WHAT DO MY PRAYERS LOOK LIKE?
Without a prayer salvation is not possible. Even if we do many good deeds, but not pray often and well, we will not achieve salvation. Prayer opens the eyes of the soul, recalls her own misery, and reinforces strengthens distrust of oneself and commands recourse to God. Devout Christian insert whole hope in God, uselessly no rely to himself.
God does not look whether prayers are long and pretty, but wants, to flow from the bottom of our heart, that we pray with respect and desire to resemble him – thus the ordinary and uneducated person can pray well. God forgives even the greatest sinners, if they sincerely beg, therefore evil spirit uses all the ways that we neglect prayer. If I am experiencing difficulties in prayer and disgust, yet will not turn away from prayer, my prayer is that even more meritorious in the eyes of the Lord God. Pray for everyone, even for enemies.
For a prayer to be dear to God and useful to the soul, we must be in a state of grace, have the desire to turn and have resistance to sin. Sinner who does not want to correct, is an insult to the Lord God. In vain are your prayers and sacrifices if you remain in sin!
There is no physical healing without forgiveness and spiritual healing. God can hear our prayer only when we remove all obstacles. Therefore, we must renounce all sins and forgive everything to everyone.
Sinners cannot reach conversion without prayer. The damned went to damnation because they did not pray or prayed badly.
- Do I pray, do I pray little? – Do I want to get it over with as soon as possible, do I count on, that an others will do prayers for me, distracted and unfinished prayers – Do I fall asleep during them?
- Do I omit morning and evening prayers?
- Do I do worships, the Calvary, I do not pray the Novena, I’m mature but I pray only basic prayers as a child, I do not pray for others, I do not pray for the souls in purgatory?
- Do I pray with resistance?
- Do I pray more only when I have difficulties, I just a little thank God in prayer – but I always ask something?
- Do I mock prayers and them who are praying, I question devotions, distorting words?
- Parents – Do I teach a child to pray – Do I apologize it by being still young, am I an example to the child? If a child is tiny – I should pray with him on his behalf, oversee that he performed his prayers – to pray together, to teach child age-appropriate prayers and not to be satisfied with the fact, that the child knows only children’s prayers. My adult child does not know Christian prayers (Rosary, Chaplet of Divine Mercy) – for I have not taught them from my indifference, disinterest?
HOW DO I SPEND TIME AT HOLY MASS?
- Do I just listen to it formally?
- Am I distracted, do I disturb, am I bored, sleeping, talking, commenting priest, believers, decoration in temple, the homily, I anger that Holy Mass takes too long, am I actively involved in the course of the Holy Mass (do I pray, do I answer the priest), do I murmur if I do not have free seat, do I kneel before the Lord on both knees, I barely enter the church and already think how to leave as soon as possible?
- Do I participate in the whole Holy Mass – from the beginning to the blessings, am I late, do I thank God for the grace of the Holy Mass – am I rushing out of the church as soon as possible?
- Do I go to the Holy Mass – I do not go out of laziness, out of conviction, out of indifference, out of excuses for health, out of duty (I have to cook, I have to learn, I expect a visit, I have a small child …)?
- Am I going to the Holy Mass myself – Do I tell others to go on my behalf?
- Parents – Am I bringing a child into the church – do I rob him of graces (I excuse it that child is small, disturbs peace, I will not be able to focus on the Holy Mass, out of laziness …), do I tolerate child’s refusal of participating in the Holy Mass – do I even support it (excuses – must learn for an exam, let him decide for himself whether he wants to go) – do I forget about my responsibility for the child in front of the God? If the child is already an adult and I know that is not going to the Holy Mass, I have a duty to admonish. Am I an example for the child – Do I send a child to church, but I’m not going myself?
- Do I go to Holy Mass, Holy Communion in unworthy clothes (shorts, short skirt, neckline …)?
- Do I go to Protestant rites (Lutheran, Calvinist) – do I accept and spread their heresies to convince others, do I blaspheme?
HOW DO I RECEIVE THE SACRAMENTS?
- Indifferently? Out of obligation? I confess 1-2 times a year (the Church imposes to confess at least once a year – not because it would be sufficient for a soul, but if it not doing so, how many would not come to the Sacrament of Penance not even once a year – am I one of them?)
