So easy to sin mortally

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Or we hope we have. LOL!
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From teen angst to the Sturm und Drang of medical appointments…

Rhetorical: Why must we use German to adequately describe all of this? 🤔
 
You can begin by watching the game (doesn’t matter which sport) and as it progresses, you don’t even need a TV. Actually, you can’t even find the TV…
 
As a young catholic, I can confirm that sexual sin is the easiest mortal sin to fall into, especially pornography and masturbation. However even this sin is easier to avoid if one really wants to avoid it. The toughest thing for me was being chaste with my girlfriend. We never committed a mortal sexual sin together but there were times when it was really difficult to stop. And because it involves two people, not the easiest of the sins to resist.

Thanks be to God that I am also a recent convert so my zeal for the faith and especially the desire to receive our Lord helped me overcome sexual sins but this was quite a bit of struggle.

Six months after my baptism, I did go through a dark phase in faith where I missed Sunday mass, which is mortal sin. But I was really depressed so you could argue it wasn’t mortally sinful. But missing Sunday mass is one other easy way to sin mortally.
 
I will also confirm that scrupulosity is a big reason you see these posts. There are many sins that I thought were mortally sinful, only for the priest to tell me to go home and forget about it. I missed mass on the 4th sunday of advent because I was bedridden but I was convinced I had sinned mortally. I also believed disagreeing with my parents as an adult was always mortally sinful and wasting time at work constituted grave matter. It takes time to grow out of scrupulosity so please pray for those who struggle with it.
 
That brings up one that bothered me at first. I only became Catholic two years ago last Easter. In my readings as I learned many things, I saw sterilization was wrong. Well, we were 42 when we got married and decided to not have children, since we each had a son from previous marriages. She was widowed and I was divorced. So I had a vasectomy, and she agreed. I didn’t understand that she as a Catholic shouldn’t have agreed for me to have one, and it turns out she didn’t know as a cradle Catholic. I confessed it, but it always bothered me. A few years after I had it, she had surgery for cancer, so it’s a moot point now.
 
Convert3 said:
My back and neck often hurt so things don’t get done. Am I guilty of sloth? I don’t know.
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Bishop Barron describes the 7 Deadly Sins as being the root of other sins. Sloth becomes a sin if you maliciously neglect to provide for your family, for example. The key word here is “maliciously.” Addiction, chronic pain, and clinical depression may be mitigating factors. In short, you’re right. It’s not black and white.
 
This is probably the most solid examination of conscience that I’ve ever seen. Some of them get over-the-top wonky, but this one is level-headed yet thought-provoking!
 
Genesis315 said:
St. Alphonsus Liguori (The Practice of the Love of Jesus Christ ):
Here it will be well to remark, what is unanimously admitted by all theologians, even of the rigorist school, that persons who have during a considerable period of time been leading a virtuous life, and live habitually in the fear of God, whenever they are in doubt, and are not certain whether they have given consent to a grievous sin, ought to be perfectly assured that they have not lost the Divine grace; for it is morally impossible that the will, confirmed in its good purposes for a considerable lapse of time, should on a sudden undergo so total a change as at once to consent to a mortal sin without clearly knowing it; the reason of it is, that mortal sin is so horrible a monster that it cannot possible enter a soul by which it has long been held in abhorrence, without her being fully aware of it. We have proved this at length in our Moral Theology. [Lib. 6, D. 476.] St. Teresa said: No one is lost without knowing it; and no one is deceived without the will to be deceived. [Life, addit.]
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This is a profoundly comforting quotation. Thanks for posting it.
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Psalm30 said:
What horrible things do God-fearing, church going people do on such a regular basis that they have to constantly worry they’ll end up in hell?
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I know what you mean. At one point after I converted, I convinced myself a mortal sin would feel like a mortal sin. Like how I would expect to feel if I decided to plan and carry out the murder of an innocent person. It would make me sick, from guilt, and the horror of it. I would feel compelled to go to confession.

People say they go to confession for the same things every time, and I do too, but I have noticed the temptations are less and less, and easier to control. Eventually you will be able to focus on smaller and smaller sins.

The important thing is to go to confession for absolution so you do not receive the body, blood, soul and divinity of our Lord Jesus unworthily, in my opinion.

Maybe you should consult your priest.
 
@newconvertcatholic

Interesting you said it was easier to sin with 2 People. Not for me. We were taught that you never wanted to lead another into sin. I also did not want to let another know that I was a sinner.

Missing mass certainly could be a mortal sin. Most of the time I doubt there is serious enough reflection.

Remember what Jesus said “Father forgive them for they know not what they do.”
 
You’re right in a sense that you feel more guilty sinning with somebody else than sinning all alone. But what I meant was in the specific case of lust, both of us needed to be strong at the moment to avoid the sin.

Eventually we discussed it with my GF and we started avoiding occasions of sin. That discussion was needed and it took us a while to discuss it. If it was just a personal sin and I have a strong desire to avoid it, then I can avoid it. When two people are involved, you need a little discussion.
PatK63 said:
We were taught that you never wanted to lead another into sin.
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Again in the context of sin of the flesh, speaking as a young male, I often feel scantily dressed women on the street during summer give me lustful thoughts. I used to think this is totally unfair on their part. They don’t even know it but they’ve caused me to sin. It requires an extra effort on my part to turn my eyes away and not focus on these lustful thoughts.

I say this because pornography, addictive as it is, if I have any intention of not falling into it, I can find an accountability partner, install anti-porn software or at least block these sites. I could still accidentally fall into it, but it would entirely be my fault.

It is much harder to look the other way when you see a immodestly dressed woman in the street and even more when you’re passionately kissing a girlfriend. I’m not blaming the woman. I’m just saying it is slightly harder. Totally, my personal opinion.
 
It is difficult for me to understand transubstantiation, but I have faith it is real because Jesus said, “this is my body…”

It is also difficult for me to understand how thinking certain thoughts offend God, but I know what Jesus has said about sin.
 
And what if the individual has convinced themselves, whether rationally, through rationalization, or by means of their own conscience, possibly not well-formed, that the sin they are committing is NOT grave matter, contrary to Church teaching? Would the full knowledge still apply, or, because they do not believe the sin is grave matter and not really a sin (possibly not even a venial sin), does that mean they do NOT have full knowledge either, nor deliberate consent? This is not a case of ignorance of Church teaching but rather one of self-delusion or rationalization, or (ill-formed) conscience.
 
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meltzerboy2 said:
And what if the individual has convinced themselves, whether rationally, through rationalization, or by means of their own conscience, possibly not well-formed, that the sin they are committing is NOT grave matter, contrary to Church teaching?
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If they’re young, yes,. If you’re old enough and you use it to rationalize your sin, the no. It also depends on the sin. I think we all know murder is wrong. You cannot claim innocence. You cannot on the other hand fault someone for not knowing contraception is wrong in marriage if they’ve never been to a catholic church. But if they are Catholics, they know the teaching and refuse to follow it because they’ve convinced themselves it is right, then they’re sinning and they cannot claim ignorance.
 
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So what constitutes “grave matter” cannot be defined by the individual’s conscience or reason, however faulty, but only by the Church?
 
Its easy in the beginning when you are in habit of sin, but once you move away and fight for purity you become in love with the Lord and then it’s hard to sin mortally. And even if you do sin you repent so strongly and go to confession. Because you Love the Lord.
 
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