Spiritual Sloth?

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FAH

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Since Monday when I sinned mortally I have been very spiritually inactive. I’ve said my daily prayers but not my daily Rosary and have been very down in a spiritual sense. I’m not sure if it is acedia but I don’t really think it is. All my prayers seem to be ‘Lord preserve me from sudden death until I can get to confession and seek to avail of your mercy if you would grant it to me’.
All I seem to be doing is going to confession on Friday then Mass, then Mass on Saturday and finally Mass on Sunday. Then I go back into the world and sin, and the process happens all over again. I pray every morning and evening but I can start one day saying ‘Lord please keep me from sin this day’ and end the same day supplicating ‘Lord preserve me from sudden death’

Has anyone else experienced this? An does it sound like I’m being spiritually slothful?
 
St. Louis de Montfort said the sinner who prays the rosary daily will stop sinning and vice versa. Reading your post, I would say that you are being too hard on yourself. St. Paul acknowledged the difficulty we all have with sin. “I do that which I would not and do not do that which I would.” Even the righteous man “sins seven times a day.” Most often our sins are not mortal, but venial. Each of us struggles with temptation and sin on a daily basis. It is one of Satan’s strategies to mire us in guilt. We have an advocate, the Holy Spirit, who works on our behalf. We have a savior in Jesus Christ who died for our sins that all of us might enjoy the beatific vision. Trust the grace of the Sacraments and God’s power to transform us into who He would have us be.
 
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FAH:
You are a lucky guy!!!
What you feel now as strange is what I feel everyday, so you are lucky !!!
So, Monday you sinned!
As, for myself it is Monday through Sunday.
As i do not have a mortal-sin-meter, I just sin. I just ask for forgiveness,
ask for forgiveness, say to God that I love Him
ask for forgiveness, say to God that I love Him
ask for forgiveness, say to God that I love Him
ask for forgiveness, say to God that I love Him
ask for forgiveness, say to God that I love Him
ask for forgiveness, say to God that I love Him
ask for forgiveness, say to God that I love Him
ask for forgiveness, say to God that I love Him

and hope, that one day, I may be able to sin no more and please the Lord.
As for this world, I must be contented with asking for forgiveness, say to God that I love Him
 
FAH said:
Since Monday when I sinned mortally I have been very spiritually inactive. I’ve said my daily prayers but not my daily Rosary and have been very down in a spiritual sense. I’m not sure if it is acedia but I don’t really think it is. All my prayers seem to be ‘Lord preserve me from sudden death until I can get to confession and seek to avail of your mercy if you would grant it to me’.
All I seem to be doing is going to confession on Friday then Mass, then Mass on Saturday and finally Mass on Sunday. Then I go back into the world and sin, and the process happens all over again. I pray every morning and evening but I can start one day saying ‘Lord please keep me from sin this day’ and end the same day supplicating ‘Lord preserve me from sudden death’

Has anyone else experienced this? An does it sound like I’m being spiritually slothful?
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Dear one,
Yes we have ALL had experience with this. No you are not being spiritually slothful. You are stuck in a rut and a bit stalled.

I’m reminded of times when people I knew would go on a diet. They would lose some weight and then hit a plateau for a time and in order to get moving again they would need to make a change in either their diet or exercise routine. This is because the body had adjusted to the diet.
Similarly, you have hit a plateau where you are unable to advance spiritually. You need to do something to shake things up.

You mention that Fri. Sat. and Sun. you are good, but then Monday roles around and things fall apart even though you ask God to keep you from sin…
If you will forgive my bluntness - It sounds as though you are not sufficiently co-operating in this though. God is giving you graces, but are you using them??

It’s like the old story about the guy trapped in his house by the flood who prays for God to save him. As the water keeps rising, two boats and a helicopter come by to rescue him and each time he declines saying he has faith and that God will save him. Finally as the water sweeps him away and he is drowning he cries out to God, “why did you not save me”, to which God replies, “I sent you two boats and a helicopter…”

God sends us grace and strength. He convicts us when we do something wrong. But He will not stop us from sinning. He will not interfere with our free will.
You need to find that strength and use that grace during the work week to resist sinning. You need to shake up your activities, your prayer life, something in order to keep Christ before you so that you are better able to resist the temptations of habit that are leading you to sin.

Think carefully about these matters. What are triggers of sin during the week?
Should you pray a rosary on your lunch break? Ask God to enlighten you in these matters so that you and He can work out good counters for them.