- Do I receive Holy Communion with reverence?
- Am I in a state of grace?
- Do I receive unworthy (form of sacrilege)?
- Do I mock and disparage the sacraments?
- Do I question the body of Christ – Eucharistic Jesus? Do I receive unworthily? Do I receive on the hand (not in the mouth)?
- I mock the Body of Christ pursuant Protestant heresies – Did I despise the Eucharistic Jesus and His bloodless sacrifice in the celebration of the Catholic Holy Mass and replace it with the rites of the Protestant (Lutheran, Calvinist)?
- Did I avoid receiving the Eucharist out of negligence, scrupulosity, shame in front of the people?
SACRILEGIOS CONFESSION
For good confession it is not enough to confess sins in front of a priest and execute given repentance! Do not lie to yourself, that God can be satisfied with anything and that you can easily gain lost grace.
- The whole year you were busy with worldly things, taking care of the property, pleasantness of life, not working on your (spiritual) improvement, on rectifying – on Easter you come to confession and confessing your sins, like telling a tale. Then mindlessly and mechanically you recite a few prayers, and it seems to you, you have settled with God. Immediately after the confession, you return to the previous way of life (lechery, entertainment, dancing, pubs, concubines, adultery, red laces, horoscopes, injustice which you did not redress, theft which was not atoned) – no trace of correction is seen! Every year, from confession to confession you do the same!
- You confess indifferently, cold-hearted, just out of habit, routine – does love to God, regret and desire lead you to mend yourself?
- You confess only in general; do you omit many of your sins? You can deceive a priest, even pretend remorse and get absolution from him, but you will not deceive God. God will not confirm such absolution. Remember, that your confessions, if you act this way, are not valid and perhaps they are even sacrilege! There are people who would confess only on their deathbed if the Church did not order them to do so every year.
Am I doing a good examination of conscience?
- Examine the depths of the heart thoroughly – do not hide anything from yourself – as nothing will be hidden at the final judgment.
- The less someone confesses, the more time for questioning the conscience is needed.
- The desire to make remedy is only doubtful and played, repentance pretended (as evidenced is return to a sinful life – again you sit in the pubs, fornicate, you take anticonception, revel, a few more times you come to Holy Mass and then no longer – up to some feast).
- Lack of remorse – when we hide sin, we feel inner restlessness that bites us like a wild tiger, but if we do not remorse, in our blindness we do not pay attention to it. One who wants to be sure about a proper repentance in confession, will see it best in change of previous life.
- Am I hiding sins from a priest because of fear, that I will not receive absolution? Someone may say: “Probably no one dares to hide sins, because of exposure to frequent remorse. My brothers! If I had to confirm under oath, I wouldn’t hesitate to say that there are five such sinners out of six people, among you in the church right now. You’ll see for yourself at the Day of Judgment, and you will recall what I have said to you today.” (St. J. M. Vianney)
- If you say that you are confessing a sin which you forgot in the previous confession – but you did not say this sin from laziness or shame – you commit sacrilege. Omit or reduce the number of mortal sins is sacrilege (if I am guilty of three such sins and say only two, I am offending God sorely). If I don’t remember the exact number, I confess it approximately. Unless the confessor asks you about a certain sin, you did not intend to confess it. By this you will eventually confess the sin, but you will no longer say that you intended to hide it.
- Badly confesses a person, who does not want to correct the injustice, even though it could be done. Unhappy are confessions of girls, women, youths, and men, who maintain sinful relationships and refuse to give them up. These people usually do not even feel guilty in the confession and hide their sins. Person who conceals sins, does not want to deceive the priest, but wants to deceive God Himself, even though it is impossible!
- Outburst of anger I mark as impatience, obscene speech that offend others – I mark only as freer speech, abominable requests and deeds, as a little less polite confidentialities, great injustice as little injustice, excessive greed – just a little more tie to earthly goods… and that is where a lot of sacrileges come from.
Do I hide the circumstances of sin?
