Good topic and point of discussion, thank you for making it.
It’s almost a trick question what you’re asking, but it’s ultimately not because we know we have recourse to God and His help, and it’s usually because we don’t seek it, or we seek it in vain.
I think what’s just as bad as committing the mortal sins themselves is the rationalization, excuses, and ease of mind that confession can be twisted to provide. For example, we recognize we’re weak when we sin and we might feel bad about it, but we look to confession as a cheat or trick or way to get ourselves out of jail free, and we use God’s redemptive powers and His love and mercy for us and His willingness to forgive any sin multiple times throughout our lives. We, in turn, take God’s love, mercy, and forgiveness for granted, and that’s just as bad as the mortal sin, if you ask me.
We feel better temporarily through a good confession until the next mortal sin that requires we land ourselves in the confessional again. Mortal sin, you could say, becomes a habit that is aided by the loophole that confession provides for the person who abuses it and doesn’t take a firm purpose of amendment seriously. They figure “God will forgive me anything” and they’re right about that, but they use the depth of God’s mercy for us as a means to provide themselves a bottomless pit of pleasure and self. They invert God’s blessings, so to speak and rather than giving it back to Him, they keep it for themselves, figuring that as long as they confess soon after a mortal sin (like masturbation for example) that they’re ok. While this is technically true, it’s an abuse of the sacraments, and that’s just as bad as a mortal sin, if not a mortal sin itself. Knowingly, intentionally committing a mortal sin knowing you’ll be forgiven later, and you know this before you commit the act, and then remind yourself during and after the act that it is so, is pretty bad, I would say.
I say this knowing I sometimes fall into this pattern. I honestly don’t do it because I want to abuse the sacrament of confession, find a loophole or use the perpetual forgiveness of God’s love as a means to keep sinning. I don’t do it to hurt Him, but I, like many others here probably, realize that we do hurt Him even if it’s out a habitual cycle and the mortal sin itself is only occurring as a result of a ingrained habit, psychological addiction, fetish, etc.
In my case, I still need to talk with a catholic therapist to see if I really do have a fetish and that’s why I commit particular mortal sins. Not everyone would have the same excuse that I would have, and I’m not sure that even I have an excuse. Culpability for the mortal sins I commit due to the fetish may reduce things, but I know it doesn’t eliminate them, so when you ask the question what catholic in their right mind would intentionally commit mortal sins, my answer is no catholic, in their right mind AT THE TIME, would commit it. In retrospect, no catholic should, but we all do because of some reason or another.
We’re not perfect and this world gives us way too many things to pleasure ourselves with. The youth of today have it hard, especially. Sex and such is thrown at them all the time, and just about everything is raunchy somehow. God understands each individual and their specific needs for grace and healing, and I believe He works with each individual differently and some people’s healing takes longer than others due to the nature of how the mortal sin afflicts them.
So if you are genuinely addicted to particular mortal sins, I think God understands that you don’t use confession as a cheat, and that you are genuinely sorry, and I’m sure He also knows you may likely fall again in the near future. He takes all this into consideration in the way the priest cannot, not knowing the contents of your mind and the psychology that drives it. God wouldn’t be a Father if He abandoned us when we make the same mistakes. Because He is the only Being that can exert perfect love and forgiveness, it is why He is so forgiving to a level that seems, from our point of view, that He shouldn’t let us get away with alot of the stuff we do. And, we don’t get away with it, because we have to pay for it in purgatory when we are finally cleansed once and for all.
Until then, however, we have to make due with what we have recourse to, and the sacraments we have available. If people abuse them knowingly and technically derive a way to live in mortal sin and be on good terms with God at the same time, even though they’re not in regards to the sin, then they’re the catholics who are not in their “right mind”, since they’re playing a dangerous game with God, and it’s not worth the gamble, and don’t believe Satan cannot put these ideas of manipulating the sacraments to your advantage in your mind, because he can.
For those of us who commit mortal sin out of habit, addiction, etc., God knows why we do it, and I believe He works with us little by little, and as we grow stronger, the sin weakens and so does our attachment to it. But for those who freely commit the mortal sins and meet all 3 requirements and just plain don’t care, then they’re the ones out of their minds and are more screwed up in the head, if you ask me, more so than the person with the fetish, addiction, etc. The more love He shows them, and they don’t repent, the more they hurt Him. Yet, His is a love that keeps on giving, and we keep on taking, and taking and taking until the day we die. He knows this and some give back more to Him than others, and some don’t. Some are only interested in being absolved and wiped clean temporarily, and some want to last as long as they can in grace.
God will balance everything out in the end. It’s better if we don’t wait until we die for this balancing to occur. I’d prefer to work on it and fail in this lifetime. At least He sees I’m trying, and that’s better than doing nothing about it.
this makes total sense…now for one to just live seems a more peaceful way(i know)instead of trying not to commit sins :if one is preoccuoied with looking for sin in order to keep it out,it seems one will eventually let sin enter this way(by looking for it in their life)… the last paragraph is the key :getting outside of OURSELVES:thanks ReggieM great post.