Mortal Sin and spiritual experience

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IvanKaramozov

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when I was sixteen I loved going up to the local University library and check out books. One day I locked my keys in my car and decided I’d walk home. I happened to have a Rosary with me so I bagan to pray it. I remembered C.S. Lewis’s book “The Screwtape Letters” how the demon said that at the present man was closest to God. Essentially that dwelling in the past or future was destructive to the soul. So while praying I determined to remain fully in the present.

For those next few hours I felt I lived as a Saint, in a state of pure bliss and in total love of God and my fellow man, while in a state of prayer.

My problem is that at the time, at the time of what I felt was my greatest and if not only, one of my only spiriual experiences I was in a state of mortal sin. In St. Theresa’s “Interior Castle” she seemed to maintain that a soul in mortal sin could not fo a truely good deed.

I was wondering, what is the Church’s position, can a sould in mortal sin do a truely good act, and have an authentic spiritual experience?

Thanks
 
It sounds to me that your act was one of contrition and if made out of love for God, you may not have been in mortal sin.
 
Has it occurred to you that that Rosary may have been in response to the superabundant grace of God? Ultimately the fact that you have recognized this may have been the result of that very Rosary.

What will you do now Ivan? Respond again and get to confession and begin the path home, or remain where you are?

Listen to the Holy Spirit…🙂
 
IvanKaramozov said:
I was wondering, what is the Church’s position, can a sould in mortal sin do a truely good act, and have an authentic spiritual experience?

Thanks
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When you say that you were in a state of mortal sin, do you mean that while praying you continued to be attached to the sin you had committed, or simply that you hadn’t gotten to confession yet?

If the former–if your will was still committed to lust or anger or greed or pride or whatever your sin had been–then I would say that you were deluding yourself. If the latter, then it sounds as if in Catholic terms you had been granted the grace of perfect contrition–a love of God’s goodness that frees you from attachment to your sin.

Edwin
 
I don’t believe anyone is beyond the reach of God. Go to the sacraments starting with confession and reconciliation. I was away for a long time and what ever good came to me during that time came from him. He is good whatever I am. Pray for me.
 
Grace that is saving in nature. I was in deep trouble when the Lord intervened in my life. I felt the same as you described for days and my sins where brought out of me. I wanted them to be gone forever, so I went to confession. I had not been since I was 8 and I was 34 at the time. I was in extreme sin and suicidal when He revealed His love for me, but I knew I had to straighting up the damage I had done to myself and others. I will be in penance to some extent the rest of my life as long as I continue to turn to the Lord and I can’t do it without Him. It is by the merits and mercy of Christ that this was granted to you. It is Him you owe. Don’t turn away.
 
Church_Militant said:
Has it occurred to you that that Rosary may have been in response to the superabundant grace of God? Ultimately the fact that you have recognized this may have been the result of that very Rosary.

What will you do now Ivan? Respond again and get to confession and begin the path home, or remain where you are?

Listen to the Holy Spirit…🙂
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what do you mean by superabundant grace?

To be clear, when I say I felt I lived as a saint, I don’t mean some haughty perfection, I just mean I felt that for those few hours I felt like I was in union with God, and new what it was to truely love God and hummanity, if that makes sense.

Then of course I fell away, again, but I seem to remember that I went to confession and I felt like I had this new resolve to be pious, but I was in mortal sin, so I don’t see how this could be
 
Contarini said:
When you say that you were in a state of mortal sin, do you mean that while praying you continued to be attached to the sin you had committed, or simply that you hadn’t gotten to confession yet?

If the former–if your will was still committed to lust or anger or greed or pride or whatever your sin had been–then I would say that you were deluding yourself. If the latter, then it sounds as if in Catholic terms you had been granted the grace of perfect contrition–a love of God’s goodness that frees you from attachment to your sin.

Edwin
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I had been in sin for a long time, and haden’t really had any inclination to go to confession, however after this experience I beleive I did go to confession.

It was really beyond words, so perhapse it was the latter and Mary managed to turn my heart to love of God and free myself from my sin?
 
IvanKaramozov said:
What do you mean?
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The way you prayed and encountered God sounded like something rooted out of love, for which you had rejected your sin. Granted I read that into your answer…you didn’t say it outright. But your mention of love is what triggered my comment:

From the Catholic Encyclopedia:
*Catholic teaching distinguishes a twofold hatred of sin; one, perfect contrition, rises from the love of God Who has been grievously offended; the other, imperfect contrition, arises principally from some other motives, such as loss of heaven, fear of hell, the heinousness of sin, etc. (Council of Trent, Sess. XIV, ch. iv de Contritione).
*
You know better than I if you had genuine repentance for your sins out of love.
 
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