Others sins?

[ADiosgracias]

I commit the same sin again and again. I’m struggling with this for a long time but I can not free myself of it yet. The problem is that in my head I can think of other sins. When I go to confession, is the only one that bothers me and takes all my effort to eradicate it. Do I try to see others sins that I should have? or I should concentrate in this one?

 

[louisak]

A couple of points.

1. In confession you are required to confess all mortal sins since your last confession. Confessing venial sins is optional. So, you need to make an examination of conscience as best you can, and confess all mortal sins, not just the one that you are bothered about.
2. Many people have a particular sin which they struggle with and seem to make no progress. Often this becomes a source of much shame and discouragement. What people often forget is this: the amount of shame/embarrassment that we feel is no indicator of how serious the sin is in God’s eyes. Sometimes what really offends God the most is a totally different sin that we hardly think about. The lesson here is, don’t get hung up on how you feel about this or that sin. Don’t beat up on yourself because you don’t seem to be making progress. God’s Spirit works in us when we are at peace.
3. If you are in doubt about anything, ask your confessor. If you don’t have a regular confessor, it might help to get one. A spiritual director would be great too, although they can be hard to find. You will get MUCH better advice from a confessor/director than from some strangers on the Internet, no matter how good our intentions are.

God bless.

 

[Matt_Collins]

Stop and think about it for a moment… Wouldn’t it be kind of a sign of instability if you were to have an entirely new list of sins every time you go to confession?

The fact of the matter is that we all have our particular strengths and weaknesses. By the time we’re adults, they’re pretty much written in stone. A wise confessor once told me that “People don’t change - they improve.” What he meant is that I will always have my particular struggles, but if I persevere in struggling against the sins I tend to commit, then I will, over time, improve.

This isn’t to say, of course, that we don’t occasionally go completely off the rails and do somthing out of character. But that’s just the point… it is out of character.

It really makes all the sense in the world that a lazy man will have to struggle with laziness for his entire life. Or that a gossip will have to struggle with the desire to spread tales about others.

I would say that you sound kind of normal. I’d be much more concerned if you were always confessing different things.