Overcoming Masturbation Habit

[MrTambourineMan]

Hello all. I went to confession two weeks ago and confessed the act of impurity (I can’t even tell you how many times I’ve confessed it). I have gone 13 days without committing this act. (The longest period of time i have ever gone.) Today I started to fall into temptation and began the act, but stopped when I regained control of myself. Did I commit a mortal sin? My confessor has told me in order for it to be mortal sin the act would need to be finished, but I’m not so sure. What do you all think?

Pray for me as I will for you. God bless!

 

[smichhertz]

I would listen to your confessor’s advice. He understands more about your situation than anyone on this forum will. If it’s an addiction, culpability can be reduced so that it’s not mortal if the act is started and then halted. I’m inclined to agree that it is not mortal in your case based on the information you’ve supplied. If it continues to trouble you - no harm in going to confession just to play it safe!

 

[ProdglArchitect]

Basedo n what you described, I don’t think you committed a mortal sin. Probably a venial one, but I don’t think a mortal one since as soon as you became aware of what you were doing you stopped. There are a lot of people on these forums who deal with the same issue, myself included, and we have all gone through similar experiences.

That said, I tend to always play it safe and avoid reception of the Eucharist until I do confess it. I don’t think it’s a mortal sin, but I also don’t want to risk further sin by partaking the the body and blood of Christ while unsure of the state of my soul.

 

[EmeraldOak]

IDK, here’s what the CCC says on the subject - *Paragraph 2352 - By masturbation is to be understood the deliberate stimulation of the genital organs in order to derive sexual pleasure. “Both the Magisterium of the Church, in the course of a constant tradition, and the moral sense of the faithful have been in no doubt and have firmly maintained that masturbation is an intrinsically and gravely disordered action.” “The deliberate use of the sexual faculty, for whatever reason, outside of marriage is essentially contrary to its purpose.” For here sexual pleasure is sought outside of “the sexual relationship which is demanded by the moral order and in which the total meaning of mutual self-giving and human procreation in the context of true love is achieved.”

To form an equitable judgment about the subjects’ moral responsibility and to guide pastoral action, one must take into account the affective immaturity, force of acquired habit, conditions of anxiety or other psychological or social factors that lessen, if not even reduce to a minimum, moral culpability.*

My prayers are with you. Don’t get discouraged, don’t give up. May you have victory soon!

 

[phil_at_dayboro]

Goodness gracious me

 

[InNomineDomini]

No one can address your moral culpability. We simply cannot judge your interior life to that extent.

Having said that, I’d like to give my opinion on something.

While it’s true that force of habit can diminish the culpability of a particular sin, it is also true that (a) we have some responsibility for the habits we’ve formed and (b) we are responsible for how much or how little we’ve tried to overcome our habits, including the extent to which we’ve sought professional help when needed and when possible.

Especially with regard to point (b), we could point to two types of people.

On the one hand, there’s the person struggling with masturbation who has a support and accountability group in place, who attends psychological therapy, who has a means in place to make access to porn nigh impossible, but who nonetheless falls on occasion, but who has done what they humanly can, and who always puts up a sincere and prayerful fight.

On the other hand, there’s the individual who doesn’t want to masturbate, who always confesses it when they do it and who truly has a sincere purpose of amendment, but who has done very little to actually overcome their habit in practical, natural terms, such as those described above.

The force of habit, and how it diminishes culpability, is certainly not the same in both of these cases!

Another point.

Truly and manifestly intending to commit a mortal sin – but yet not committing it for whatever reason – **is itself **mortally sinful, objectively speaking.

In the Mass, during the Confiteor, we confess to greatly sinning

in [our] thoughts and in [our] words

*Truly intending to commit a sin is a form of sinning in our thoughts.
*
Now, it could be the case that someone could begin the process of masturbation simply by turning on their computer to view pornography. Upon their machine turning on, they could be reminded of that lovely painting of Jesus they use as their desktop, and because of it feel so bad that they repent entirely and go off to do some good deed instead.

But this does not make them innocent.

They still sinned in their thoughts to the point that they began a process designed to directly lead to a particular mortal sin.

So, as always, I think the best advice is to go to Confession, and mention whether or not you think you had a true intention to commit this sin, or if you just sort of accidentally found yourself doing it, and then proverbially smacked yourself out of your stupor.

Also, if you have a great deal of trouble with this habit, I would certainly urge you to attempt to seek out professional help, so that you could find some therapies that can help you on a natural level.