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Overcoming habitual sin
- Thread starter RileyG
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What sin(s) specifically are you having trouble with, may I ask?
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- Dec 28, 2016
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Realize that you are free in Christ from the bonds of sin.
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- Dec 29, 2002
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Know He does not judge you.. does not condemn you. This part is hard... He your Father sees you righteous and holy because you believe in His son.
So what do we do in cases like this? We let allow Him to shine..see He knows we can't do anything with out Him. So no matter how you feel what you see or hear.. give this to Him.. be silly and reach out (not sure why by crying now) and give it to Him.. KNOW He takes it.. and He WILL help you. it will stop... You will be shocked how.. wow its just gone! KNOW He cares for you..more then we know. KNOW He never condemns you.. what does HE say? "this is why I died
)Your are so loved!
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Thank you everyone for the responses. I greatly appreciate it. I have full trust and confidence I am forgiven and am a new creature in Christ. The old has passed away...
I greatly appreciate it. I have full trust and confidence I am forgiven and am a new creature in Christ. The old has passed away...
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Oleaster
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I came into the Church at the 2014 Vigil and, while confirmation was one of the highlights of my life, I was confirmed in the midst of the absolute worst time of my life and soon found myself confessing the same sins all too frequently - even mortal sins. I was trying to lessen or avoid the most excruciating pain in the most sinful ways. So I had to take a determined approach to rooting out sin and, thus, I learned a bit about the process which I am happy to share.
In Father John Bartunek's book Advice: Catholic Answers for your Spiritual Questions there appears a section on root sins. This treatment is different from common considerations of mortal/venial sin, seven deadly sins, and so on. Father John asserts that one of three root sins (pride, vanity, or sensuality) tends to dominate in every soul. He provides a list of typical manifestations of these root sins to help the reader determine which is dominant in his or her life.
Of course, we are all guilty of all three root sins, and Aquinas identifies pride as the ultimate root from which every sin springs. Nevertheless, it is quite possible that one of the other two root sins manifests more frequently in a given soul. At any rate, the reason why so many Christians fail to advance in the spiritual life is because they go about snapping off branches of sin instead of attacking the root.
A familiar image is the alcoholic in remission who boasts that Christ has cured him of the evil of his excessive alcohol consumption. If he hasn't learned that his "disease" was a manifestation of greed and/or gluttony, rooted in sensuality and pride, then he is probably still addicted to the same vice in some other form. Former alcoholics often substitute overeating for over-drinking, it would seem, as I have encountered several testifying to God's grace in their life while gobbling a third plate from the buffet.
So identifying your root sin is essential, as your habitual sins probably appear as manifestations of one of the three roots. This guided examination of conscience is the spiritual prognosis needed to determine a proper cure in each individual case. The book excerpt is available online, if you would like to examine your life in light of the root sins and their usual manifestations: How can I Identify my Root Sin?
Only once you identify your root sin can you really begin the difficult work of uprooting sin from your life. Christ and His grace are, of course, the healing elements for every sinner at all times, and everything offered by, in, and through His Church is an outpouring of the same. So every cure includes liberal use of the Mass - especially reception of the Eucharist (daily, if you can receive it!) - frequent confession, a robust prayer life, regular spiritual reading, retreats, etc. Then you can add a deliberate effort to counter vice with the opposite virtue.
To break a bad habit, you must replace it with a good one. It's that simple. Simple, though NOT easy! Yet, with God's grace all things are possible, even your sanctification, which you can rejoice to know is God's intention for you. He said that faith as small as a grain of mustard seed can move a whole mountain of sin. And He wants your sanctification! What a blessing to know that you want what He wants.
Here is a link to a good Catholic article on replacing bad habits with good ones: The key to overcoming bad habits is with good habits
I purchased a book called Manual for Conquering Deadly Sin by Fr. Dennis Kolinski, which I highly recommend. If you buy it, you can habituate yourself to carrying it with you and resorting to it during moments of temptation. It offers tried and true remedies against the seven deadly sins and can be ordered directly from the publisher: Manual for Conquering Deadly Sin
You can also work on practicing the presence of God, which is defined in the article linked below as "making strong efforts to keep God always present in our mind and heart, even when we are engaged in our daily tasks." Practice Of The Presence Of God This works great with daily Mass each morning. When you receive Christ in the Eucharist each morning, you can pray something like, "O my Jesus, as you have given yourself to me, so let me give myself to you. As you have died for me, so let me die for you. As you were transformed in glory, so let me be transformed." Then you go out each day with a determined effort to remember that your Best Friend is always with you, literally dwelling within you, and He's looking forward to your allowing Him to share in literally every moment of your life - especially in your moments of temptation. He will never leave us. The struggle is for us to learn never to leave Him.
