Micro-examination of conscience

[fakename]

I think I’ve committed certain sins I probably wouldn’t have discovered without the method of micro-analyzing my memories, etc. And for that I am glad that this method has yielded such good fruits, but at the same time, I must ask if anyone else also likes “micro-analyzing” your conscience, “how did it work for you? What pitfalls does it bring?”

One I can think of, is that micro-analyzing implies that all your memories are correct, but that’s not true, so micro-analysis of your conscience is founded on a rather unstable bedrock. Where does one go from there?

 

[VonDerTann]

With all due respect, Fakename, and I mean this in the most charitable manner possible, I think you are way over-thinking how we analyze our consciences, and what you are writing of smacks of OCD.

You write:
“I think I’ve committed certain sins I probably wouldn’t have discovered without the method of micro-analyzing my memories, etc.”
–What I take from this is that you did not initially think you sinned but “micro-analyzed” your memories. I think this is counterproductive. We can always “re-analyze our memories” but how does that really help us, ethically speaking. You did not think you sinned. Period. Now you have decided to re-analyze these issues…why?

“One I can think of, is that micro-analyzing implies that all your memories are correct, but that’s not true,…”
–So then why “micro-analyze at all?”
–You can go – and likely are going – to an extreme. I do not think I sinned, but I “micro-analyze” and decide maybe I did…so I consider whether my memory is faulty…soon, I decide that I sinned by allowing my memory to be faulty…etc.

Doing this, you will spend tons of time reanalyzing memories, and pretty soon you will miss life (not to mention making yourself crazy).

Where does one go? One makes a sincere effort to analyze their conscience, not constantly replay episodes from one’s life to “re-analyze” or “microanalyze” for sins. Period.

 

[Jaypeeto4]

While the church does say that if you remember a genuine mortal sin that you forgot to confess, to confess it next time you go to the sacrament, that “remembrance” doesn’t mean that you have fallen BACK into mortal sin until you confess this late-remembered sin!!!

Micro-analyzing your conscience can make you go nuts.
It’s just as dangerous as failing utterly to do any exam of conscience at all.

It can make you accuse yourself, seriously, of “sins” you have never actually or
intentionally even committed.

Don’t do that to yourself. Ask God for guidance in discovering what you need to confess, and gently take it from there.
God bless you,
Jaypeeto4
+JMJ+

 

[fakename]

Let me ask a few more questions (and their not rhetorical, I pretty much never ask rhetorical ones):

1. isn’t it a mark of a good man to risk insanity to have only a moment of goodness in return?
   isn’t it a vice to fear madness when you have a chance to be good?
2. Granted that the mind is inscrutable, there seems to be 3 tiers of the mind: the conscious (realm of thoughts, ideas, the denotation), the semi-conscious (realm of feelings, and connotations), and the realm of semblances (the shadows of the conscious which seem to appear to be ideas and images but are only faintly glimpsed). Of these three tiers, which ones are fitting subjects for examination? That is, if one sees the semblance or image of a sin, and therefore is unable to distinguish it from the semi or the conscious mind, then should this be evidence? Should it be enough to reevaluate or totally re-interpret a thought of the conscious or semi-conscious?

 

[VonDerTann]

Fakename, your new questions indicate precisely the issues I wrote about.

You write:

“1) isn’t it a mark of a good man to risk insanity to have only a moment of goodness in return?”
–NO. It is NOT “the mark of a good man to risk insanity,” and I can’t image why you would think otherwise.

“isn’t it a vice to fear madness when you have a chance to be good?”
–No, and the fact that you think it might be a vice to fear madness, quite frankly, indicates that you are seeing vices - just as you are seeing sins - where there are none.

“2) Granted that the mind is inscrutable, there seems to be 3 tiers of the mind: the conscious (realm of thoughts, ideas, the denotation), the semi-conscious (realm of feelings, and connotations), and the realm of semblances (the shadows of the conscious which seem to appear to be ideas and images but are only faintly glimpsed). Of these three tiers, which ones are fitting subjects for examination?”
–I don’t know where you are deciding there are “3 tiers of the mind.”

People don’t live life this way, where they talk about “distinguishing” “image of a sin, and therefore is unable to distinguish it from the semi or the conscious mind, then should this be evidence?” With due respect, your post makes no sense, and I belive you should have a serious talk with your confessor (and ask him about OCD) about how you examine your conscience.

 

[fakename]

Fakename, your new questions indicate precisely the issues I wrote about.

You write:

“1) isn’t it a mark of a good man to risk insanity to have only a moment of goodness in return?”
–NO. It is NOT “the mark of a good man to risk insanity,” and I can’t image why you would think otherwise.

“isn’t it a vice to fear madness when you have a chance to be good?”
–No, and the fact that you think it might be a vice to fear madness, quite frankly, indicates that you are seeing vices - just as you are seeing sins - where there are none.

“2) Granted that the mind is inscrutable, there seems to be 3 tiers of the mind: the conscious (realm of thoughts, ideas, the denotation), the semi-conscious (realm of feelings, and connotations), and the realm of semblances (the shadows of the conscious which seem to appear to be ideas and images but are only faintly glimpsed). Of these three tiers, which ones are fitting subjects for examination?”
–I don’t know where you are deciding there are “3 tiers of the mind.”

People don’t live life this way, where they talk about “distinguishing” “image of a sin, and therefore is unable to distinguish it from the semi or the conscious mind, then should this be evidence?” With due respect, your post makes no sense, and I belive you should have a serious talk with your confessor (and ask him about OCD) about how you examine your conscience.

** Frankly I find self-analysis to be fascinating and a good use of one’s time -apparentlyn no one else notices the three tiers; a fact that is beyond me. But let me explain: clearly between two extremes there is a middle ground. But in the mind there are two extremes (1) the clearly comprehended and (2) the none-existent and only generically grasped. So there is a middle ground (3) the phantasms and half-remembered ideas. So clearly there are three tiers to the mind.

Secondly as the for the sanity being worse than morality thing, again I’m surprised and I’d like to see your argument for saying that the good is worse than sanity.

My own thesis is that sanity is worse than morality and so, sanity is worth giving up for the latter. This is clear from several observations: 1) life itself is less preferable than the good, wherefore martyrdom is highly esteemed. So a fortoriori that is, much more so would it follow that sanity (a part of life) is less preferable to goodness. 2) Socrates was infected with a divine madness and whatever a wise man does should be imitated everything being equal. Indeed this philosopher states that not all madness is bad but some is sent as a god-like inspiration.

**