Not forgiving yourself.. The unforgivable sin?

[Daniel_Boucher]

Yes, you are absolutely right. Public humiliation is the perfect humbling experience for the whole Church community. It is like telling everyone “I’m sorry, I was wrong.”

 

[Salonika]

Catching up on this thread after a few days and what a lot of food for thought. Here’s some of them.

Trader:

Only God can forgive sin and He does that most generously…… We only have to accept that forgiveness ……. The unforgivable sin is the final rejection of that forgiveness. It’s source is an arrogant pride that we can be like God and don’t need Him.

Found your comment useful Trader. Made me realise that one of my main problems is not with being forgiven but forgiving myself for having been so stupid, so unthinking, so careless. Suspect it goes back to “Be perfect as your Father who is heaven, is perfect” again.

some people are damaged by parents who, for example, are never satisfied with grades or their behavior, &/or even the way their children look and/or what have you and so the child grows up feeling s/he is not worthy… or loved no matter what… children’s images of God are formed first, and for the most part, for good, by parents…

'Hopefully this level of self-loathing is a rare thing… but in any case… it can often be very difficult to forgive oneself… for a host of reasons.

What also happens in that situation is children see God as the punishing/punitive parent that they can never please. Then it can be hard to even consider to ask God for forgiveness let alone accept it. Or if they do they may think that that the condition of forgiveness is to never do that again.

Scar:

The arrogance of in effect saying to God that I don’t need your forgiveness is the unpardonable sin, and only unpardonable because you have refused to ask.

Yes, it probably seems like arrogance to some people. But for some people arrogance would be in daring to ask God for forgiveness or forgiving yourself when you are almost certain to repeat a particular sin.

Trader:

When sins are forgiven, it is God who forgives. That forgiveness is not dependent on whether or not we feel forgiven.

I can intellectually accept that – but often I don’t feel forgiven and so I continue to carry an emotional burden and feel guilty because I can’t feel forgiven.
Sea Bass:

I think a big issue of “not forgiving yourself” has to do with regret. At least that’s the way it works for me. I still kind of hold on to the sin, even after I’m forgiven, to help me prevent it from happening again. I’ve recently have gone through an issue that I haven’t “forgiven” myself of, but I do realize that God has forgiven me. So, while I still feel incredibly guilty, I know that I am forgiven from God. I take the guilt as a positive, because it reminds me of what I did and what sorts of behavior led to the sin, which I am trying my best to change.

You can’t change the past, but you can most certainly learn from the past and past actions. My advice to you is to tell yourself that God has forgiven you, and chalk up the sin as experience. By believing the fact that you are forgiven through the Church and through Jesus, you have already reconciled with yourself as well, even if you feel guilty still. Once I came to this conclusion, I felt immediately better about myself. Even though the bad feelings and guiltiness linger around for a while, use them to power your future actions to prevent the act, if the opportunity presents itself.

I hope this makes sense somewhat and helps

Yes, it does. Thank you Sea Bass.

Think we need to find out what works for us - if we don’t we continue to go round weighed down by a sin. In that state we are more likely to commit other sins and we are likely to overlook what others need as our concentration is on ourselves. Maybe too we will not do something for someone else because we feel “I won’t do the correct thing.” So what if our help is only 80% appropriate, that 80% may make a great difference to someone.

 

[Salonika]

Sea Bass:

I agree with this. I don’t worry about feeling guilty about an action for a little while after it occurs. I worry more about the sinful actions that I do on a regular basis that don’t make me feel guilty……

But I tend to think, at least in folks that try to live as Christ did, that guilt is a positive. It makes you think about things that are wrong or missing about your life…. What led me to it? And the proceeding actions and complete ignorance of warning flags

Congratulations on your courage into looking so clearly and deeply into what you did.
Don’t think we can stop doing wrong things unless we understand why we do them and, if appropriate, clean up our environment (mental, physical, emotional) so we minimise the chances of a regression.

Distracted:

i think the reason i feel so bad about my sins sometimes (thank God i don’t feel this way all the time…) is because of simple low self-esteem. I was given the msg early in life that i could do nothing right… Jesus has and still is in the process of disabusing me of this message… but it is sometimes 1 step forward, 2 steps back.

And that is what is so frustrating for some of us. Sometimes we know someone (or a friend does) who has changed their life around or parts of it without ever (to outsiders at least) ever looking back.

But we don’t see what goes on for them in the dead of night, in the same way as they don’t see our battles. Often we have built up a pattern over a number of years, so we need to be gentle with ourselves as we try and change it.

 

[distracted]

Then it can be hard to even consider to ask God for forgiveness let alone accept it.

this is so true… I know of someone who didn’t want to even try to approach God after years of backsliding… but kept feeling that God was too holy… wouldn’t take back such an unholy person… Fortunately, the person found the Church… All those other “churches” didn’t have the power to deliver from this malady… of not feeling worthy… Thank you for reminding me of this… i find it interesting to think of such things… because, for one, is shows why ALL need to be in the Catholic Church and benefit from Her truth… the truth that “will set you free”…

 

[David_W]

Jesus told the story of the prodical son. In the story it dinn’t seen like the son forgave himself at all. The father on the other hand welcomed him back and rejoyced. How can we argue with the words of Jesus who is by the way GOD. Another thing that we see in the gospels that even as Jesus was being tortured and crucified he asked the father to “forgive them for they know not what they do” So unless your sin is worse than killing the son of God I am pretty sure God can forgive you if you are truely sorry. Actually not pretty sure positive. Your sins were washed clean by the blood of Jesus. Not just forgivin but absolved as if they never happened. What a great thing Jesus did for us. Happy Easter.

 

[distracted]

But we don’t see what goes on for them in the dead of night, in the same way as they don’t see our battles. Often we have built up a pattern over a number of years, so we need to be gentle with ourselves as we try and change it.

i’ve noticed that i feel far less… an urge to beat up on myself when with Jesus @ the Real Presence than when not There… which i guess stands to reason… In fact, the last time I was @ the RP i didn’t feel the urge to do that at all…

People tell me Jesus is “everywhere” (when they see i like to spend time with HIm There) but Jesus is not … God the Father kinda is… but even then, out in the world, outside His Real Presence, there is, of course, the presence of the evil one and his followers also…

which is why i feel guilt, anxiety and a lot of other negative things when not in the RP…