Sinful desires at beginning of conversion process

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andyklein

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I having been having very bad thoughts over the last few days that have increased my distance from God, and I need to get them off my chest before they become a deep problem. Right now I should be getting closer to God and feeling excited about time winding down until I can be initiated into His church. Instead, I have been forgetting about these things and lusting over my ridiculous material and worldly wants. My mind has been focusing on what almost every 19 year old guy’s mind is focusing on (no need to elaborate). I want to try to join a fraternity, knowing exactly what that entails. It is actually because of what it entails that I want to join one. My mind wanders at mass and in my prayers. I dress in ways that girls will notice me. And I can’t put into words why I want to become Catholic. This makes me think that I am not worthy enough or mature enough to be saved. I spent an hour alone in the pews in a dark church the other morning just trying to deny myself and dismiss everything in this world. Yet, I still have these sinful desires.

How big of a problem do I have here? Is it natural for me to have these desires when I have recently been told by God to join his church?
 
Andy, it’s a journey. It doesn’t happen all at once.
You’re honest, that’s a good start. Give yourself time.
When you being at university, you don’t give up saying I know nothing and have made no progress.
You go ahead and learn and grow as time passes.
God knows we’re weak humans.
What God asks is that we keep trying.

Some of the greatest saints, like Augustine and Francis of Assisi took time to become less worldly. And even St Therese of Lisieux complained that she was sometimes distracted in prayer. Don’t worry Andy, God will lead you little by little.
 
I believe that the struggle itself implies that you are on a faith journey. Your warring selves–the self that wants to follow Christ and the self that wants to follow the world–are battling. The self that will win over time is the one you ‘feed’ and encourage the most. No matter how many times you falter, do not allow guilt to get a foothold and always repent and return; our Father is pretty amazing in His track record of forgiveness! Battle on! I wish you the best.
 
My Friend,
Code: 
       Before I get to responding to your post I wanted to give you a little background information. It is 2:27 AM and I am sitting in my bed in the Fraternity house as a senior here at school reading the second post I've clicked on here at CAF. I don't have a keyboard for my laptop since I spilled coke all over it, so I decided to get up out of bed and find my keyboard in order to respond specifically to your post. 

       First of all I just came into the Church this Easter, so that means that God literally called me, changed my heart and drew me into the beautiful Catholic faith. My conversion was so powerful and so abrupt that many people believed me insincere. I will tell you this though, I struggled with masturbation and pornography for years and years. Ever since I was in seventh grade. Part of the reason I decided to join the Church was that when I started praying the Rosary, I stopped. That's right, at 22 years old after being addicted for 7 years, I quit the very same week I started praying the rosary. Call it coincidence? Absolutely not. 

         However, I will say that conversion into the Catholic Church does not wash away all of your old habits and personality. You are still the same person, just with a different disposition of heart. The temptations and sexual bombardments and attacks will NEVER stop. That is why St. Paul tells us to put on the armor of God to fend off Satan. 

       I would also like to contend that Satan, seeing that you have found the truth, is going to redouble his efforts to separate you, alienate you, and accuse you of not being good enough to follow Jesus. Therefore please do not get discouraged. We have the beautiful sacrament of reconciliation to help repair those wounds. 

          It might also be of use to you to tell you that once I stopped praying the Rosary I fell into those nasty sins again. It sounds cliche but it literally is true. The Rosary is such a powerful weapon against temptation it is the thing that has helped me the most through out this year. I go to confession very often and I have to have a strong devotion to the blessed mother in order to help me with these problems. But I believe with time, it will become easier.

         Last but not least, I will say that joining a Fraternity is not necessarily a bad idea. I think that you can be a witnessing apostle to those who are in your fraternity as well. The problem lies with how susceptible to temptation you are. If you are putting yourself in an occasion of sin far more often then if you didn't join, then I don't think you should be in a Fraternity. It has been a great challenge for me, since I went through 4 years of college....partying in the fraternity before I converted.
Anyways excuse my mumble jumble, but I thought it might be of some help to you. I will pray a decade for you tonight on my Rosary.

God Bless you and welcome to the One true holy and apostolic Church
 
Andy, Jesus came to save sinners, not the self-righteous… as it says in the Gospels.

Pray at least one decade of the rosary every day, and ask our Lord for His help. When you convert you have access to Confession, nothing you confess to the priest will surprise him or shock him. As you convert get involved in any parish activity/service you can.

God will look after you. There will always be times when you feel distanced from God but you just soldier on.
 
Shyne88 said:
… I would also like to contend that Satan, seeing that you have found the truth, is going to redouble his efforts to separate you, alienate you, and accuse you of not being good enough to follow Jesus. Therefore please do not get discouraged. We have the beautiful sacrament of reconciliation to help repair those wounds.
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Wow, thank you Shyne88 for posting. I have had my own spiritual battles when praying; and I’ve often questioned my Catholic faith because of this. What you have said has been extremely helpful.

andyklein, don’t give up; the Dude upstairs loves us very much.
 
andyklein said:
I having been having very bad thoughts over the last few days that have increased my distance from God, and I need to get them off my chest before they become a deep problem. Right now I should be getting closer to God and feeling excited about time winding down until I can be initiated into His church. Instead, I have been forgetting about these things and lusting over my ridiculous material and worldly wants. My mind has been focusing on what almost every 19 year old guy’s mind is focusing on (no need to elaborate). I want to try to join a fraternity, knowing exactly what that entails. It is actually because of what it entails that I want to join one. My mind wanders at mass and in my prayers. I dress in ways that girls will notice me. And I can’t put into words why I want to become Catholic. This makes me think that I am not worthy enough or mature enough to be saved. I spent an hour alone in the pews in a dark church the other morning just trying to deny myself and dismiss everything in this world. Yet, I still have these sinful desires.

