What to do with shame?

[Neithan]

When I go to confess my sins - particularly if it is something mortal - I feel guilt and shame about what I’ve done. I know that Confession removes all my guilt, and honestly I can say that the feelings of *guilt *do not remain, that weight is lifted, but often a lingering shame is leftover, lasting months or even years (!). I suppose while guilt is more of an objective thing, shame is more subjective, and that’s why, but then I understand that people who suffer from scrupulosity still feel guilt as well (which they should not). Do most people still feel ashamed of their sins, or is Confession meant to remove all feelings of guilt as well as shame?
Is penance meant to remove the lingering shame, then? I ask this because as I understand, souls in purgatory want to be there to cleanse themselves fully, because they are still too ashamed to enter directly into heaven.
Does God leave us with shame perhaps to prevent us from committing the same sins?

 

[lil_flower_luv]

Feeling the way you are–is normal. However, as Mother Teresa stressed many times: forgive and forget. God has forgiven you so you now must forgive yourself. And forget. Let everyday be a challenge to become a holier soul–leave those familiar sins where they belong (in the past.) Never will it be easy, but you will receive more grace as you desire a holier life in Christ.
Said a prayer for you+
~Therese

 

[AlanFromWichita]

I think shame can be useful if it makes you mindful of any reparations you can/should make, but beyond that it is a tool of the enemy to keep you living in the past and thus rob you of your present.

Alan

 

[basenji]

Guilt is feeling bad about what you did.
Shame is felling bad about yourself for what you did.

Once your guilt is forgiven then the hard part remains
and that is to forgive yourself.

Peace

 

[James224]

When I go to confess my sins - particularly if it is something mortal - I feel guilt and shame about what I’ve done. I know that Confession removes all my guilt, and honestly I can say that the feelings of *guilt *do not remain, that weight is lifted, but often a lingering shame is leftover, lasting months or even years (!). I suppose while guilt is more of an objective thing, shame is more subjective, and that’s why, but then I understand that people who suffer from scrupulosity still feel guilt as well (which they should not). Do most people still feel ashamed of their sins, or is Confession meant to remove all feelings of guilt as well as shame?
Is penance meant to remove the lingering shame, then? I ask this because as I understand, souls in purgatory want to be there to cleanse themselves fully, because they are still too ashamed to enter directly into heaven.
Does God leave us with shame perhaps to prevent us from committing the same sins?

True shame is a good thing. I’ve felt it many times. One thing I think needs to be done is to check our motives for our shame because it could be coming from pride. Pride is a subtle thing and can destroy the practice of our faith. It can cause us to give up because we think we will never overcome our sin, etc. It can lead to despair. On the good side, shame and/or guilt can motivate us to do Penance.

 

[illmatic]

The shame you feel may help you not to re-offend, and is thus positive. You know that you’re no different from anyone else though; we’re all fallible, we all mess up.

 

[PAboy57]

There was a time in my life that I felt shame for nothing. I was not living a Christian life, knew what I was doing was wrong and just didn’t worry about it.

After years of this I finally figured out that God was missing from my life and I came back to our Church. Guess what – when I do wrong I feel shame also. I’m disappointed in myself because I allowed myself to be a slave to sin. That really is the bottom line and it is disgusting to me now. All those years of not caring and now I care because I found the right way to live.

Shame can be good as long as you don’t go overboard. The shame actually helps program your mind to avoid sin as you also hate that feeling. But you have to forgive yourself and move forward striving to become a better Christian. Do not allow yourself to wallow in shame. A fair amount is good but cut yourself a break also.

Take care.

 

[Robert_Sock]

Guilt is feeling bad about what you did.
Shame is felling bad about yourself for what you did.

Once your guilt is forgiven then the hard part remains
and that is to forgive yourself.

Peace

This is true. I would add that the element of hurt self esteem comes into play more so for shame then guilt.

 

[AnneTeresa]

I don’t know if this will help, but I mentioned shame in confession recently right after I confessed some pretty bad sin, and the priest said that shame could be a good thing. It surprised me, I expected him to tell me to get rid of that shame. Something about what he said hit me and I realized that yes, I did some shameful things, I should feel shame. Just stopping fighting that shame seemed to take it away. Weird, but it seems admitting I did some shameful things and stopping trying to get rid of that shame helped me get rid of it. FWIW