What do you do with guilt

[AnneTeresa]

I’m wondering how one deals with guilty feelings over one’s past. I regret things I’ve done in the past and have confessed them but I still struggle with feelings of guilt sometimes. Tied in to this is the thought that I will have to pay for the things I’ve done in Purgatory. So how do you deal with knowing that and at the same time keep from feeling guilty? Or do you just accept the guilt as being deserved and try to act differently now?

Also I read there are two judgments and the second one is public and everything you’ve ever done will be made known. Am I reading that correctly?Any help is appreciated.

 

[JRKH]

I’m wondering how one deals with guilty feelings over one’s past. I regret things I’ve done in the past and have confessed them but I still struggle with feelings of guilt sometimes. Tied in to this is the thought that I will have to pay for the things I’ve done in Purgatory. So how do you deal with knowing that and at the same time keep from feeling guilty? Or do you just accept the guilt as being deserved and try to act differently now?

Also I read there are two judgments and the second one is public and everything you’ve ever done will be made known. Am I reading that correctly?Any help is appreciated.

First of all I wouldn’t get too hung up on the whole “two judgements” thing and what will be made public etc…Since God already knows, and forgives who else matters?

Guilt can be either a positive or a negative. Naturally when we look back on how stupidly we acted in the past, it is depressing and embarrassing. On the other hand, recognizing that there is a lesson in each of those mistakes and remembering the mistake is also an oportunity to remember the lesson helps us to grow. So concentrate on what you learned, and then move forward.
Who knows, God may well lead you to a vocation or task where your past sins and lessons learned will make you a great treasure and instrument in bringing others to Christ.

As to the issue of purgatory,Purgatory is not, as many think of it, a “prison” where each sin must be paid for like a list of crimes before a court. Purgatory is for purging the last vestiges of unholiness, of imperfections, from our spirit.
We cannot know for sure what measure we will have to pay, or how much “purification” we will need in purgatory. We can know that our efforts here, to grow in holiness, to conform ourselves to Christ, to Love God and neighbor in praise and in acts of charity will all effect our stay in purgatory.

Peace
James

 

[AnneTeresa]

Thanks for answering James. True, God knows everything so it shouldn’t matter if anyone else finds out. Unnerving to think everyone will know though some day the things we confess in secret now.

As to the issue of purgatory,Purgatory is not, as many think of it, a “prison” where each sin must be paid for like a list of crimes before a court. Purgatory is for purging the last vestiges of unholiness, of imperfections, from our spirit.

Can you explain this more? Is purgatory more for cleansing you where you are spiritually when you die and your distance (uncleanness) from God at that point, rather than for punishment for all the sinful things you did during your whole life? I read it was for “temporal” punishment? This is a concept I am having trouble understanding and I’ve read the links here on the CAF site but still don’t understand.

 

[JRKH]

Thanks for answering James. True, God knows everything so it shouldn’t matter if anyone else finds out. Unnerving to think everyone will know though some day the things we confess in secret now.

Yes but this idea of embarassment (unnerving) is really putting a “human”, emotional face on it that won’t exist either at particular judgement or at general judgement. Once we cross over, all will be laid bare. Those who will be our brothers in heaven will not care about our transgressions (after all we can see theirs too) and those who are destined for hell will be too busy with their own hate to bother us.

Can you explain this more? Is purgatory more for cleansing you where you are spiritually when you die and your distance (uncleanness) from God at that point, rather than for punishment for all the sinful things you did during your whole life? I read it was for “temporal” punishment? This is a concept I am having trouble understanding and I’ve read the links here on the CAF site but still don’t understand.

I will be happy to try. The concept of Purgatory is only given a short explanation in the Catechism which is too bad because it really is a wonderful gift of God.
While many/most look at the “punishment” idea I think that this is wrongheaded.
First, look at the term given to the place…Purgatory…It is called that because it is where we are “purged” of that which is unholy. St Paul speaks to this in 1 Corinthians
I Corinthians 3:10-15 10 According to the grace of God given to me, like a skilled master builder I laid a foundation, and another man is building upon it. Let each man take care how he builds upon it.
11 For no other foundation can any one lay than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ. 12 Now if any one builds on the foundation with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, straw—13 each man’s work will become manifest; for the Day will disclose it, because it will be revealed with fire, and the fire will test what sort of work each one has done. 14 **If the work which any man has built on the foundation survives, he will receive a reward. 15 If any man’s work is burned up, he will suffer loss, though he himself will be saved, but only as through fire. **
Fire is also used in other passages for purification as in purifying metal. Thus it will be with us. Whatever we have not “burned out” (purged) of ourselves here on earth will be burned out between earth and heaven in the place (or state) called “purgatory”.
This purgation will be a cleansing, a burning out, purification. BUT, the more we do in this life to purify ourselves, to clean up our act, to “…be perfect as our heavenly father is perfect”(Mt 5:48), the less time we will need to spend in purgatory.
Will purgatory be painful? Quite possibly…to the extent that we retain affection and attachment to sin…it will be painful to burn out. Thus it is important that we not only repent of our sins, and reform our actions, but that we look at and drive out all affection for or attachment to, our former sins - and indeed all sin.

I hope some of this helps.

Peace
James

 

[sovegna_vos]

I’m wondering how one deals with guilty feelings over one’s past. I regret things I’ve done in the past and have confessed them but I still struggle with feelings of guilt sometimes. Tied in to this is the thought that I will have to pay for the things I’ve done in Purgatory. So how do you deal with knowing that and at the same time keep from feeling guilty? Or do you just accept the guilt as being deserved and try to act differently now?

Also I read there are two judgments and the second one is public and everything you’ve ever done will be made known. Am I reading that correctly?Any help is appreciated.

Often I think regret is “behovely”, notwithstanding the sin having been confessed and absolution recieved.

I find that, particularly as one gets older, the full impact of one’s actions becomes realised and I have come to think of my guilt and regret for certain things as being something which I just have to accept as part of my life, to be lived with, and that perhaps such regret or guilt is part of the price paid for past sins. Part of one’s own cross to bear perhaps.

TS Eliot writes about this in the Four Quartets:

“Let me disclose the gifts reserved for age
To set a crown upon your lifetime’s effort.
First, the cold friction of expiring sense
Without enchantment, offering no promise
But bitter tastelessness of shadow fruit
As body and soul begin to fall asunder.
Second, the conscious impotence of rage
At human folly, and the laceration
Of laughter at what ceases to amuse.
And last, the rending pain of re-enactment
Of all that you have done, and been; the shame
Of motives late revealed, and the awareness
Of things ill done and done to others’ harm”