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808Catholic
Guest
ALL prayers are heard. If prayers were “filtered” by our sins, it would be awfully quiet in heaven!
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PulvisEtCinis
Guest
Yes, that would be an obstacle, since you have to be confirmed (something I just learned).On joining the confraternity: I should have mentioned that I have never been confirmed.
You should probably seek out Confirmation as soon as you can (I am assuming that you are old enough to receive it in your diocese); I don’t know of a good reason not to. I don’t know exactly all the rules governing receiving it, but you could speak to a priest about it and I am sure that he could advise you.
St. Thomas Aquinas on Prayer:
*Article 16. Whether sinners impetrate anything from God by their prayers? *Article 15]
"In the sinner, two things are to be considered: his nature which God loves, and the sin which He hates. Accordingly when a sinner prays for something as sinner, i.e. in accordance with a sinful desire, God hears him not through mercy but sometimes through vengeance when He allows the sinner to fall yet deeper into sin. For “God refuses in mercy what He grants in anger,” as Augustine declares (Tract. lxxiii in Joan.). On the other hand God hears the sinner’s prayer if it proceed from a good natural desire, not out of justice, because the sinner does not merit to be heard, but out of pure mercy [Cf. 15, ad 1], provided however he fulfil the four conditions given above, namely, that he beseech for himself things necessary for salvation, piously and perseveringly. "*
I would recommend St. Augustine’s ‘Confessions’, and also Thomas a Kempis’ ‘Imitation of Christ’. I would especially recommend Augustine’s Confessions though, his journey to the faith (and also in attaining chastity) is very inspiring, and it is all told in prayer format; i.e. he is confessing to God through his work.
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Convert_in_99
Guest
I second this. You need to start with counseling, then you can worry about what state your soul is in. Until you know for sure the underlying issues of you wanting to hurt and kill yourself, you cannot fully judge what state your soul is in. You may be commiting sin that contains grave matter, but due to your very unhealthy psychological state you may not be committing these sins with full and complete consent, thus making culpability for a potentially mortal sin incomplete and therefore not mortal under your circumstances.
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thestudentAD
Guest
Good news!
I succumbed to temptation and was doing it again when during the video I thought about how the Virgin Mary felt and I lost my drive. In fact, I stopped watching it. Hard part is now trying to stay alive and going to confession on Tuesday(I stay up late as my parents won’t be home for another week, need to give the house a haul and God willing that He lets me live). A friend suggested that I do something outside of the internet, such as writing stories reading, exercising, and what-not.
I’m going to take his advice, but I like using this site as well as Catholicbible101.com. Currently writing a sin list to take to confession, as well as planning on installing porn blockers from a near-future paycheck (Spent all of my new spending money from second job on a Bible, as the second Catholic one I have has started getting tears in Revelation with the back cover and last page haning onto it. The other book is about ISIS. I wanted to get some books about the Vietnam War or Iraq war, or Korea, but no dice on Vietnam and Korea. We get a lot of Korean, Vietnam, and Iraq war veterans at my second job, a breakfast place. I love talking with them).
I succumbed to temptation and was doing it again when during the video I thought about how the Virgin Mary felt and I lost my drive. In fact, I stopped watching it. Hard part is now trying to stay alive and going to confession on Tuesday(I stay up late as my parents won’t be home for another week, need to give the house a haul and God willing that He lets me live). A friend suggested that I do something outside of the internet, such as writing stories reading, exercising, and what-not.
I’m going to take his advice, but I like using this site as well as Catholicbible101.com. Currently writing a sin list to take to confession, as well as planning on installing porn blockers from a near-future paycheck (Spent all of my new spending money from second job on a Bible, as the second Catholic one I have has started getting tears in Revelation with the back cover and last page haning onto it. The other book is about ISIS. I wanted to get some books about the Vietnam War or Iraq war, or Korea, but no dice on Vietnam and Korea. We get a lot of Korean, Vietnam, and Iraq war veterans at my second job, a breakfast place. I love talking with them).
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808Catholic
Guest
You are an inspiration to many!!!
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vto
Guest
Hi thestudentAD,
Could I make a suggestion, if you don’t mind. I would suggest that maybe you should ease up on the war books because while you are battling those sexual issues, you really don’t need to have the extreme violence of war playing out in your mind at the same time. War books have the tendency to evoke heightened emotions which can affect your ability to overcome those issues you are already struggling with. I suggest you fill your mind more with spiritual books, which will do the opposite of war books, and that is by helping you form a right mind. When you have better control over your thoughts, then you will be in a better position to handle those other topics.
A good book I suggest is: “Life of Christ” by Fulton Sheen. Any other book on the saints such as St Francis of Assisi, St Theresa are good reading as well as is The Diary of St Faustina.
God Bless.
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PulvisEtCinis
Guest
From what you have written here, you seem to be serious about amendment; I am definitely glad to see it. I hope and pray that you will beat this habit.
