I'm scared was this mortal sin

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PiousTemplar

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I was on the net, and I saw something and I think I was randomly attracted to it! I am not going to name it but it is extremely disordered and my heart is still beating in fear. I looked at it, and quickly closed the webpage. This is where I think I committed mortal sin. To convince myself that I am not attracted to it, I went on it a second time. It was not out of lust or anything I just wanted to prove my consciounse wrong that I was attracted to it. I think I remained randomly attracted to it. Now I feel darn terrible. If it is how do I confess it, without getting into the gore.
 
You might still ask your confessor, but I don’t think this is a mortal sin. Momentary attraction is not the same as full consent (which is required for mortal sin). You were foolish however in going back and certainly sinned by putting yourself in the near occasion of sin, but again, not mortally, as I don’t see any evidence of full consent. If you wish to confess, we are required to confess only by kind and number, with details only given as necessary.

Peace be to you.
 
I was going back to convince my consciounse that I wasn’t attracted to it. I was scared and I didnt want to leave the computer with horrible thoughts that I was attracted to something bad.
 
Sometimes it just feels that everything I do is mortal sin!
 
Joe_5859 said:
If that is how you feel, I would talk to your Confessor about managing scruples.
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I second this. I struggle just as you do in pretty much the same way. Here’s a few nuggets that have helped me keep my scruples under control:
  • Seperate what you know from what you feel: Ignore that you feel terrible for a few moments and look at your actions from the outside. Prior to being attracted to this particular item did you plan on searching it out? Did you throw caution to the wind and embrace this temptation and fully consent to its evil precisely because it was evil? It doesn’t sound like you did.
  • God will never turn away a trusting soul: I’ve found that the more I pray to the Divine Mercy and read about it in Saint Faustina’s diary that it has helped me realize that you must work on humbling yourself and placing your doubts at the feet of our Lord. At first it is very hard, but think of it this way. Jesus didn’t go through all the suffering he went through for you to lose your soul over something like you are describing.
I can’t tell you definitively whether or not your sin was mortal, but I encourage you to trust in the Lord and bring your worries to him in the confessional. If you have true sorrow for your sins out of love for God (perfect contrition) and you are committed to bringing it to Him in the Sacrament of Reconciliation, then you have nothing to fear. Jesus already paid the price for all of us. 👍

I could say more, but chew on those ideas for a while. Also, as a general rule of thumb, if you have to ask if something is mortal, then you can usually assume it was not, because you would have to have known EXACTLY what you were getting into and STILL embraced it wholeheartedly.

Again, just take it to the priest and resolve to do better in the future.
 
You cannot control what you are attracted or unattracted to for the most part. However, you can control how you handle things you are attracted to. You handled this fairly well, probably shouldn’t have given it a second look though.

I have a friend who is somewhat like you, it is probably best you ask your confessor and not to get overwhelmingly worried about it. There’s nothing you can change at this point, what is done is done. Learn from your experiences, pray and continue on, this is the best way to avoid sin.
 
PiousTemplar said:
I was on the net, and I saw something and I think I was randomly attracted to it! I am not going to name it but it is extremely disordered and my heart is still beating in fear. I looked at it, and quickly closed the webpage. This is where I think I committed mortal sin. To convince myself that I am not attracted to it, I went on it a second time. It was not out of lust or anything I just wanted to prove my consciounse wrong that I was attracted to it. I think I remained randomly attracted to it. Now I feel darn terrible. If it is how do I confess it, without getting into the gore.
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Hi Pious,

In addition to what others have said, I would throw out that we are living in particularly difficult times (with the internet especially) and we need to be both more astute and more forgiving of ourselves. It is not a normal situation to be exposed to the sorts of materials we can see just by surfing online, but here we are. I honestly can’t see any mortal sin in what you did, just a fault of judgement in going back to the material.

How about a really good web filtering software? If you find yourself mistakenly getting bad material, then that may be a good solution that will give you a more peaceful web experience, and will help keep your mind free of the sorts of things you might have seen.

Same goes true for other media- TV, books, etc. There is so much out there to consume that is really excellent, that there is frankly no time for random surfing, reading books that happen to be popular, or watching TV that is not known beforehand to be good. Just the way I see the problem.

God Bless,
Joan
 
PiousTemplar said:
I was on the net, and I saw something and I think I was randomly attracted to it! I am not going to name it but it is extremely disordered and my heart is still beating in fear. I looked at it, and quickly closed the webpage.
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If you didn’t consent to these thoughts, then you didn’t commit mortal sin initially.
This is where I think I committed mortal sin. To convince myself that I am not attracted to it, I went on it a second time. It was not out of lust or anything I just wanted to prove my consciounse wrong that I was attracted to it. I think I remained randomly attracted to it. Now I feel darn terrible. If it is how do I confess it, without getting into the gore.
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So are you saying you dwelt on the thoughts? did you end up consenting to them or not?

I think a potential problem here is that you put yourself in an occasion of sin (an occasion where you know you might be tempted) by going back to that website. Putting ourselves in an occasion of sin, is actually a sin. So I’d confess this… .and mention what it was, to the priest (in simple, concise terms, don’t go into descriptions).

God bless
 
Joan1969 said:
Hi Pious,

In addition to what others have said, I would throw out that we are living in particularly difficult times (with the internet especially) and we need to be both more astute and more forgiving of ourselves. It is not a normal situation to be exposed to the sorts of materials we can see just by surfing online, but here we are. I honestly can’t see any mortal sin in what you did, just a fault of judgement in going back to the material.

How about a really good web filtering software? If you find yourself mistakenly getting bad material, then that may be a good solution that will give you a more peaceful web experience, and will help keep your mind free of the sorts of things you might have seen.

Same goes true for other media- TV, books, etc. There is so much out there to consume that is really excellent, that there is frankly no time for random surfing, reading books that happen to be popular, or watching TV that is not known beforehand to be good. Just the way I see the problem.

God Bless,
Joan
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Thanks.

I think I over-reacted concerning how bad and disordered it was. I was just emotionally disturbed about what it contained. It wasn’t some ridiculous sexuality or anything.
 
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