Young And Catholic

Question: 

I have been struggling lately with my spiritual journey. I have made some awful mistakes in the past, and I am afraid that God is so ashamed with my decisions. I want to go to confession, but I am scared that God is too disappointed in me. I also feel that if I confess my sins the priest will judge my past mistakes. When I think about all of my brokenness, I become nauseous. Do you think I can start over and mend my relationship with God? I feel completely hopeless. Anything will help.

 Answer:

I’m very sorry to hear that you are going through such a difficult time, and I want to assure you of my prayers for you.

The short answer to your question: “Do you think I can start over and mend my relationship with God?”  is a resounding ‘YES!’  And you may not realize this, but God has already started the process.

What you’re experiencing—that sorrowful feeling for offending God in the past, that knowledge of the fact that you need to be reconciled to Him— that is called prevenient grace.  It’s a fancy way of saying that God loves us so much that He will run after us, even after we’ve completely rejected Him and done everything in our power to separate ourselves from His love.

My grandfather once told me that every time we think about God throughout the day, that is God telling us He loves us, and inviting us into conversation with Him.  We can’t think of God unless He first thinks of us.  The very fact that you exist right now is because God is willing you into existence— at this very moment.  He created you for love of you, and nothing you could ever do can change the unchangeable God.

Now, prevenient grace is meant to precede and prepare us for sanctifying grace, which is what we receive in the sacraments.  Particularly, baptized Catholics receive actual grace in the sacrament of reconciliation.  If you’re looking for a way to mend your relationship with God, there is no better way than to be reconciled to Him in the sacrament of reconciliation (see what I did there? :-P).   If prevenient grace is God calling us to Himself out of love for us, sanctifying grace is God literally pouring out that love upon us.  But you have to first go to confession to get it.

So, none of this nonsense about God being too disappointed in you or too ashamed of you to take you back.  He loves you more than you could ever even want Him to, and He desires your happiness more than you do.  If you don’t believe me, just read the history of the Israelites in the Old Testament and see how many times they screwed up, turned their back on God, worshipped other gods, and still, God was constantly faithful to them.

Come now, let us set things right,
Says the LORD:
Though your sins be like scarlet,
They may become white as snow;
Though they be red like crimson,
They may become white as wool
-Isaiah 1:18

As for the concern about the priest judging you, I know it can be nothing short of terrifying to utter our most shameful sins aloud to a fellow human being and invite commentary on them.  But the good news is that the priest knows this too.  And he’s not there to judge; he’s there to confer absolution, to free you from your sin and guilt (through the power given him by Christ, of course).  That’s why he sits in the confessional week after week, hearing confession after confession.  And believe me, the priest has heard it all.  You’re not going to surprise him with anything you confess (Week after week, and confession after confession, remember?).

But in all the talk about being afraid to confess our sins to another human being, I think too often we overlook one of the best things about confession: we’re confessing our sins to another human being!  It’s not some emotion-less, dry ritual.  It’s real.  It’s one human being to another, talking about what actually matters. What a profound gift!  So don’t be afraid of doing it wrong or anything like that.  If you’re nervous, say so.  If you’re not quite sure how to begin, say so.  The priest wants you to make a good confession, and he is there to help you do that.

The best advice I’ve ever gotten about going to confession was to ask the Blessed Mother to help you make a good confession.  She will.

I’m praying for you.  Please go to confession soon.  Your only regret will be waiting so long.

Out of the depths I call to you, LORD;
Lord, hear my cry!
May your ears be attentive
to my cry for mercy
If you, LORD, keep account of sins,
Lord, who can stand
But with you is forgiveness
and so you are revered.

I wait for the LORD,
my soul waits
and I hope for his word
My soul looks for the Lord
more than sentinels for daybreak

More than sentinels for daybreak,
let Israel hope in the LORD,
For with the LORD is mercy,
with him is plenteous redemption,
And he will redeem Israel
from all its sins.

-Psalm 130

PS- Sorry for missing Tuesday’s post!  But it felt like Monday anyway, right? :)

Original Article

God is so kind to me.  Knowing that I would suffer from writer’s block today (despite a list of potential blog topics and questions to answer), He nudged a reader to send me this list, knowing it would give me an idea of something to write about.