I definitely agree with your friend about finding things to do outside of the internet. The internet has its uses, but it can be a severe temptation for those struggling with these issues. I would really advise either getting rid of your private access completely, or at least putting countermeasures in place so that it is reasonably impossible for you to access the stuff on your computer (and by ‘stuff’ I don’t mean just hard pornography either, but anything that is likely to tempt you). Having something that you can get around easily is going to be a waste of time (trust me, I know). You must put something in place that you are not likely to get around even if you wanted to. If you have internet on your phone, you probably would do well to downgrade to a smaller ‘flip-phone’ that doesn’t have much if any access and have the service provider block what little access it does have - you probably would save a lot of money doing that as well. We have to do everything that we can to eliminate the near occasion of sin if we hope to overcome our vices and sometimes that means we have to sacrifice things that we like (things which are normally fine) but that pose serious a risk to our soul.
I also second what the poster above said:
This is very excellent advice.
It really is a huge help to the spiritual life to read spiritual books. To read about the Saints and to read the works that they have written. They indeed are a great inspiration.
Keep up the fight!
May God grant you an abundance of grace to resist future temptations!
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thestudentAD
Guest
Currently, I’m reading St. Augustine’s City of God, a apocalyptic commentary by a Catholic Apologist (David B. Currie’s What Jesus really said about the end of the world), the Catechism, the Bible, and outside of religious works, I’ve got a spy book that’s a textbook size to go through… along with its second volume… as well as a war book given to me by a regular customer at my Waffle House.
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LatinByzCath
Guest
You should really read “The Story of a Soul” by St. Therese of Lisieux.
I used to obsess over this. I worried so much about dying with a mortal sin on my soul, and going to hell. That was until a priest told me that if a person is sincerely penitent for their sins before they die - even the worst of sinners - God’s grace, love and mercy will absolve them.
Don’t obsess so much about this stuff. I love going to confession every week, but my confessor told me it was too much. I was just so attentive to everything, but I’m afraid this generated quite a big of negative, false zeal within me. It was very bad.
Wear your scapular, and understand why you’re wearing it and what it means. Pray a rosary before bed. Go to mass as often as you can, but especially on Holy Days of Obligation. Go to confession once per month at least. I hesitate to go to confession more than once each two weeks, just because of the craziness such fixation on sin inspired within me.
You should make an appointment to ask your priest about this stuff. They’re good at telling you what practices to keep and what to improve to have a better spiritual life and be more pious.
Rely on God’s love and mercy.
Psalm 103:3 “If you kept a record of sins, O Lord, who would stand? But there is forgiveness with thee.”
EDIT: I want to add that on another forum, what we used to say was “WID,AYP”. “When in doubt, ask your priest.”
I used to obsess over this. I worried so much about dying with a mortal sin on my soul, and going to hell. That was until a priest told me that if a person is sincerely penitent for their sins before they die - even the worst of sinners - God’s grace, love and mercy will absolve them.
Don’t obsess so much about this stuff. I love going to confession every week, but my confessor told me it was too much. I was just so attentive to everything, but I’m afraid this generated quite a big of negative, false zeal within me. It was very bad.
Wear your scapular, and understand why you’re wearing it and what it means. Pray a rosary before bed. Go to mass as often as you can, but especially on Holy Days of Obligation. Go to confession once per month at least. I hesitate to go to confession more than once each two weeks, just because of the craziness such fixation on sin inspired within me.
You should make an appointment to ask your priest about this stuff. They’re good at telling you what practices to keep and what to improve to have a better spiritual life and be more pious.
Rely on God’s love and mercy.
Psalm 103:3 “If you kept a record of sins, O Lord, who would stand? But there is forgiveness with thee.”
EDIT: I want to add that on another forum, what we used to say was “WID,AYP”. “When in doubt, ask your priest.”
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LatinByzCath
Guest
This is a red flag. have you told your priest you do this? I did this when I started taking my faith seriously around 15, but my priest got very upset when he found out. He told me to burn the list and never to make such lists again. He saw that it was making me crazy, and told me it was a common rookie mistake (no offense, OP. My priest’s words.
)My confessor told me only to confess the sins I can remember, and that the ones I have forgotten are absolved with the ones I’ve confessed. I even end my confessions with “for this and other sins I’m very sorry, Father.”
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Bill_Martin
Guest
This is one of the best tricks of Satan–getting you to abandon prayer when you need it most. Don’t give in. Paul tells the Thessalonians to pray continually, not just when not in sin.
Paul persecuted Christians. Augustine had numerous sexual partners and even a child out of wedlock. God didn’t give up on them and He doesn’t give up on us, so don’t give up on Him.
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thestudentAD
Guest
I’ve started getting back onto my devotions. Did my rosary, Prayers for Purgatory, Consecration to Christ the King, as well as Divine Mercy Chaplet, and Sacred Heart promise
I hit myself whenever I realize I’ve said things that I shouldn’t. I should stop hitting myself.
I hit myself whenever I realize I’ve said things that I shouldn’t. I should stop hitting myself.
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PulvisEtCinis
Guest
Indeed, I don’t think hitting yourself is going to help anything.
I was thinking, do you have a spiritual director? Sitting down with a good, faithful priest would probably help you a lot in working through some of these issues; especially if you meet with him regularly enough that he can get to know you he will be able to offer you better insight into the situation(s) and can give you good direction as to what steps you need to take to help you overcome these things. I know that the advice from my confessor especially and other priests that I have spoken to have been a big help in dealing with my various issues. Us folks online can only judge and suggest from afar (because we do not really know you all that well) while a priest can give you advice tailored to your situation, and in addition he has authority from the Church to teach (while we do not). Remember the priests have been called and appointed to help us.
May God bless you and grant you grace and guidance!
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