I hope some of this helps.

Peace
James
 
JRKH said:
Dear one,
Yes we have ALL had experience with this. No you are not being spiritually slothful. You are stuck in a rut and a bit stalled.

I’m reminded of times when people I knew would go on a diet. They would lose some weight and then hit a plateau for a time and in order to get moving again they would need to make a change in either their diet or exercise routine. This is because the body had adjusted to the diet.
Similarly, you have hit a plateau where you are unable to advance spiritually. You need to do something to shake things up.

You mention that Fri. Sat. and Sun. you are good, but then Monday roles around and things fall apart even though you ask God to keep you from sin…
If you will forgive my bluntness - It sounds as though you are not sufficiently co-operating in this though. God is giving you graces, but are you using them??

It’s like the old story about the guy trapped in his house by the flood who prays for God to save him. As the water keeps rising, two boats and a helicopter come by to rescue him and each time he declines saying he has faith and that God will save him. Finally as the water sweeps him away and he is drowning he cries out to God, “why did you not save me”, to which God replies, “I sent you two boats and a helicopter…”

God sends us grace and strength. He convicts us when we do something wrong. But He will not stop us from sinning. He will not interfere with our free will.
You need to find that strength and use that grace during the work week to resist sinning. You need to shake up your activities, your prayer life, something in order to keep Christ before you so that you are better able to resist the temptations of habit that are leading you to sin.

Think carefully about these matters. What are triggers of sin during the week?
Should you pray a rosary on your lunch break? Ask God to enlighten you in these matters so that you and He can work out good counters for them.

I hope some of this helps.

Peace
James
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I will keep this one for the clean jokes thread…
 
Lord, please help FAH to persevere in prayer and in a state of grace. May he/she go to Mass on weekdays (if possible) and spend his/her free time in prayer, eucharistic adoration, spiritual or scriptural reading, and in doing good works. May he/she do everything to please you and for your greater glory. May he/she pray zealously and often for the grace to remain in a state of grace (and not just pray for this in the morning). Help FAH, Lord, and have mercy on him/her. Thank you, Lord, for hearing my prayer.
 
I can definitely relate to this. It’s a process of growing that everyone with holy aspirations goes through. And the deeper you go, the more filthy you will see yourself - the more unworthy you will understand yourself to be - but far above all of this is the mercy of God. I called in to Mother Angelica’s show many years ago asking this same question, and she said that the progression of the spiritual life is like looking into a dirty mirror at first - we can’t see ourselves as clearly at first - and as we grow closer to God, the cleaner the mirror gets and the more clearly we see ourselves. It is frustrating to see this sinfulness so much more clearly, but it’s a good sign that we are going in the right direction. It is when our sins mean nothing to us and we don’t seek God’s forgiveness that we REALLY need to worry about the direction our spiritual life is going!
 
I sense that you are a young man and have difficulty with raging hormones. The important thing is that when you do happen to fall, you pick yourself up, ask God to forgive you, and pray for the grace to begin anew with His blessing upon you. He sees your heart and knows your struggle and the degree of your sorrow. Don’t worry yourself to death about dying before confession.

One of the most severe temptations of Satan that I struggled with was after I fell into mortal sin, I realized I was no longer in the state of grace, so I figured I could repeat the sin numerous times until my next confession. All that accomplished was to entrench me deeper into habitual sin, making it more difficult to avoid it.

How did I stop? One day in the midst of temptation, I reflected on how much Jesus loved me and the infinite number of blessings God bestowed upon me. These thoughts helped me overcome, as I could not bear to offend such a good God. I admit the struggle was intense that day, but I was able to apply that discipline each time the temptation came back. Over time, as scripture tells us to resist the devil and he will flee from you — he did!

In a nutshell, you are not slothful, but you need to form a good habit of resistance. The blessing is that Our Lord continues to disturb your conscience to the point that eventually you WILL win!!

God be with you in this struggle!
 
Ephesians 6:11 Put on the full armor of God. The armor is Christ.
 
It might help you to learn about the prayer of recollection. Try reading The Practice of the Presence of God by Br. Lawrence. This is a way of praying constantly and remember God always. Harder to fall back in to sin if we are relying on Him at every moment for our strength. Also, fasting might help get you out of your rut and build up your spiritual life. This is a very powerful form of prayer.
 
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