Finally, you may wish to add the practice of memento mori, which is Latin for "remember your death." I learned this one from the Knights of Columbus. Each day may be your last. Death may strike at any hour. Keeping this reality present to us can be a tremendous help in conquering sin, because we Christians want our lives - especially our last moment - to shine. Since any moment may be our last, how can we allow ourselves to fall into sin? It is only through pride and presumption, of course, that we sin willfully. At least subconsciously we must presume to know that we will not die now, which reveals our pride in usurping the place of God. Often repeating willful sins is what forms our habits of sin. We have to change our attitudes and our habits, and this is a long, slow, laborious process - often two steps forward and one step back. It is true spiritual warfare, in which the devil and demons and wicked men are all against us with their perverse designs!
Say, for example, that you habitually take the Lord's name in vain. Then you begin to practice the memento. Not only would you not want your last words to be blasphemous, but in actuality you'll hope that your last words will be holy. In this way, you can begin not only to refrain from that explicit sin of abusing the Lord's name, but you'll start trying to make all your words sweet. You won't want to speak slander or gossip about anyone in case those may be your last words. You won't even want to be talking about the latest basketball score or how bad President What's-His-Name is doing on the economy and so forth. By the practice of the memento mori you will begin to guard your tongue, hoping that your last words may be "God bless you" to a stranger or perhaps "Jesus, Mary, and Joseph" or some other holy words. Begin to imagine that every moment is your last, and remember that your Best Friend Jesus is in your midst, and at some moment in time you will be absolutely correct on both counts and hopefully with your last breath you'll give glory to God. Memento Mori - Remember Your Death
Be patient with yourself too, because it really is a long, slow war with many victories and defeats. Weekly confession is good for developing the humility needed to uproot pride. Pope Francis said in his book The Name of God is Mercy something about all those non-Catholics who fancy they have confessed before God all their wickedness without actually confessing to a priest - something like, "How can anyone presume to have confessed to God when he cannot even bring himself to confess to his own brother? Indeed they confess to themselves and call it God." (That's a paraphrase, but that's the gist.) We Catholics know how difficult true confession is, and we are deeply humbled when we find ourselves before our priest weekly lamenting the same defects. But in this way we really begin to heal. May God bless you and all His faithful and set us free from all sin as He has promised.
In Father John Bartunek's book Advice: Catholic Answers for your Spiritual Questions there appears a section on root sins. This treatment is different from common considerations of mortal/venial sin, seven deadly sins, and so on. Father John asserts that one of three root sins (pride, vanity, or sensuality) tends to dominate in every soul. He provides a list of typical manifestations of these root sins to help the reader determine which is dominant in his or her life.
Of course, we are all guilty of all three root sins, and Aquinas identifies pride as the ultimate root from which every sin springs. Nevertheless, it is quite possible that one of the other two root sins manifests more frequently in a given soul. At any rate, the reason why so many Christians fail to advance in the spiritual life is because they go about snapping off branches of sin instead of attacking the root.
A familiar image is the alcoholic in remission who boasts that Christ has cured him of the evil of his excessive alcohol consumption. If he hasn't learned that his "disease" was a manifestation of greed and/or gluttony, rooted in sensuality and pride, then he is probably still addicted to the same vice in some other form. Former alcoholics often substitute overeating for over-drinking, it would seem, as I have encountered several testifying to God's grace in their life while gobbling a third plate from the buffet.
So identifying your root sin is essential, as your habitual sins probably appear as manifestations of one of the three roots. This guided examination of conscience is the spiritual prognosis needed to determine a proper cure in each individual case. The book excerpt is available online, if you would like to examine your life in light of the root sins and their usual manifestations: How can I Identify my Root Sin?
Only once you identify your root sin can you really begin the difficult work of uprooting sin from your life. Christ and His grace are, of course, the healing elements for every sinner at all times, and everything offered by, in, and through His Church is an outpouring of the same. So every cure includes liberal use of the Mass - especially reception of the Eucharist (daily, if you can receive it!) - frequent confession, a robust prayer life, regular spiritual reading, retreats, etc. Then you can add a deliberate effort to counter vice with the opposite virtue.
To break a bad habit, you must replace it with a good one. It's that simple. Simple, though NOT easy! Yet, with God's grace all things are possible, even your sanctification, which you can rejoice to know is God's intention for you. He said that faith as small as a grain of mustard seed can move a whole mountain of sin. And He wants your sanctification! What a blessing to know that you want what He wants.
Here is a link to a good Catholic article on replacing bad habits with good ones: The key to overcoming bad habits is with good habits
I purchased a book called Manual for Conquering Deadly Sin by Fr. Dennis Kolinski, which I highly recommend. If you buy it, you can habituate yourself to carrying it with you and resorting to it during moments of temptation. It offers tried and true remedies against the seven deadly sins and can be ordered directly from the publisher: Manual for Conquering Deadly Sin
You can also work on practicing the presence of God, which is defined in the article linked below as "making strong efforts to keep God always present in our mind and heart, even when we are engaged in our daily tasks." Practice Of The Presence Of God This works great with daily Mass each morning. When you receive Christ in the Eucharist each morning, you can pray something like, "O my Jesus, as you have given yourself to me, so let me give myself to you. As you have died for me, so let me die for you. As you were transformed in glory, so let me be transformed." Then you go out each day with a determined effort to remember that your Best Friend is always with you, literally dwelling within you, and He's looking forward to your allowing Him to share in literally every moment of your life - especially in your moments of temptation. He will never leave us. The struggle is for us to learn never to leave Him.