I slandered, but I didn’t admit it came from my pride and envy, hatred, and anger. Also, I do not mention how much damage I caused to the reputation of the neighbor or whether I was telling lies. I did not mention what kind of person it was – whether I slandered a priest, another person consecrated to God, a family member… You say that you have spoken out against faith and morality, concealing the fact you wanted to shake the faith of a young person, so for example that person would more easily succumb to your lust.
The girl says that she has shown off to please others, but she does not add that she intended to arouse in others bad thoughts, dirt, desires… The father says he got drunk, but he doesn’t mention the offence that he caused the whole family.
Are you looking for a way to present yourself to a confessor in a better light? (tone of your voice, by muting the voice for certain sins, so that the confessor can barely hear them, first confession from of milder sins, and when you put the confessor’s attention to sleep, you will confess quietly and quickly your mortal sins).
Am I wrapping my immoral life in a cloak of virtue?
Do I apologize, that others led me to the sin of impurity, I was provoked to anger by a neighbor, I omitted the Holy Mass because of some visit, I ate meat only once during Lent (others led me to it), I talk badly about my neighbors – but they give me the opportunity to do so by their behavior, I do not pray with children in the morning and evening because I do not have time? Man blames a woman, a wife blames her husband, brother blames his sister, sister her brother, a servant blames his master, a lord blames servants….
In confession, they condemn themselves claiming “my fault” and two minutes later they defend themselves and lay the blame on others.
Am I deaf to my remorse? Am I like deaf person when I should confess my sins?
I show no humility and repentance.
When a priest recognizes the state of my soul and tells me to come to confession later, because he wants me to protect myself from sacrilege – I immediately moan that I don’t have time for that later, I will not be better prepared, that I will go to another confessor who will give me absolution without any problems – such blind people are harming themselves, the confessor recognizes that they did not meet the conditions for a good confession, their confession of sins was half-hearted, without regret, he had to ask them thousands of questions.
- What sins did you confess to last year? And what do you confess now?
What sins will you confess next year if God still gives you life? Don’t you think that it will be the same again? If you confess just out of habit, you do not want to live a godlier life, to previous sins you add the sin of sacrilege and you are a toy in the hands of satan. If after confession you do not find on yourself the slightest change for the better after confession, it follows that those earlier confessions were not valid, they were a sacrilege and if you do not really improve, perdition is waiting for you.
The evil spirit has already caught many souls in this trap of sacrilegious confessions because the act of sacrilege confession shows the blindness and hardness of the heart, which do not leave a person often until death.
- Addictive sin – the accumulation of sins increases human blindness. Bad habits blind the mind, hardens the heart, and thus makes a person defiant until death. Such a person will hardly be saved. We see as a sinner is walking from sin to sin, does not even give a thought to betterment. Bad habit does not allow sinners to see the evil they commit. And so, they live, as if they do not even believe that there is a God, heaven, hell, eternity. Instead of mourning for their sins, they enjoy them, laughing, and even brag about them! What do all these signs of diabolical stubbornness mean? Saint Thomas of Villanova says that these are the signs of damnation. St. Jerome says that addictive sinners lose any sense of shame at committing a sin.
- You think that one day you will come to terms with God. Well, remember that you may not have time for this settlement, death may surprise you suddenly while you are buried in sacrileges. This is usually followed by hardness of the heart and despair at the hour of death. Quickly correct previous confessions with sincere and complete confession. If you do not, God will declare them once in front of the whole world. But if you confess them yourself, they will fall into eternal oblivion, you will find in the Sacrament of Reconciliation forgiveness of sins, peace of the soul, and at the hour of death eternal life. Every sin, especially the mortal, causes the loss of God’s grace and allows the devil to operate in our life. Then the devil attacks not only the person who committed the sin, but also the closest people. For example, when one of the parents is committing a mortal sin, children become ill frequently. Someone can dispute: ,,If I commit this sin, why do I have to be damned?” Perhaps still I will be saved.” I answer: ,,And maybe you will be damned!” Would you jump into the well, saying: ,, Perhaps I will escape death.” You would not! How can the hope on your eternal salvation be based on such faint hope or someone, or maybe? God’s commandments are not cruel restrictions, but the guidelines, that should guard us against misfortune.
