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Juan
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| Joined: | Tue Oct 17th, 2006 |
| Location: | Texas USA |
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Posted: Mon Jan 15th, 2007 09:39 am |
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Hi, Luvadoxi,
I'll be gone for a week, but perhaps others can comment on your concern:
You said,
Thanks for the help and recommendation. It's just that, I received faith as a gift, and yet I've always known it's also a work--and that that's in Scripture. As a Protestant who never even considered or knew anything about Catholicism, I thought the problem was with me--when actually it was all the different theologies within Protestantism--I was looking for unity when there was none.
Anyway, it ties in with confession because the problem is I'm hung up on how much is enough when you never feel like it's enough. And no one has been able to help me much with the difference between mortal and venial sin. The best advice I got was don't worry about it, do your best, and throw yourself on Christ's mercy. OK...but God seems a lot unfriendlier than he did before--I know he's not, but that's the muddle I'm stuck in. An Eastern Catholic priest told me they don't stress the mortal/venial thing so much; you know, receive Communion, and if you have something weighing on your conscience, go to confession--maybe he was just tailoring his advice to my worry--but that didn't seem to quite fit in with the Catechism. I think I've reached the point where I need the "lived" reality of Catholic life, not just reading the rules out of the Catechism--and I haven't been able to really find that--how to apply the "rules" to life. Otherwise, I'm stuck in Martin Luther's scrupulosity problem. I mean, I *understand* what he meant by "sin boldly"--it's not telling people to go out and sin--it's to have confidence that you can throw yourself at the foot of the Cross and beg for mercy. Somehow I'm missing something, and every once in a while it all makes sense. But I can't explain it to anyone without boring people or getting scolded as a heretic (being told that as a Catholic you're not supposed to be doubting or asking these questions) or told I'm committing the sin of despair, or being patronized. The priests are too busy--really I don't bother them--at first I cornered them 2 or 3 times but now I don't bother with it--and just plain tired of hearing about it all.
And I can feel, OK, there must be something I've done wrong if I don't have inner peace because I know I'm too lazy to do as much work, as in charity work, or giving money to others rather than overspending on myself, as I probably ought to do...but I don't have real specific things to confess (yes, I did confess those. But I keep doing them!). I have either a scrupulous conscience or a new convert problem or something regarding when to receive Communion or not, and if one mortal sin can send you to hell, and we're capable of self-delusion--how on God's green earth are we supposed to be able to figure this out?
Oh, well--it helps to talk it out here! And I am much better, thanks be to God, this year than the last 2 years (converted in 2003)--in 2005 I almost had a physical and mental breakdown.
I'll keep in mind the specific forums, too. Thank you for your help!
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JillD
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| Joined: | Fri Sep 29th, 2006 |
| Location: | Visalia, California USA |
| Posts: | 857 |
| First Name: | Jill | | Gender: | Female | | Faith History: | heathen, EvFree, Messianic, LC-MS, Catholic 2007 |
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Posted: Mon Jan 15th, 2007 01:58 pm |
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I do hope someone will untangle this mess a bit, too, as I've had some of the same questions. It was all so much easier as an Evangelical, though I see now that it also wasn't correct. Yet, ignorance was bliss!
Jill
____________________
"I praise you, for I am wondrously made. Wonderful are our works! My frame was not hidden from you, when I was being made in secret." Ps 139
"Guard me, O Lord, from the hands of the wicked; preserve me from violent men." Ps 140
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mg57
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| Joined: | Mon Oct 9th, 2006 |
| Location: | Connecticut USA |
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| First Name: | mg57 | | Gender: | Male | | Faith History: | Infant Baptised Catholic |
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Posted: Wed Jan 17th, 2007 05:17 pm |
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Luvadoxi -
Keep in mind that participating in the penitential rite at the beginning of Mass will take care of venial sins.
