Is it really that hard to live a good moral life?

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Is it really that hard to live a good moral life?
God didn’t ask much of us. He told us to do the examination of conscience, confess our sins and attend Mass and recieve Communion.
I can understand if people do not go to Mass as they are non-Catholic but we have Romans 2:15.
We do have a conscience so the Law is given to us all.
Why is it difficult for us to live a good moral life.
If the only natural thing to do is examin our consciences and confess them why don’t we just do that?
Why do people live their lives the unnatural way?
St Paul said he struggled to live a good moral life. I struggle. We all struggle.
Even if we, as St Paul, have the Church as a help we still fail.
 
I can only speak for myself. Without God’s grace and the gifts of the holy spirit and immersing myself in prayer, Bible reading, Mass, Eucharist, Confession, adoration it’s very hard if not impossible. With all that it’s still a constant struggle between, as Paul said, the spirit and the flesh.
 
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I can’t speak for others, but for me the seeds for immorality were planted in those dreadful teenage years. Those were the years when the secular world enticed me with images and messages that as a young boy on his way to manhood should have never been exposed to. Throw in some some influencial music, some drinking and “boom,” the recipe for immorality is born. My childhood Catholic faith fell to the wayside, for about 25 or more years. The struggle to undo the damage from those years is real, because your brain reminds you there was pleasure there. And now there are even more options to open the door to a corrupt moral life, these poor teenage kids, I thought I had it bad. We need to pray for them and fight back against this evil world!
 
Your experience pretty much echoes mine. The part about being away from the Church for several decades too.
 
The big stumbling blocks I usually see are
  1. lust/ sexual desire
  2. greed/ love of money
  3. some kind of pride/ anger/ conflict with our neighbor, because they disrespect us or act in some manner we don’t think is right.
Of course there’s also 4. disrespect of God where people don’t think it’s important to pay any attention to God for whatever reason - maybe if they are not Catholic they don’t go to Mass, but a lot of them also don’t pray or have a relationship with God via their own religion, and only think about God when they need something big or there’s a death in the family etc.

I would say it becomes a bit easier to live a good moral life as you get older and closer to death and begin to sort out what’s truly important in life.

Also beware of saying it’s easy to avoid sin because sooner or later you will run into some temptation that is difficult for you personally.
 
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I have never had a problem with the Church’s claims intellectually.

But I’m lazy and self-centered and it’s fun to hold grudges plus I have wounds that want to be soothed NOW.

Not to mention that it’s very pleasant to be approved of and be popular and go with the culture which dispenses many back-pats and huggies to people who tow the line (and makes life a bit uncomfortable for people who dont)

And there you have it. If I didn’t have my faith keeping me in line I’d be a bigger mess than I am now
 
I dont believe it so much as trying to live a moral life, it’s understanding the fact that you cant, not without God. That’s from personal experience.

God never expected us to be perfect. He understands our struggles… but He wants us to always choose Him, face Him, love Him to never fear the light that is Him.

When we stop trying so hard to do the right thing and just place out trust in the Lord, the Holy Spirit will guide us to do what is morally right.

The struggle most Christans have is facing the light when they fall short. They start to think God wont love them, forgive them, want them… so they start to think why bother. Thats sad.
 
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In the world we live in, it is hard to live a good, moral life.
We are bombarded by the distractions of this world.
The good news is that we know what we should do. And we have confession and absolution, if we have the courage to confess and to ask for forgiveness. Hallelujah! 🙏🙏🙏
 
jesusmademe said:
Why do people live their lives the unnatural way?
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They were taught tge wrong stuff, have psychological problems or just want to believe the lie. Why believe a lie? It is all about living in a dream. We have death and dying in this world but we just do not want to see it. We do not have as good relationships with people as we wish but we just do not want to see how hurt we are or how much we hurt others.
It seems that sin gave us a deep pain and we just do not want to accept the purgation that is needed. We have to die to ourselves but it os hard and painful.
Luke 9:23
 
jesusmademe said:
What about Matthews 5:41?
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Guess I’m in trouble…

He meant alone. If God expected you to be perfect by yourself why would He give us The Holy Spirit? Why would He remind us that we are forgiven for our sins? Why would He have sent Jesus to die for us… if all we had to do was list what He wants and be perfect?

He wants us to be perfect but we arent. He knows that… yet He loves us anyway.

I dont have biblical references, maybe I can find some, maybe not but I do know nothing is possible without God including perfection.
 
You are correct.
All perfection come from God. There is nothing good that come from us. Everything good is a gift.
 
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Bishop Barron did a good video on this and said (paraphrasing)

“the Devil is powerful but the good news is Christ defeated him. The Devil is clever, intelligent and cunning but Christ gave us weapons to defeat him. The Eucharist, the Sacraments, Confession, the Saints, the Rosary. But as society becomes more secular, they slowly drop these weapons and Satan moves in…”
 
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I mean…didnt Jesus say narrow is the gate to heaven?

I can’t imagine it being easy. Everyone technically has different criterias as well. I imagine God asks more of some people than others.

You can also do the right things, but if you don’t love God enough, then that sucks for you. For some it may be easy to have that connection, for others it doesn’t seem to be there.
 
jesusmademe said:
Is it really that hard to live a good moral life?
God didn’t ask much of us. He told us to do the examination of conscience, confess our sins and attend Mass and recieve Communion.
I can understand if people do not go to Mass as they are non-Catholic
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One of my favorite lines by G.K. Chesterton goes, “The Christian ideal has not been tried and found wanting; it has been found difficult and left untried.” I think he’s spot on, but in the spirit of Christ’s Sermon on the Mount and gospel teachings.

It seems to me that you’re raising two separate questions: (1) the living of a moral life and (2) the living of the life that Christ calls us to. The two things are not the same. It seems to me that any person on the planet can do the first one (to include atheists). However, when we read Christ’s words to us in the gospels, it seems to me that He is calling us to a fairly extreme moral life, one that goes light-years beyond just participation in mass and the sacraments.

And please don’t think for a moment that my words here are critical or judgmental of the OP. I am “chief among sinners,” as in, if a homeless person on my way into work were to ask me for my coat, I’d tell him “no” and continue walking… The last thing I would honestly do would be to give him my “cloak and tunic too.”

Living the life of a good person doesn’t really seem so hard at all. Living the life spelled out by all of Christ’s teachings seems, in a word, impossible, unless you were truly free from (detached from) everything in this world, even your own life. And how deep would one’s spirituality need to be to arrive at that place? The moral life and the Christian ideal seem world’s apart from one other.
 
jesusmademe said:
God didn’t ask much of us.
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“You have heard that it was said to the people long ago, ‘You shall not murder, and anyone who murders will be subject to judgment.’ But I tell you that anyone who is angry with a brother or sister will be subject to judgment."

“You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall not commit adultery.’ But I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart. If your right eye causes you to stumble, gouge it out and throw it away. It is better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to be thrown into hell. And if your right hand causes you to stumble, cut it off and throw it away. It is better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to go into hell."

Easy peasy.
 
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That depends entirely on what specific vices a person has habituated by constant repetition. It’s much easier to maintain innocence than to return once you’ve strayed.
 
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