I have read some Catholic sources that say we need to feel sorrow for our sins in order to be forgiven of them at confession. Does this mean that we have to actually feel the emotion? What if we do not feel this emotion?
I have to admit that I do not always feel the emotion of being sorry after committing a mortal sin. At times, I commit the mortal sin, then I ask God for forgiveness. Then maybe the next day (or even a few hours later) I will start worrying about going to hell if I die since I cannot make it to confession until a few days later. I will say that at times, I even just find myself feeling the emotion of sorrow. Then I think that maybe it was because of the mortal sin that had been committed the previous day or even earlier that day. But to be honest i can't say that I always feel that feeling of being sorry and it worries me that I don't.
But right now, I am really struggling as some of you might have been able to tell from my recent posts. I am not really seeing God in my life, and this has been going on for the last 1-2 years. I don't feel/think that I am living a Holy life, and I sure don't see God like I used to. Over the past 2 years I have given back into smoking cigarettes, masturbating more frequently, committing calumny, using bad language, detraction, lying at times (not too much though), etc. Its really awful and I have been really sinful. Its so frustrating because i am so weak against temptation nowadays. Whereas, before, I was seeing God and noticing Him in my everyday life. I also sensed His love for me, and I loved Him in return. I was living more holy than ever then. It was easier to resist temptation when in this state, and I would fight against sin because of how confident I was in my relationship with God. Now I am so weak to sin because I am blind. And another thing, I committed mortal sin yesterday asked for God to forgive me, then I turned around and committed the same sin today like it was nothing. I didn't even bother to resist my temptation. I just gave into it because I had no Faith in myself nor in God. Mainly because I feel like I am blind, and while being blind I don't care as much and I have no zeal.
I will say that over the past 5-6 weeks I have been really pealing away the layers of the onion. I have gone 40 days without smoking. I have went 5 weeks without masturbating. I have confessed and given up my views on racial superiority and have been battling with being more sensitive to the feelings and needs of people of other races. I will say that I have been looking at women a lot and have been battling back and forth with lust during this time. But I have been making a lot of sacrifices during this time frame, and I still feel blind.
I have lost my zeal, and I can't tell if its me. Or if maybe it has something to do with my switch to the SSPX. Lately, I have been reading stuff, written by the Novus Ordo, about how the sacraments of reconciliation and matrimony are invalid in the SSPX. So maybe I should go try the Novus Ordo again? And see if that helps? Myabe my confessions haven't been valid, not because of being the SSPX, but because I am not feeling sorrowful for my mortal sin always?
I am so lost right now, and it is so frustrating. It actually causes me to become irritable. I can't do anything without the Lord!!! And I don't know, but maybe I did something a while ago that really offended Him, and that is why He is not reaching out to me. I don't know what to think.
Please do not tell me to seek counseling for a priest as that is not so readily available to me. I'm sure there is someone here that has some good advice.
These are great replies:
There are two kinds of contrition: Perfect and imperfect.
Perfect contrition means that we have sorrow for our sins because we have offended God. Imperfect contrition means that we have sorrow for our sins because we fear the pains of hell. Both are sufficient.
Both are sufficient for forgiveness through sacramental Confession. Perfect contrition is also sufficient for forgiveness without sacramental Confession, but imperfect contrition is not.
. . . Perfect contrition is also sufficient for forgiveness without sacramental Confession . . .
When coupled with a firm sincere intention of confessing the sin(s) in sacramental confession as soon as possible.
I would like to add that while it is evident that perfect contrition (which is perfected by a firm intention to confess at the first opportunity) is more powerful with God than imperfect contrition, and the latter is sufficient when combined with the sacrament of Penance to effect remission of sins, still there is a remnant that persists after absolution, and that is the penance that the priest assigns you to do, before your sin is completely forgiven, and through which the temporal punishment due to your sin is satisfied.
After all of this, we are encouraged to pursue the practice and eventual achievement of perfect contrition, and for most of us, it takes a lifetime.
Truly achieving the state of perfect contrition requires the purest of intention and the most abandonment to the divine will of God. Anyone with a weakness for pride, for example, will have a most difficult time achieving perfect contrition.
Even so, regardless of your personal foibles or vulnerabilities, you are most highly advised and would be most wise, to make it your constant intention to strive to achieve perfect contrition.
Anyone who does achieve perfect contrition, if it is real, will not use that as an excuse to avoid going to Confession! Nor will a priest believe you if you confess to him that you have finally achieved perfect contrition, because if you say that, the saying of it
per se is a dead giveaway that it is not true. If you really were perfectly contrite, you would also be perfectly humble, and therefore you would never say, "I have achieved perfect humility."
I hope I don't have to explain that.
Faith is not based on emotions, nor is the practice of the faith based on emotions. Faith is based on the intellect, i.e., reason. When you read old catechisms or writings about the faith, keep this in mind. When the author uses a word or phrase that seems to require some sort of "feeling", know that you are interpreting his words according to the modern popular culture and that you should consider his words to have an intellectual basis rather than a basis in your gut feelings.
This is very important. In our modern age, "emotions" have taken on a new meaning. Under the proper order of things, our emotions are subject to our intellect. But we moderns are IMMERSED in a Modernist culture that proclaims that how you FEEL about anything is definitive, but more than that, it erroneously proclaims that reality itself is inherently fixed in what spontaneously erupts from your imagination and capriciously vague sense of FEELINGS. Therefore, your own reality can change from moment to moment as do your feelings about anything and everything. That is, your own subjective reality is the whole of everything real to you (this is an error BTW).
If you would like to know A LOT more on this topic, I highly recommend Frank Sheed's book,
Theology and Sanity (
Ignatius
Press, 1946, 1978, 441pp + 10pp of Index + 20pp of titles, Contents and 2 Prefaces = '471pp'), because it takes these very profoundly difficult themes and principles and doctrines, and it brings them into the realm of everyday conversational language (English) for everyone to understand it well.
Readers who may shudder at the mention of
IP should take solace in knowing that they haven't corrupted the text by more than a few instances of "inculsive language" to the effect that, for example,
"We live, indeed, in a vast context of things that are, events that have happened, a goal to which all is moving. That we should mentally see this context is part of mental health. Just as knowing that all things are upheld by God is a first step in knowing what we are, so a clear view of the shape of reality is a first step toward knowing where we are. To know where we are and what we are--that would seem to be the very minimum required by our dignity as man," became,
"...To know where we are and what we are--that would seem to be the very minimum required by our dignity as human beings," and,
"... it is not even enough that we should see the same things as other men plus the things the Church teaches," became,
"And it is not even enough that we should see the same things as other people plus the things the Church teaches" (p. 27 in the new edition). Therefore, the minor vocabulary adjustments, while conspicuous, do not greatly change the meaning of the text, notwithstanding the historical context of the fact of the changes.
That is to say, we all know the pernicious agenda that has pushed for inclusive language to the effect that
all of society and sanity is undermined, which is a topic not unrelated to this thread. It's more closely related to the EC ccclxvi thread, however.
I should probably post some excerpts of this fine tome around here somewhere.
.