You said -
".... there must be something I've done wrong if I don't have inner peace because I know I'm too lazy to do as much work, as in charity work, or giving money to others rather than overspending on myself, as I probably ought to do...but I don't have real specific things to confess (yes, I did confess those. But I keep doing them!). I have either a scrupulous conscience or a new convert problem or something regarding when to receive Communion or not, and if one mortal sin can send you to hell, and we're capable of self-delusion--how on God's green earth are we supposed to be able to figure this out?"
While it's important to confess specifics, we should also make an attempt to recognize the underlying root of our behavior and include that in our confession as well. It sounds as though you might be ready for regular spiritual direction.
If I may suggest, an excellent book on this is "Hammer & Fire" by Fr. Raphael Simon O.C.S.O., which I believe can be ordered through Ignatius Press, and of course on Barnes & Noble or Amazon.
Fr. Simon was a medical doctor and psychiatrist before entering the Trappist Order in the late 1930's or early 1940's. He is still alive and in his late 90's God bless him !
Another good selection would be "Spiritual Passages" by Fr. Benedict J. Groeschel C.F.R., - also can be found on B. & Noble, or on the Franciscan Friars Of The Renewal's own website.
Last but not least, a doctor of the Church, St. Francis DeSales wrote hundreds of letters of spiritual direction to people in the world. Paulist press has an excellent volume featuring letters of his and St. Jane DeChantal. While I don't recommend everything Paulist puts out, this one is quite good and worthwhile, and is a very good introduction to his writing because it's written in a more personal style than his other classic works.
God bless. Hope this helps to start.
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mg57
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| Joined: | Mon Oct 9th, 2006 |
| Location: | Connecticut USA |
| Posts: | 210 |
| First Name: | mg57 | | Gender: | Male | | Faith History: | Infant Baptised Catholic |
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Posted: Wed Jan 17th, 2007 09:38 pm |
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P.S. -
Just received a promotional email from Sophia Institute Press (which I've included below), .... and guess who was featured ?!! 
"I will tell you that those crosses are best
which we have not chosen, and which are
less agreeable to us, or (to say it better)
those to which we have not much inclination."
Letter to St. Jane de Chantal
August 6, 1606
"Our imperfection must accompany us to our coffin;
we cannot walk without touching earth.
We are not to lie or wallow there,
but still we are not to think of flying."
Letter to Mademoiselle de Soulfour
July 22, 1603
"I cannot ask God anything for you
except that He would fashion your heart
in total accordance with His will,
in order to lodge and reign therein eternally.
Whether He do it with the hammer,
or with the chisel, or with the brush,
it is for Him to act according to His pleasure."
Letter to an Unnamed Woman
1610-1611
"It is not possible that, while living in the world,
although we only touch it with our feet,
we are not soiled with its dust."
Letter to President Benigne Fremyot
October 7, 1604
"My daughter, the love of God does not
consist in consolation, nor in tenderness.
Otherwise our Lord would not have loved His father
when He was ‘sorrowful unto death,’ and cried out,
‘My Father, my Father, why hast Thou forsaken me?’
And it was exactly then that He made
the greatest act of love it is possible to imagine."
Letter to Sister de Blonay
Feb 18, 1618
"My dearest daughter, we must not be unjust
and require from ourselves what is not in us.
When troubled in body and health,
we must not exact from our souls anything more
than acts of submission and acceptance of our suffering;
and holy unions of our will to the good pleasure of God."
Letter to an Unnamed Woman
1610-1611
"As we must have patience with others, so we must with ourselves.
Those who aspire to the pure love of God have not so much need
of patience with others as with themselves. We must suffer
our imperfection in order to have perfection. I say suffer,
not love or pet; humility feeds on this suffering."
Letter to Mademoiselle de Soulfour
July 22, 1603
"Let us only think of doing well today;
when tomorrow arrives it will be called
in its turn ‘today,’ and then we will think of it."
Letter to Mademoiselle de Soulfour
July 22, 1603
"Have patience with everyone, but chiefly with yourself.
Do not trouble yourself about your imperfections,
and always have the courage to let yourself out of them.
I'm well content that you begin again every day:
there's no better way to protect the spiritual life
than always to begin again and never
to think you've done enough."
Letter to Madame de la Flechere
May 19, 1608
Thy Will Be Done!
