Category: ScrupulosityShould I refrain from communion if I don’t remember when I last ate?
A: None of us, not even the priest offering the Mass himself, knows the exact moment when he will be receiving Holy Communion. If someone uses the hour of fast as a directive that he must eat something right up until an hour before he will receive Holy Communion, problems can ensue. A good way to get avoid this distraction is to refrain from eating food an hour before the Mass starts. This way, you’ll be certain at every Mass you attend that the fast has been satisfied and will be able to receive Our Lord as He wants you to do. Trent Beattie lives in Seattle, Washington. He is the author of the newly-released book on scrupulosity, Scruples and Sainthood: Accepting and Overcoming Scrupulosity With the Help of the Saints, and he selected the daily meditations for Saint Alphonsus Liguori for Every Day. Other Helpful Posts on Overcoming Scrupulosity I am always worrying that God is not happy with me…
A: A good way to overcome this doubt is to stop looking for validation, because the very search for it tends to make one feel even worse. As long as you have surrendered yourself to God and are doing all the Church requires of you, there is no need to search for sensible consolation. God does not require us to feel holy, but to be holy. This is what a man in his early twenties learned. He was a very dedicated Catholic, but wondered whether God was pleased with him, which brought about much depression and anxiety. He wrote,
However, this young man came to the realization that he would find peace of mind by ceasing his search for it. He replaced this search with prayerful surrender to Divine Providence, writing, “
When the search ceased, he found tranquility and peace. Who was this young man? The first canonized American male: Saint John Neumann. Trent Beattie lives in Seattle, Washington. He is the author of the newly-released book on scrupulosity, Scruples and Sainthood: Accepting and Overcoming Scrupulosity With the Help of the Saints, and he selected the daily meditations for Saint Alphonsus Liguori for Every Day. For More Help With Scrupulosity: I am struggling with scrupulosity, can I overcome this on my own?Q: Dear Trent, I tend to worry about trivial details, even to the point A: Thanks for your question on this central aspect of overcoming scrupulosity. It can be tempting to try to solve problems without any help, but consdier this observation about that: you’ve been your own spiritual director up to now but it doesn’t sound like it has worked out all that well… That sentence alone could suffice for an answer, but here’s a little more: It can be difficult for us to diagnose and deal with our own problems, but it tends to be very easy for others to do so for us, and us for others. A question about myself may take up hours, days, or even weeks of wondering, but if someone asked me the same question about himself, I could give a response within seconds. It is far easier for us to see others objectively than to see ourselves objectively. Priests have the added grace to enable them to guide souls in spiritual matters, which makes spiritual direction very beneficial to the scrupulous. It is true that a priest could give bad direction, but this problem can be avoided by doing the necessary research. Saint Alphonsus Liguori, the patron of the scrupulous, wrote to nuns regarding the matter of spiritual directors and confessors. He stated, “For the nun that sincerely desires to become a saint and wishes for nothing but God, every confessor that is appointed by her bishop is a safe guide.” The laity can take that advice as well. When contacting your local bishop, it would be a good idea to ask him for the names of three priests in your area who would be able to help you. If you don’t recognize the names already, you could look into their backgrounds and then go to the one most likely to help in an orthodox manner. By conducting this preparation beforehand, the possible problem of bad advice can be avoided, as can the possibility that one of the priests would be unable to help because of previous commitments, etc. It is also helpful to remember that it tends to be easy, even for the scrupulous, to spot advice which is certainly sinful. The issue for the scrupulous is centered on those things that may be sinful, and when in doubt, it is safe to go with the advice of a director whose background you are aware of and whom you have accepted. Saint Philip Neri stated that “There is nothing which gives greater security to our actions, or more effectively cuts the snares the devil lays for us, than to follow another person’s will, rather than our own, in doing good.” Trent Beattie lives in Seattle, Washington. He is the author of the newly-released book on scrupulosity, Scruples and Sainthood: Accepting and Overcoming Scrupulosity With the Help of the Saints, and he selected the daily meditations for Saint Alphonsus Liguori for Every Day. Other Helpful Posts What if I have nothing to confess, should I still go to confession?
