How can I know whether or not I really have firm purpose of amendment when going into the confessional?  If I go in firmly intending not to commit the sin again but then do so soon after does that prove the original resolution just wasn't real?  How can a person tell the difference?  

Like basically how do you know the difference between just a separate failure and not having been sincere in the first place?

Posted in the annonymous subforum 'cause obviously its kind of a personal question. 

Do your utmost to avoid the occasions of sin, and gauge yourself by how often and to what extent you let such occasions persist.

OK so let's say as far as you know you don't have any, the temptations are purely coming from thoughts in your head/past history from before one's conversion?

Then what?

You're describing the same thing that we all deal with - and we all will deal with it till we draw our last breath. Even Hermits who went to live in caves to rid themselves of such thoughts from past history dealt with this, many of them left their cave and returned to sin. "As fire testeth iron, so doth temptation the upright man" says Thomas A Kempis.

Pray 15 decades every day, get in the habit of mental prayer, fast and abstain as often as you can, be extra attentive at Mass and do your 5 First Saturdays, doing these things and more will help to keep you in the state of grace and grow in that state. Go to confession weekly, or every other week whether you need it or not. In time, you won't need it but will reap the graces which only help.



 

I would recommend that you study the Fathers of the desert. They dealt with these problems long before we were born.

How do you know how old I am?  lol

Even if you are 110 years old the Fathers of the desert were long gone before you were born.

Yeah I was joking there.