58 letters to souls troubled by problems that afflict each of us today:
anger, frustration, grief and sickness; difficulties praying
and even lack of faith — with wise, practical remedies for each.
by St. Francis de Sales
264 pages paperback, $14.95
Click here for more details
or to order.
Sophia Institute Press
Box 5284, Manchester, NH 03108 USA
1-800-888-9344
1-603-641-9344
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Darlene
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| Joined: | Mon Oct 9th, 2006 |
| Location: | Pocono Mountains, Pennsylvania USA |
| Posts: | 868 |
| First Name: | Darlene | | Gender: | Female | | Faith History: | Christian, trusting His love and forgiveness |
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Posted: Thu Jan 25th, 2007 04:50 pm |
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Thank you mg,
Those quotes are beautiful. And this attitude of finding peace, acceptance and humility in suffering is what I love about the Catholic faith.
Darlene
____________________
The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all. II Corinthians 13:14
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mg57
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| Joined: | Mon Oct 9th, 2006 |
| Location: | Connecticut USA |
| Posts: | 210 |
| First Name: | mg57 | | Gender: | Male | | Faith History: | Infant Baptised Catholic |
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Posted: Thu Jan 25th, 2007 09:50 pm |
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St. Francis DeSales has been a great blessing to me, - glad you like him too.
God bless !
mg57
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ANITA SALAS
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| Joined: | Thu Jan 25th, 2007 |
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| Posts: | 2 |
| First Name: | ANITA | | Gender: | Female | | Faith History: | CRADLE CATHOLIC. 25 YEARS AT HOLY FAMILY CHURCH, PUEBLO, ... |
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Posted: Fri Jan 26th, 2007 11:48 am |
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I just joined and registered to this forum. I was searching around and found you letter and it touched a chord with me. I am a cradle Catholic and have had some of the same questions you are having about sin. I finally settled on a discernment that all rules are quidelines. We are all sinners and will continue to sin. Grace comes in our heartfelt efforts to quell the sin in our lives.
Sin, whether it be venial or mortal, was forgiven when Jesus died for our sins. He died only once, for all sins. We must acknowledge a sin, apologise for it and request God's mercy and then try to overcome sin. However, as in abortion, a woman may have had an abortion or a man my have encouraged abortion. The sin is forgiven and God can make us clean again and not reject us, however, the consequence of that sin is with us always.
One must live with the consequences, and with God's help, learn from the sin and help others with the consequences of this sin. I know that this does not help with your actual question, but it does give you another option in examining your life and sin.
God bless you in your efforts to remain sinless, but that is difficult and know God is aware of our shortcomings and helps us through them.
God bless you.
Love, Anita
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twiggymoo
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| Joined: | Fri Oct 13th, 2006 |
| Location: | Maryland USA |
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| First Name: | Twiggymoo | | Gender: | Male | | Faith History: | Nazarene, Free Methodist, Baptist..Romeward bound |
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Posted: Mon Jan 29th, 2007 12:04 pm |
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| There is a popular belief among Protestants that all sins are the same, a sin is a sin. One sin is no worse than another. My wife told me this recently and I told her that I disagreed and tried to reason with her. The reasoning is found in the Gospels - Jesus' words that what we think in our heart is the same as if we do it. Can their rationale be taken from this Scripture???
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David W. Emery
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Posted: Tue Jan 30th, 2007 04:36 pm |
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Can their rationale [about all sins being equal] be taken from this Scripture?
I suspect, twiggymoo, that it is not really from scripture at all but another example of “That’s the way Catholics do it, so we will do the opposite.” Regardless, scripture states unequivocally in 1 John 5:16–17 that there is a difference between sins.
David
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Talithacumi
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| First Name: | Cheri | | Gender: | Female | | Faith History: | Cradle Catholic - Latin Rite |
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Posted: Tue Jan 30th, 2007 05:48 pm |
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And no one has been able to help me much with the difference between mortal and venial sin. The best advice I got was don't worry about it, do your best, and throw yourself on Christ's mercy. OK...but God seems a lot unfriendlier than he did before--I know he's not, but that's the muddle I'm stuck in. An Eastern Catholic priest told me they don't stress the mortal/venial thing so much; you know, receive Communion, and if you have something weighing on your conscience, go to confession--maybe he was just tailoring his advice to my worry--but that didn't seem to quite fit in with the Catechism.