A: Your question, it seems to me, can be summarized like this: How can I receive the graces of confession when I am not falling into obvious sin (the kind I used to experience so often)? This is a good question, because of a widespread bad habit. The bad habit is thinking that confession only exists for those times when we sin so grievously that we experience a spiritual earthquake. Without a doubt, this is the primary purpose of the sacrament – to open a way of reconciliation for a baptized Christian who has fallen into grave sin. But popes and spiritual writers in recent centuries have repeatedly and energetically encouraged all of us to practice frequent, regular confession. Blessed Mother Teresa of Calcutta used to go to confession weekly, as did Pope John Paul II. Obviously, these giants of the faith weren’t confessing mortal sins every week, so what was the reasoning behind their practice of frequent, regular confession? Benefits of Frequent Confession Every sacrament imparts its own particular grace. The sacramental grace of confession is primarily the forgiveness of sins, but it is also, secondarily, the spiritual strengthening of the soul. This is why it is called a sacrament of healing. It heals (reconciles) our relationships with God and with the Church, which have been wounded or broken by personal sin, and at the same time strengthens those relationships. When we break a bone, the body will repair it with an extra dose of calcium, so that the bone is actually stronger at the break point after the healing than it was before the injury. Something similar happens with confession. God pours out his strengthening grace in a special way on the aspects of our spiritual organism, so to speak, that we present to him in confession. Now you can understand why the devil works so hard to keep us away from frequent, regular confession. If our relationship with God has been ruptured (by mortal sin), he doesn’t want it reconciled. But even if it has just been wounded (venial sin), he doesn’t want it strengthened. This sacrament, however, proffers even more benefits to the soul than the sacramental graces of forgiveness and strengthening. Making a good confession requires the arduous task of self-reflection. Ongoing self-examination is, all spiritual writers agree, a basic ingredient in spiritual progress. We have to discover, with God’s help, how miserable and needy we really are, spiritually speaking, in order to open ourselves confidently and eagerly to God’s action. Going to confession is also like doing a major spiritual workout. Through the process of self-examination, repentance, confession, and penance, we exercise every major spiritual-muscle group: the theological virtues (faith, hope, love for God), humility (it’s not exactly self-inflating to kneel down and systematically expose our faults and failings), justice, prudence, fortitude (it takes courage to step into a confessional), and self-denial. This sacrament is like a gymnasium of Christian virtue. Frequent and regular workouts therein will do wonders for our spiritual health. What to Confess? Now we can come to the nitty-gritty of your question. Any valid confession will inundate your soul with these benefits, and the more conscientiously you participate in the sacrament, the better your workout will be. To be valid, a confession needs both sincere repentance (which includes the intention of fulfilling your assigned penance), and the actual confession of sin. When we have obvious sins on our conscience, that it is easy. But as we grow in the spiritual life, the obvious sins tend to diminish. When that happens, we need to examine ourselves more carefully to uncover the hidden attitudes, judgments, and intentions that are still self-centered and not Christ-centered. Scripture warns us that we do not know how deep our selfishness goes: “But who can detect his own failings? Wash away my hidden faults” (Psalm 19:12). This is an excellent topic to discuss in spiritual direction. Yet sometimes we identify failings that were not willful; we just fell into them out of weakness or lack of reflection. Here we can enter a gray area between venial sin, for which we are in some way directly responsible, and what spiritual writers call “imperfections,” for which we are only remotely responsible, if at all. A good example of this is internally judging and criticizing other people. Sometimes we notice ourselves doing that only after we have already been doing it for a few minutes, and we didn’t really consciously decide to start judging them. It is an injustice, but it stems from deep-seeded selfish tendencies, not willful lack of charity (unless we keep doing it even after we notice we were doing it). When the material of confession is in this gray area, it is a healthy practice to end the confession by referring to some past sins that were more obvious. If they have already been confessed, we don’t need to confess them again in detail (that would, as you suggest, be a step towards scrupulosity), but bringing them anew to the Lord is an excellent way to show him that we are truly sorry for all of our sins and failings. So, for example, if in the past your obvious sins had to do with theft, bribery, or fraud, you could finish your regular confession now by saying something like, “… I confess these sins [the ones you have already mentioned] and all the sins of my past life, especially those against the virtue of justice. These are my sins.” Now that we have explored some theoretical and practical aspects of regular, frequent confession, you may be wondering “How frequent and regular should my confession be?” If Mother Teresa went weekly, that’s not a bad yardstick. But that’s not always practical, and it may make you feel pressured. Confession every two weeks will be a turbo boost to your friendship with Christ, and, in today’s corrosive culture, monthly confession is almost the minimum required for someone who is serious about spiritual progress. But remember, the Church only requires us to go to confession annually, if we have a mortal sin on our conscience. Frequent confession is not a duty imposed by the Church; it is simply a heartfelt, wise recommendation. Yours in Christ, Fr John Bartunek, LC, ThD Is it a sin to have bad thoughts? How do I deal with bad thoughts? How can I be sure to avoid the unforgivable sin?
