I might have to do this in parts so please bear with me. First, we are all hopelessly enslaved in sin. My sin isn’t sexual; it is much more dangerous. I am addicted to anger. I get so angry that I black out and only want to destroy. Many times, I have had to leave the house so that I would not hurt anyone. Many other times, I barely made it out. I would drive crazily, dangerously, with no regard for anyone or anything. How I did not kill someone is proof of God’s overwhelming Grace.
I am in my late sixties and still have to confess this regularly, as recently as last week.
But this is true: where evil abounds, God’s Grace abounds more. After years of confessing this sin, our priest showed me a way that might work. For the first time, I have real hope of being healed. As trite as it sounds, if it can happen for me, it can happen for you.
The devil has no clay. He can only work with what you give him. I am working hard on recognizing the triggers I give him and counteracting them as soon as I feel them. It is hard. Salvation is not supposed to be easy. That is because you were trapped and he doesn’t want to let you go. You gave him free reign in your heat so knows all the ways to lure you in. Cut them off, one at a time. Stop counting the times you fall and focus on when you stand up again. How long you stay down doesn’t matter; standing up does. One lure; one trick at a time, take back your soul.
Last, you can’t do this alone. Stop trying to solve your problems by yourself. Get serious help. I strongly suggest you get to know St. Mary of Egypt. She is an incredible ally against sexual sin. Learn the full St. Michael prayer and beg him to sweep away the demons, keeping you from God. The Blessed Mother is , quite frankly, a beast. The devil is terrified of her. When I slip into sexual sin, I apologize to her and start a string of Hail Marys, until I can stand on my own again.
I guarantee this is true: God saved you because He loves you. He will give you the tools to stay in His Grace.
Alex, my brother: your headline seriously spooked me. I'm worried about you.
There's nothing wrong with immersing yourself in the Word, of course. But, in addition to that: You probably also need some good friends, local friends, not only internet friends. People you can physically be with and do stuff with. Don't try to do this alone.
Seconding this strongly. Ray, I’ve been in recovery long enough to recognize when someone’s trying to white-knuckle their way through alone. Scripture and prayer are essential, but they’re not substitutes for embodied community.
I was also going to say this… it is absolutely necessary, go to Mass with these people, try to get to adoration every week with them… go for rosary walks together where you burn off some energy while praying.
Exercise yourself to exhaustion, if you don’t have a physical job, consider getting one etc.
As men, our physical world is a gift from God, and we can co-create with him. It literally keeps our hands busy and our minds focused on building things that are for other people.
I am Third…
God first,
Others Second,
Us Last. (Not conventional wisdom by today’s standards, but it is the truth people don’t want to hear in the name of ‘self care’, but putting God first is the real self care no one wants to admit).
As C. S. Lewis says, 'you don't know how bad you are until you try very hard to be good' and that has given comfort because it implies that he also struggled with sin. But it is better to struggle and fall than never struggle at all. Because you have the conviction to get up again. It's the difference between saints and sinners.
My struggles have not been as severe as yours, but I can relate to this, and I at least understand what it's like to wrestle with temptation, if not what you are precisely being tempted with. I will make sure to keep you in my prayers. And as one piece of advice, don't fall into hating yourself. Never let your struggle with sin cause you to despise or loathe yourself, this will only worsen the problem. You are Christ's beloved son and He will get you through this. God bless you and keep you
I’m grateful you came back, Ray! I love you, brother, and I know all your friends both online and offline love you too. Please let us support you with our love and prayers and friendship in any way we can. You’re not a burden, you’re our brother. Holy Mother Church is one big family. Think of your autogynephilia as the one ring from Middle Earth. That was Frodo’s cross to carry, but he needed everyone in the Fellowship of the Ring to complete his mission, especially Samwise Gamgee. Find your real life Samwise Gamgee and your own fellowship of brothers that Jesus wants you to have to complete your quest of carrying this cross through life.
Brother, I read this and recognized something I’ve lived through from a different angle: not the same content, but the same structure. That sense of being ensnared, caught between two impossible positions, where every direction leads to loss.
What struck me is how you frame this as sin having power over you, as being ensnared, trapped by something external. I wonder if there’s another way to see it that might be more liberating, though no less serious.
Augustine taught that sin isn’t a thing with its own substance or power. It’s a privation, a misdirection of good desire toward the wrong object. Aquinas built on this: every act of will seeks some good, even when it seeks it wrongly. What if the compulsion isn’t sin ensnaring you, but your own seeking that’s become misdirected? Not to minimize the reality of spiritual warfare or the seriousness of temptation, but to ask: what good are you actually seeking through these patterns? What real human need or desire is being expressed, however distortedly?