Generally, venial sins are those sins that usually aren't too "serious." You know what they are... maybe you stole a pencil from your work-place - it's a pencil that no one will ever miss. Not a great big deal. Or maybe you told a little white lie to your spouse the other night because you didn't want them to know you were out buying something for their birthday - or whatever. Anyway, venial sins can be washed away during the Penitential Rite at Mass or Communion itself, provided, of course, that one has the proper disposition.
But "mortal" sin is exactly as the word implies. It can "kill" the soul. For a sin to be "mortal" there are 3 requirements: It must be of grave or serious matter; there must be knowledge upon the part of the sinner that it is a sin and a serious one, at that; and there must be free consent upon the part of the sinner in doing it.
A sin may be "mortal" for one person and not for another, depending upon these three things. Let's take stealing, for instance. Here's a young man who is rich and spoiled and has all the money he needs. Yet, even knowing how wrong it is to steal, and knowing that it's a grave matter, and not being forced in any way, he decides to go out and steal a car just for kicks or because he's bored. That's a mortal sin.
But here's a guy who's family is being held for ransom by some psycho who tells the guy he has to bring back a certain amount of money in a certain amount of time or his family dies (OK, I've been watching too many movies  ). The poor guy is running out of time, so he steals a car in order to go get the money to save his family. This could then be considered a venial sin. What's missing that would make it mortal? The freedom. His freedom to make the choice has been impaired because his family's life is in danger, and their lives are more important than the theft of a car. Same thing being stolen as in the last example of the rich kid. Different situation. Different degree of sinfulness. See the difference? It's all about intent. God isn't concerned so much with what you do as much as He is concerned about where your heart is and why you do what you do.
Somehow I'm missing something, and every once in a while it all makes sense. But I can't explain it to anyone without boring people or getting scolded as a heretic (being told that as a Catholic you're not supposed to be doubting or asking these questions)
Ouch! And here I thought I've been Catholic all my life... but maybe I'm a heretic!  Hey, we all have questions, even those of us who've been Catholic all our lives. In fact, the day you stop asking questions and start thinking you know it all is the day that you should start to worry. Don't be afraid to ask questions! How else are you ever going to learn?
And I can feel, OK, there must be something I've done wrong if I don't have inner peace because I know I'm too lazy to do as much work, as in charity work, or giving money to others rather than overspending on myself, as I probably ought to do...but I don't have real specific things to confess (yes, I did confess those. But I keep doing them!). I have either a scrupulous conscience or a new convert problem or something regarding when to receive Communion or not, and if one mortal sin can send you to hell, and we're capable of self-delusion--how on God's green earth are we supposed to be able to figure this out?
I hear you about the inner peace. Let me know when you find it! Seriously, though, I think it's something we spend our lives searching for. And as St. Augustine said, "Our hearts are restless until they rest in Thee, O Lord."
Yeah, there are going to be times when you'll drive yourself crazy with all the questions, doubts, fears, and so on. Welcome to the world! I can't speak as a convert, but as a human, I can say that this conversion of yours is a big deal to you because it's so different from what you've known before. Of course you're going to have questions and fears and scrupulosities! Don't worry. In time, they will settle somewhat, though I must tell you, as I already said, you'll likely always have questions - and there's nothing wrong with that!
Oh, and as for the last question on how we're supposed to figure it all out? Just keep your mind open. Listen, learn, be open (but not so open that your brains fall out . Gotta draw the line somewhere! Basically, use your reason along with your faith.). On a need-to-know basis, you will know what you need to know when you need to as long as you are open to God's will.
Oh, well--it helps to talk it out here! And I am much better, thanks be to God, this year than the last 2 years (converted in 2003)--in 2005 I almost had a physical and mental breakdown.