So thanks for that, God.  (and Joe!) :)

Onto the post:

The aforementioned link is to a list of “25 Things I’ve Learned in My Twenties.”  (If you haven’t figured it out by now, us bloggers like these kinds of “list” posts.  They’re almost as simple to write as they are to read.  Plus, they’re fun!)  Posts like these serve as sort of cautionary lists of advice while at the same time patting the reader on the back, as if to say, ”what you’re going through is completely normal experience.  We’ve all been there (or will be there).  But if you haven’t been there yet, here’s what you can do to make it a little easier on yourself.”

Anyway, a casual glance at the list will likely be enough for you to figure out that I don’t agree with everything on it.  There are things like drugs being normal and fine so long as they’re not negatively affecting you (because hey, drugs can sometimes be a good and productive use of your time, right?), or getting wasted and puking in public (everyone does it, so you should too!), and sleeping around (the solid foundation of any healthy and fulfilling lifestyle).  ”All of these are normal experiences in your twenties, so don’t worry about it,” is the vibe we get from the article.

Okay, fine.  I can’t address every one of these, but the ability to reason that you’ve hopefully developed by the time you’ve hit your twenties ought to be enough to give you a hint that some of the items on this list are not exactly the best advice to be following.

However, in my opinion, number 12 is worth addressing specifically, because I think it’s a lie we might be tempted as young people to tell ourselves quite frequently:

12. You’re going to betray your convictions. You’re going to feel shame. You’re going to continue to put yourself in situations that aren’t good for you. And then, slowly but surely, it will become less frequent. It might not ever go away completely but it won’t be as bad. In the meantime, stop shame spiraling about it. It gets you nowhere.

For starters: Why are we considering it a given that you’re going to betray your convictions?  Sure, we’re all human and we all make mistakes.  We may very well do things that betray our convictions.  But a surefire way to guarantee that happening is to tell yourself that it’s going to.  By definition, if you have convictions, you should be doing everything in your power to keep them.  If you’re not, then they’re not very strong convictions that you have in the first place.  But then again, maybe that’s the author’s point…

[caption id=”attachment_5917” align=”aligncenter” width=”624” caption=”…deep, man.”][/caption]

My advice: develop strong convictions before your twenties, so you care so much about them that you wouldn’t dare betray them.

In any case, what he says next is the reason I chose to address this point all on its own:

You’re going to continue to put yourself in situations that aren’t good for you. And then, slowly but surely, it will become less frequent. It might not ever go away completely but it won’t be as bad.

This is just not true.  This is the lie we tell ourselves over and over again so that we won’t feel as bad for doing whatever we’re doing when we know it’s wrong.  “It’s not like I’ll be doing this forever,” we tell ourselves.  But the fact of the matter is: unless you make the conscious decision to stop, and unless you actually make the effort to stopputting yourself in those situations which you recognize are not good for you, then the only thing that will change is that you’ll stop recognizing that the situation is bad for you.

The author even acknowledges this!  “It [the bad that you’re doing] might not ever completely go away,” he says, “but it won’t be as bad.”  Why won’t it be as bad?  What has changed about the situation other than the fact that you’re now more accustomed to putting yourself in a bad situation?  The truth is that it’s still just as bad as it was when you started.  You’ve just (unfortunately) become accustomed to it.

My advice: You might find yourself choosing to place yourself in situations that are bad for you.  Stop it.  Cut it out right now, or you’ll justify it (and other things that are wrong) for the rest of your life.

And praise God when you feel shame for doing something wrong!  It actually does get you somewhere; that’s the point.  You don’t like feeling shame?  Then stop doing whatever you’re doing that’s making you feel shame.  It’s as simple as that.

It’s a sad place to be in when you do something terrible and don’t feel a drop of guilt for it. But regardless of your feelings, if you know you’ve done something wrong, go to confession and then do whatever you can to avoid doing it again.  Making excuses for yourself is what gets you nowhere (except for into deeper problems).

Original Article

Writing a paper on the sensus fidelium (which is as fun to say as this paper has been difficult for me to finish), so no post today.

Please enjoy these links to old posts as a token of my apology:

The Problem With Porn

Last Friday Night

Letting Go

God Bless!

Original Article