How big of a problem do I have here? Is it natural for me to have these desires when I have recently been told by God to join his church?
Click to expand...
*It is thought that the devil attacks those who are getting closer to God. You will always have temptations, you will always have to fight distractions during Mass - just remember that you need to arm yourself with graces obtainable from the Sacraments. Adoration is wonderful and will also help you.

:)*
 
Shyne88 said:
My Friend,
Code: 
       Before I get to responding to your post I wanted to give you a little background information. It is 2:27 AM and I am sitting in my bed in the Fraternity house as a senior here at school reading the second post I've clicked on here at CAF. I don't have a keyboard for my laptop since I spilled coke all over it, so I decided to get up out of bed and find my keyboard in order to respond specifically to your post. 

       First of all I just came into the Church this Easter, so that means that God literally called me, changed my heart and drew me into the beautiful Catholic faith. My conversion was so powerful and so abrupt that many people believed me insincere. I will tell you this though, I struggled with masturbation and pornography for years and years. Ever since I was in seventh grade. Part of the reason I decided to join the Church was that when I started praying the Rosary, I stopped. That's right, at 22 years old after being addicted for 7 years, I quit the very same week I started praying the rosary. Call it coincidence? Absolutely not. 

  ........................................................................................................................
Anyways excuse my mumble jumble, but I thought it might be of some help to you. I will pray a decade for you tonight on my Rosary.

God Bless you and welcome to the One true holy and apostolic Church
Click to expand...
*I loved your post and would like to share that I was away from the Church for over 20 years and then one day I guess the Holy Spirit tapped me on the shoulder and I returned. One thing which pleased me was that I found myself avoiding certain sins when I thought that I would have to confess them in Confession! So I stopped doing them! Isn’t Confession great?

:):):)*
 
Cinette said:
*I loved your post and would like to share that I was away from the Church for over 20 years and then one day I guess the Holy Spirit tapped me on the shoulder and I returned. One thing which pleased me was that I found myself avoiding certain sins when I thought that I would have to confess them in Confession! So I stopped doing them! Isn’t Confession great?

:):):)*
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My only complaint as a new Catholic convert is that I think I’m bothering the priests way too often to go to confession. When dealing with these sins of lust and temptation, I fall quite frequently. It’s often when I’m not having recourse to the Blessed Mother to ask her to pray for me.

I feel like I’m pestering all of the priests to go at least weekly. The thing is I love going to daily mass, and building up meritorious prayer, but I can only do these things with a full heart in the state of grace. Therefore I feel like the priests are going “oh its you again”, or “would you relax about going to confession”.

For example if I get back from late mass on Sunday, and then screw up Monday morning, do I really have to spend the ENTIRE week.abstaining from the eucharist, doing penance, and preparing myself to go to confession on Saturday? (That’s an extreme example but very noteworthy).

However I will never give up. Jesus fell three times on the way to the cross. I’m definitely making progress. :yeah_me: But it isn’t as fast as I would like.

Anyways my advice to the OP is do not give up!
 
andyklein said:
I having been having very bad thoughts over the last few days that have increased my distance from God, and I need to get them off my chest before they become a deep problem. Right now I should be getting closer to God and feeling excited about time winding down until I can be initiated into His church. Instead, I have been forgetting about these things and lusting over my ridiculous material and worldly wants. My mind has been focusing on what almost every 19 year old guy’s mind is focusing on (no need to elaborate). I want to try to join a fraternity, knowing exactly what that entails. It is actually because of what it entails that I want to join one. My mind wanders at mass and in my prayers. I dress in ways that girls will notice me. And I can’t put into words why I want to become Catholic. This makes me think that I am not worthy enough or mature enough to be saved. I spent an hour alone in the pews in a dark church the other morning just trying to deny myself and dismiss everything in this world. Yet, I still have these sinful desires.

How big of a problem do I have here? Is it natural for me to have these desires when I have recently been told by God to join his church?
Click to expand...
Yes. Absolutely. I had the same experience when I was in RCIA in 1999 (plus a sudden illness that nearly killed me).It’s not proof that you are wrong in seeking to become Catholic. On the hypothesis that God does want you to become Catholic, you would expect Satan to try to stop you. And even just from a psychological point of view, it’s natural to have a reaction of this kind, I think.

On the other hand, you do need to be sure that you are doing the right thing.

It’s not about being “worthy” or being “mature enough.” It’s about truth. Where is your desire for the truth drawing you? If you drop out, will you be moving toward a more wholehearted, committed love of truth and goodness, or away from it?

Oh, and when I had this experience in 1999 I dropped out. I think this was probably the wrong thing to do, though as with any choice we make God has brought good out of it.

Edwin
 
Contarini said:
Yes. Absolutely. I had the same experience when I was in RCIA in 1999 (plus a sudden illness that nearly killed me).It’s not proof that you are wrong in seeking to become Catholic. On the hypothesis that God does want you to become Catholic, you would expect Satan to try to stop you. And even just from a psychological point of view, it’s natural to have a reaction of this kind, I think.

On the other hand, you do need to be sure that you are doing the right thing.

It’s not about being “worthy” or being “mature enough.” It’s about truth. Where is your desire for the truth drawing you? If you drop out, will you be moving toward a more wholehearted, committed love of truth and goodness, or away from it?

Oh, and when I had this experience in 1999 I dropped out. I think this was probably the wrong thing to do, though as with any choice we make God has brought good out of it.

Edwin
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I should clarify that I am not even thinking about dropping out. I know that Catholicism is where I belong. My issue is not that I find Catholicism too demanding. The problem is that I feel too undisciplined and lacking enough maturity to achieve all the things Catholicism can offer me.
 
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