Brothers and sisters,
After a time of doing quite well in this area, I have sinned three times over the past week. This most recent time is especially disheartening because I just feel sick and weak (I can’t even make an excuse.).
I am also trying to make the final decision of whether I want to be confirmed and join the Catholic Church. I don’t know if I’m ready at this time or not, or if I should spend more time reading and trying to make a decision.
Dan
- sins against chastity are a long cross that takes a long apprenticeship in self-mastery and that may in fact never abandon us (remember the words of Christ to St. Paul, who asked him 3 times to remove a certain torment from him? “My grace is enough for you, for in weakness my power is made perfect.”). Confess as needed, and kindle your devotion towards the Blessed Virgin, for only by falling in love with her pristine purity and her unblemished chastity you will learn to find all lust thoroughly disgusting and to consider the human sexuality no longer a worldly and somehow inferior thing, but as a great Sacrament, a holy union, a life-giving union, a mystical reflection of the Holy Trinity. Do not be distressed, for that is the greatest trick of the adversary: not so much to make us fall, but to make us despair after falling. The way of the Christian is a Way of the Cross: the closer you are to the end, the more often you fall, and the more it hurts to move up. Never ask “How much longer?” but always stand up and thank Christ, saying: “However longer!”
- The Holy Spirit calls you to be sealed with His indelible mark. Speak to your RCIA organizer or to a priest about your doubts, because I can assure you as someone who has gone through RCIA that never does spiritual warfare get stronger for us as when we are Catechumens - and I am sure it is ten times as hard when we are discerning a religious vocation or entering the novitiate.
Never like now “it is not good for man to be alone”. Stay close to a priest for spiritual direction, let him know the motions of your soul, and remember this: the Holy Spirit longs to unite you with the mystical body of Christ, that is the Church, so it is never the inspiration of God to somehow delay your full communion with the Church - never.
Your approach towards the Church should be like that man whom, on the road, met Christ and the apostles and, having dropped what he was doing, ran after them saying: “I will follow you wherever you go!” or like Zacchaeus, who being too short to see Christ and finding himself behind a big crowd, was not discouraged, but outran everyone and climbed a tree - and Christ rewarded Him by visiting his house and having dinner with him. Your approach towards the Church should be like that of the poor father whom felt unworthy of receiving Christ in his house, yet begged him to come, “lets his little one were to die”.
I tell you that your immortal soul is as precious in the eyes of Christ as the daughter of that man, and that you should long for the life-giving chrism of the Holy Spirit, that will fill your soul with the seven great gifts and seal it as belonging to Christ, and to Christ alone, with a strength that will all the more ratify the Baptismal Seal to its fullness. For even the Apostles belonged fully to Christ, yet they became fully militant saints when the Spirit descended on them at Pentecost.
Go forth, fear nothing, and confess often - for it is in living with a penitent heart and in confessing often that we purify our souls and quickly reach great peaks of holiness.
I suggest you find online or in a bookstore the book “Spiritual Combat” by Dom Lorenzo Scupoli. This book is 5 centuries old and has brought many souls to great holiness, and quite a few to the glory of the altars.
I’ll be praying too.