you, but you’re refusing to forgive yourself, which is going against God’s feelings and God’s will.

A priest told me that God puts challenges like this in our lives to show us that we’re puny humans and that we can’t do it on our own - we need God to help us. Ask God to wash away your feelings of guilt, as well as to help you not sin anymore. Every time you feel guilt, thank Him for the sacrament of Reconciliation and say, “Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on me, a sinner, please wash away my guilt of sin.” Eventually the feeling will diminish. God bless.
 
Arkansan said:
My point was to make the OP aware that the Church has warned against mingling Christian prayer with Eastern meditation techniques, and that she should therefore not do so.
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Please, you were clearly identifying the praying style I referred to as if it belonged to the eastern list of practises specifically named and warned about by Card Ratz.

In fact you are mistaken, hesychastic prayer is not mentioned by name, nor is Centering Prayer nor is Prayer of the Heart styles. The document obviously advises discernment re Eastern religion prayer practises not holus bolus condemnation of unnamed others. How could it condemn all eastern practises as you assume…Christianity is itself an eastern religion. Jesus was unlikely blue eyed nor fair skinned and he was from Jerusalem. Thats Jerusalem in the Middle East not Little Rock, Arkansas, USA.

Have you actually read the Vatican document instead of reading a 2nd hand biased paraphrasing of it? Here it is:
http://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/c...th_doc_19891015_meditazione-cristiana_en.html

You may have missed the following paragraph:
That does not mean that genuine practices of meditation which come from the Christian East and from the great non-Christian religions, which prove attractive to the man of today who is divided and disoriented, cannot constitute a suitable means of helping the person who prays to come before God with an interior peace, even in the midst of external pressures.
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Did you note article 27?
Eastern Christian meditation has valued psychophysical symbolism, often absent in western forms of prayer. It can range from a specific bodily posture to the basic life functions, such as breathing or the beating of the heart…
Click to expand...
This paragraph is in fact praising Hesychastic prayer, see footnote 32.
 
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