The struggle ...

Xeno.of.athens said:

Jesus encouraged his disciples to struggle against sins. We are also his disciples. We also struggle against sins.

Saints like Maximilian Kolbe taught that repeated falls can be occasions for deeper humility and dependence on grace—not despair.

The Church sees the struggle with sin as a path to holiness, not a sign of failure. As Augustine said, “God would not allow evil if He were not powerful enough to bring a greater good from it.”

The Church offers Confession and the Eucharist as means of grace to strengthen the soul against sin.

Prayer, fasting, and cultivating virtues like chastity, humility, and temperance are essential tools in this struggle.

I encourage every reader of this post, Catholic and non-Catholic to take courage from the holy scriptures and from the example of the saints and the teaching of the Church in their struggle against sins.

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How about repentance? I did not read that in your post. Jesus Christ of Nazareth taught repentance, to change ones mind, to turn away, from sin. He sent His Holy Spirit to Help!
Blessings

Xeno.of.athens said:

Sorry, I thought it went without saying; that is, it is so fundamental that it is inherent in what I wrote.

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Actually, a lot of Christians do not know the meaning of repentance. Many think it is just to ask for forgiveness but the actual meaning is to " change ones mind and to turning around". Repetitive sin is what we struggle with and only His Holy Spirit can break that cycle in us.
Thanks for sharing!
Blessings

Xeno.of.athens said:

Jesus encouraged his disciples to struggle against sins. We are also his disciples. We also struggle against sins.

Saints like Maximilian Kolbe taught that repeated falls can be occasions for deeper humility and dependence on grace—not despair.

The Church sees the struggle with sin as a path to holiness, not a sign of failure. As Augustine said, “God would not allow evil if He were not powerful enough to bring a greater good from it.”

The Church offers Confession and the Eucharist as means of grace to strengthen the soul against sin.

Prayer, fasting, and cultivating virtues like chastity, humility, and temperance are essential tools in this struggle.

I encourage every reader of this post, Catholic and non-Catholic to take courage from the holy scriptures and from the example of the saints and the teaching of the Church in their struggle against sins.

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I am having a hard time relating to this post. What is the goal you are promoting?

Maria Billingsley said:

How about repentance? I did not read that in your post. Jesus Christ of Nazareth taught repentance, to change ones mind, to turn away, from sin. He sent His Holy Spirit to Help!
Blessings

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And that is a work of the Holy Spirit, without which work it cannot be done.

The saints sin because they're human, but they know they sin. The hardline sinners don't regard even extreme sin as wrongdoing. Stalin and Hitler encouraged the mass murder of millions, and did not repent. I think Stalin said something like "One man's death is a tragedy. A million is a statistic."

Whereas a genuine believer would feel guilty if they didn't get to church or mass on Sunday; happened to speak sharply to their neighbour, or if they had some other besetting sin.

The concept of original sin is a bit of a dead end in my opinion. We live in a society where sin is all around us, with its disastrous results on our nightly news channels showing wars, crime and man's inhumanity all over the world. It travels down the generations. Hardline atheist parents for example encourage their own children to ignore or detest the idea of God, and in doing so ensure that sinfulness becomes entrenched in society.

We may be subject to original sin, but we commit our own personal sins. That is what we will answer for, not Adam's original sin.

Xeno.of.athens said:

It arose out of a conversation with a dear friend with sleep deprivation who benefited from the example of the saints in his religious life. So its goal is to share a thought that was useful for us and to share the theology behind it.

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Ok, thanks. I'm glad you were able to help your friend. But you must have had some deeper conversation than what was relayed above. I found one nugget most helpful - "repeated falls can be occasions for deeper humility and dependence on grace—not despair". But then I was confused because I thought most Catholics did not see "grace" as relating to forgiveness of sin but as enablement to not sin. Maybe you were using "grace" in the latter sense to say we should be humble and learn to not sin?

Experience tells me that the only way to dispose of a guilty conscience (that perhaps keeps a person up at night) is to internalize the fact that Jesus paid the price for all our sins. His sacrifice is sufficient to eliminate our guilt before God. Orienting our thoughts about ourselves to be in line with His sacrifice being sufficient for us is really the only way to not feel guilty.

As I searched your post for this central truth, I saw things like...

Xeno.of.athens said:

Jesus encouraged his disciples to struggle against sins.

Click to expand...

Xeno.of.athens said:

The Church sees the struggle with sin as a path to holiness, not a sign of failure.

Click to expand...

Xeno.of.athens said:

“God would not allow evil if He were not powerful enough to bring a greater good from it.”

Click to expand...

Xeno.of.athens said:

Prayer, fasting, and cultivating virtues like chastity, humility, and temperance are essential tools in this struggle.

Click to expand...

The only thing that I saw in reference to forgiveness being a cure for sin was...

Xeno.of.athens said:

The Church offers Confession

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But even this threw me off because telling another person you are sorry for your sins is not the same as receiving Christ's forgiveness. Or maybe you guys say the church is standing in for Christ and you're really looking to Him instead of the priest? But if that was the case, then why would being forgiven by Jesus (through the priest) not be sufficient to allay a person's guilt?

Maria Billingsley said:

Actually, a lot of Christians do not know the meaning of repentance. Many think it is just to ask for forgiveness but the actual meaning is to " change ones mind and to turning around". Repetitive sin is what we struggle with and only His Holy Spirit can break that cycle in us.
Thanks for sharing!
Blessings

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Hopefully most of us have repented, found new life in Christ. And yet we all still sin. One fundamentalist friend of mine asked me if I believed that even my future sins are forgiven. I though it a weird question. But I suppose so. How about even sins I am not aware of and have not repented? I think that is a better question. We must be reflective, examine our conscience, review our day's thoughts, words and deeds. The struggle is our pride, acknowledging not just that we sin but specific sins. Naming them, knowing them, acknowledging them. It is one thing to say I am a forgiven sinner. But it is quite another to say I was stingy with that person who asked for help. I was uncharitable when I responded to that post. I provoked argument when angrily confronted my spouse, child, brother sister.