I'll keep in mind the specific forums, too. Thank you for your help!
You are welcome here and I hope that you find here a good measure of the support you need. I know this forum has been a help to many of us! God bless!
JMJ
- Cheri
____________________
“We do not want a Church that will move with the world; we want a Church that will move the world.”
- G.K. Chesterton
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Darlene
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| Joined: | Mon Oct 9th, 2006 |
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Posted: Tue Jan 30th, 2007 11:51 pm |
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twiggymoo wrote: There is a popular belief among Protestants that all sins are the same, a sin is a sin. One sin is no worse than another. My wife told me this recently and I told her that I disagreed and tried to reason with her. The reasoning is found in the Gospels - Jesus' words that what we think in our heart is the same as if we do it. Can their rationale be taken from this Scripture???
Yep,I've heard that one before. What utter nonsense. Just ask a Protestant what they would be more upset about, if their child stole someone's pen or if their child took a gun and shot someone. See how well they put their beliefs into practice. I have never believed this though I've heard it preached. The law itself shows us that there are different degrees of sin. Some sin is punished by a certain amount of years of incarceration. Other sin can result in life imprisonment. Still, in some states, sin is punishable by death. And when one looks into the Old Testament, they can see various degrees of punishment for various kinds of transgressions against God's law. And what about the sin which Jesus spoke about namely, blasphemy against the Holy Spirit. He actually said this is one sin that cannot be forgiven.
There is no rational in thinking that all sins are the same. They are only the same in that they are offensive to God. But the degree of their offensiveness varies greatly.
____________________
The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all. II Corinthians 13:14
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Luvadoxi
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| First Name: | Luvadoxi | | Gender: | Female | | Faith History: | Catholic convert; former Presbyterian and Lutheran |
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Posted: Fri Feb 23rd, 2007 04:20 am |
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I haven't visited this forum for awhile and was just noticing all the very helpful and caring replies--Much here to study--I'll come back and re-read the posts and look up those books mentioned. Thank you all so very, very much!
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ANITA SALAS
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| First Name: | ANITA | | Gender: | Female | | Faith History: | CRADLE CATHOLIC. 25 YEARS AT HOLY FAMILY CHURCH, PUEBLO, ... |
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Posted: Fri Feb 23rd, 2007 11:23 am |
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What a beautiful, knowledgeable and well thought out reply. I've returned to your response several times. I just wanted to tell you that on my way to work today I saw on a church marquee this little bit of wisdom - "wisdom is better than rules".
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Truthseeker
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| Joined: | Wed Oct 4th, 2006 |
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| First Name: | Laura | | Gender: | Female | | Faith History: | lapsed and returned CATHOLIC!!!!!! |
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Posted: Fri Feb 23rd, 2007 01:23 pm |
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Oh, well--it helps to talk it out here! And I am much better, thanks be to God, this year than the last 2 years (converted in 2003)--in 2005 I almost had a physical and mental breakdown.
You and I are rowing the same boat! I came home in 2003 and have struggled so much with this issue on sin and the gravity of each and every thought i have had and action I have taken since then. I have gone from thinking, "Well, God will forgive me", before giving up the good fight against temptation, to, "What am I doing, giving in so easily?" And, of course, giving up is excruciatingly painful to me now, knowing that I have caused one more stripe across my dear Lord's back.
I think, for those of us who come/return to the RCC, it is a looong process of defining sin. Our consciences are just now, being fully formed. I know how diffiicult it is. Sometimes, I feel like I am drowning in the doubt of my own sincerity. I do the very things I hate. Way too often.
Love, Laura
____________________
Lord, please make my will your Will!
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David W. Emery
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Posted: Fri Feb 23rd, 2007 02:52 pm |
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Truthseeker wrote:I think, for those of us who come/return to the RCC, it is a looong process of defining sin. Our consciences are just now, being fully formed. I know how diffiicult it is. Sometimes, I feel like I am drowning in the doubt of my own sincerity. I do the very things I hate. Way too often.
Beautifully put, Laura.
David
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