Finally, you may wish to add the practice of memento mori, which is Latin for "remember your death." I learned this one from the Knights of Columbus. Each day may be your last. Death may strike at any hour. Keeping this reality present to us can be a tremendous help in conquering sin, because we Christians want our lives - especially our last moment - to shine. Since any moment may be our last, how can we allow ourselves to fall into sin? It is only through pride and presumption, of course, that we sin willfully. At least subconsciously we must presume to know that we will not die now, which reveals our pride in usurping the place of God. Often repeating willful sins is what forms our habits of sin. We have to change our attitudes and our habits, and this is a long, slow, laborious process - often two steps forward and one step back. It is true spiritual warfare, in which the devil and demons and wicked men are all against us with their perverse designs!
Say, for example, that you habitually take the Lord's name in vain. Then you begin to practice the memento. Not only would you not want your last words to be blasphemous, but in actuality you'll hope that your last words will be holy. In this way, you can begin not only to refrain from that explicit sin of abusing the Lord's name, but you'll start trying to make all your words sweet. You won't want to speak slander or gossip about anyone in case those may be your last words. You won't even want to be talking about the latest basketball score or how bad President What's-His-Name is doing on the economy and so forth. By the practice of the memento mori you will begin to guard your tongue, hoping that your last words may be "God bless you" to a stranger or perhaps "Jesus, Mary, and Joseph" or some other holy words. Begin to imagine that every moment is your last, and remember that your Best Friend Jesus is in your midst, and at some moment in time you will be absolutely correct on both counts and hopefully with your last breath you'll give glory to God. Memento Mori - Remember Your Death
Be patient with yourself too, because it really is a long, slow war with many victories and defeats. Weekly confession is good for developing the humility needed to uproot pride. Pope Francis said in his book The Name of God is Mercy something about all those non-Catholics who fancy they have confessed before God all their wickedness without actually confessing to a priest - something like, "How can anyone presume to have confessed to God when he cannot even bring himself to confess to his own brother? Indeed they confess to themselves and call it God." (That's a paraphrase, but that's the gist.) We Catholics know how difficult true confession is, and we are deeply humbled when we find ourselves before our priest weekly lamenting the same defects. But in this way we really begin to heal. May God bless you and all His faithful and set us free from all sin as He has promised.
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- Dec 27, 2015
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I don't know about others, but I find on (those rare) occasions I get to reconciliation, I end up confessing the same old pet sins every time.
I think most of us have weaknesses in certain areas, while we may not have much trouble with other sins.
I could take a repeat shopping list of pet sins with me when I go to confession, and just tick them off one by one.
I think most of us have weaknesses in certain areas, while we may not have much trouble with other sins.
I could take a repeat shopping list of pet sins with me when I go to confession, and just tick them off one by one.
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1. I don't think that anyone here is without sin, because only Saints can make that claim.
2. It seems to me that many times it is our lack of the basics in Life that leads us into sin. And if we had the means or the opportunity to fulfill those basics, we would not be sinning.
3. Other times it is having an excess of the basics that leads us into sin.
But either way, our life is out of balance, and that lack of balance is what trips us up, and leads to sin.
2. It seems to me that many times it is our lack of the basics in Life that leads us into sin. And if we had the means or the opportunity to fulfill those basics, we would not be sinning.
3. Other times it is having an excess of the basics that leads us into sin.
But either way, our life is out of balance, and that lack of balance is what trips us up, and leads to sin.
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boughtwithaprice
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The grace of God flows through the Sacraments, Ex Opere Operato. If you are in habitual sin, you need the sacraments more than ever. The Eucharist can cleanse us of venial sin and reduce our concupiscence or desire for sin, so frequent if not daily Mass would be a good start. If you are trapped in mortal sin, then you need to make a good confession, then receive communion as soon as possible before you fall into mortal sin again. This will strengthen you to endure.
For further study, I also highly recommend The Spiritual Combat and Treatise on the peace of the Soul, by Dom Lorenzo Scupoli, if you require reading.
Jesus said, unless you eat my flesh and drink my blood, you have no life in you. I can personally testify to this, as it has broken my old habits, and the Lord is merciful
For further study, I also highly recommend The Spiritual Combat and Treatise on the peace of the Soul, by Dom Lorenzo Scupoli, if you require reading.
Jesus said, unless you eat my flesh and drink my blood, you have no life in you. I can personally testify to this, as it has broken my old habits, and the Lord is merciful
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boughtwithaprice
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We need jeffreylloyd, geocajun, nyj, and shelby5; that would be freaky LOL. It is interesting to see what a difference 17 years makes. The Lord is merciful, nothing freaky about that, but it does make one wonder
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I'm fb friends with Jeff. And Sandy (zoomom) and a few others. but i've lost touch with those other guys.
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