A: Your question itself contains a lot of wisdom. Actually, it also contains a lot of questions (three, to be exact). Before answering them, we need to make one more distinction. For someone who is already actively and sincerely trying to follow Christ, bad thoughts may be flashed directly by the devil, as you point out, but there may also be two other sources. First, they could flash up from our own subconscious. If someone has undergone a conversion (or reversion) after spending years in a self-centered, sinful lifestyle, echoes of that lifestyle will still reverberate under the surface of the mind. From time to time, they may break the surface and grasp at the conscious mind, trying to regain a hold on the will. In this case, the bad thoughts are not planted directly by the devil. If we resist these last gasps of our old habits, they will gradually lose energy and their appearances will decrease in frequency. Second, bad thoughts can be the result of carelessness. We are surrounded by non-Christian, and often un-Christian mental influences: images on the Web, billboards, and advertisements; ideas in news articles, movies, books, and television shows; anti-values woven into music and secular art. If we allow ourselves to imbibe these toxins, they will have their effect later on, stirring up thoughts that would pull us away from friendship with Christ. Guarding the Castle Thus, the first answer to your third question: we can grow in purity of thought by guarding our senses and minds from toxic input. This may seem a bit puritan in a pluralistic society, but it is only common sense. We are careful about the food we put into our body, because we know that it affects our physical health. We should be even more careful about what we purposely let into our minds and hearts, because that will affect our spiritual health. (Another favorite image used by spiritual writers is that of a drawbridge and a castle. You don’t let down the drawbridge when enemies come knocking; you keep it securely in place to protect the castle from invasion.) A wife who regularly reads grocery-store romance novels (which are a subtle form of pornography), or who daily drinks in the titillating sensuality of your typical soap opera, is clogging her marital arteries and setting herself up for a spiritual heart attack. A husband who goes to strip bars “just for business,” spends more time with atheist buddies than with fellow Christ-seekers, and doesn’t take the initiative to protect himself from Internet pornography is not keeping in spiritual shape. In both cases, “bad thoughts” and blasphemous ideas will pop up more and more frequently, even without the devil’s direct provocation. In these cases, we are at least partially responsible for the evil thoughts that come up to tempt us, and we should confess this negligence in the sacrament of reconciliation, and God will give us strength to be more coherent. Spiritual Self-Defense One other tactic useful for developing purity of thought consists in responding positively to the bad thoughts that do come up, whatever their source. As you mention in your question, once we recognize the flash of a bad thought, the last thing we want to do is pay attention to it. If you can simply ignore it and get back to doing God’s will with your whole mind and heart, great. But if the bad thoughts are violent and insistent, ignoring them is not always easy. In those cases, we need to have a prearranged plan. We need to be ready to counteract them with prayer as we try to turn our attention back to God’s will. This can be a simple vocal prayer, like the Our Father or the Hail Mary. It can be a favorite verse from Scripture used as a shield against evil (e.g. “The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want…” Psalm 23:1). I recently heard the example of a man battling to overcome sexual temptations who committed himself to singing hymns until the sensual thoughts dispersed – he said that he ended up memorizing four whole verses to more than a dozen hymns in his efforts to grow in purity! If we fail to fight actively, with a spirit of faith, against the evil thoughts that tempt us, or if our efforts to fight them are lackadaisical, then we should confess this negligence in the sacrament of reconciliation, and God will give us strength to be more courageous. Circumstantial Evidence This brings us to your first question about where to draw the line. If you know that certain circumstances (the use of particular media, or physical tiredness and stress, as you mention) tend to increase the intensity, frequency, or seductive power of evil thoughts, you have a responsibility to make a decent effort to avoid those circumstances. Eighty hour work weeks may win you the promotion you covet, but is winning that promotion worth exposing yourself to the occasions of sin? Jesus didn’t think so: “What, then, will anyone gain by winning the whole world and forfeiting his life?” (Mt 16:26) At times, however, the circumstances are out of our control (needy babies make for sleepless nights). That’s when our Lord is inviting us to lean more fully on him, and on the means for perseverance that he gives us (the sacraments, prayer, healthy friendships, a loving spouse…). If you are actively making a decent effort to do your part to live a Christ-centered, balanced life and to grow in purity of thought, and still the evil ideas and images plague you, they really do not qualify as material for confession. They are more like bad spiritual weather. In this sense, it is worth mentioning that many saints experienced violent and intense temptations to blasphemy towards the end of their lives, when they were well advanced in the spiritual life. The devil sent these temptations to cause confusion and to try and steal away their confidence in God and their peace of soul. If that happens to you, put up your umbrella of prayer and obedience to God’s will, and endure the storm for as long as the Lord allows it. As you do so, you will exercise all the major Christian virtues, thereby growing in holiness and building up the Church. Yours in Christ, Father John Bartunek, LC |
|
|