In my own recovery from hard drugs, I had to stop seeing myself as “powerless over addiction” (though I was) and start asking what I was seeking through the substances. Turns out I was seeking real things: transcendence, relief from unbearable self-awareness, connection. Just through means that couldn’t deliver them sustainably. The transformation came not from white-knuckling resistance to “ensnaring sin” but from reorienting that seeking toward its proper object.
I’m not saying this to offer easy answers. The crossdressing/transition patterns clearly have a compulsive quality that won’t yield to simple willpower. But maybe the question isn’t “how do I resist this sin that has me ensnared” but “what am I seeking through this, and how do I participate in that good rightly?”
The warfare model (you versus sin, resisting the Devil) keeps you in a reactive stance. It doesn’t let you ask what you’re actually for, what telos you’re oriented toward. And without that question, the old patterns will keep surging back whenever the white-knuckling fails or life doesn’t deliver what you (perhaps unconsciously) expected.
Romans 6 isn’t just about resisting sin. Paul writes: “We know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body of sin might be destroyed, and we might no longer be enslaved to sin. For whoever has died is freed from sin” (Rom 6:6-7). And later: “So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus” (Rom 6:11). It’s not about fighting the old self, not white-knuckling against it. It’s about being dead to it. Actually letting it die, being buried with Christ, so something new can live. That requires asking what the old self was seeking so the new self can seek it rightly.
I say this as someone who’s been where you are structurally, though with different content. You know I’m in recovery, you know I take faith seriously. If you ever want to talk about this stuff outside the framework of spiritual warfare and resistance (not to abandon that language entirely, but to supplement it with questions about desire and participation), I’m here. No agenda, no judgment. Just someone who’s found that transformation requires more than resistance.
Thank you Ray for this honest, insightful, compelling piece. Like other commenters below, I very much see myself in what you describe—not in the particular sin but, what's more important, in the pattern of the struggle to overcome it. You're describing the stuff of spiritual warfare, of Christian discipleship.
I was mired in grave sins of the flesh at the time of my reversion, and these didn't go away overnight; on the contrary, it took years for me to see them clearly and to overcome them. But I can say without pride that I have—not through my own effort but (this is so important) through the fountain of grace on offer in the life of the Church, and also through the influence of other models of virtue. The same struggle against sin very much remains, though now on other fronts and in new forms.
I guess I would distill my own journey thus far, then, into three bits of advice for you:
(1) Strive mightily, availing yourself of confession and making the Eucharist, and reception in the state of grace, your firm ground to advance by steady steps. And turning to God's Word is a wise decision, because there we find there the summons and encouragement to fight. The New Testament is chock full of this! But we also find a frank recognition that we will, despite our best efforts, stumble and fall—and can only find rest in Christ. Which leads to:
(2) Be patient with yourself and your failures. This isn't the same thing as being patient with sin. The devil will happily take your despair if he can't count on your presumption. The law of life in Christ, by contrast, is what John Paul II called the "law of gradualness." Grace surrounds us and works on us continually and often imperceptibly. The spiritual life so often feels like three steps forward, two steps back; but there is real progress to be had, even as the struggle always persists this side of eternity.
(3) Surround yourself with friends on the Way. This includes friends here below, of course, but also the saints above, especially those whose struggles mirror our own. The New Year is a great time to do this: Pick a saint for 2026 to accompany you throughout the year. Augustine could be a great choice—his Confessions is a must-read if you haven't read it—or maybe Saint Paul or Saint Francis of Assisi. But we need those examples of holiness to surround us and encourage us to keep moving. None of us can do this alone. We need each other!
Look, it's pretty common effect of conversion that the devil will tempt one into even deeper sin than what they were involved with previously. It had you and it wants you back under its thrall. You're not alone. conversion is a daily thing, not one-and-done.
Some tips:
Regular confession, like weekly - confessing venials adds grace
Daily Mass- every da'n day. No skips
Pray twice a day :morning and evening start with a few minutes than ramp it up over time
Say the rosary, daily
Probably the best tip is get a spiritual director. A GOOD priest that you can talk to outside of confession about struggles, prayer life etc.
Get out and about- too much time on the box or alone is just opportunities for trouble. Find something outside of yourself volunteering (helping you did Dad good thing- keep it up!) But mainly things to get you out of yourself.
And when temptation strikes- get out of whatever you're doing at that moment . Go for a walk, anything.
But most of all, don't despair- keep getting back up when you fall. Despair is the best tool in the devil's toolbox.
Thanks be to God Ray. I sent you a message because I was concerned about no posts and that perhaps you were busy with your Dad. I’m sorry to hear your report but it is good you are dealing with it using the gifts Jesus has given us. Satan never gives up, he is ruthless. Much if society today doesnt even recognize him. At 75 I still have to deal with him. My challenges have more to do with my relationships to my wife of 53 years and my children. They are “nice” but far from holy. They have all left the church and in most ways don’t recognize God or Satan. That’s my cross now, age has subdued most of the other problems. Will say a special prayer for you when I sing at midnight mass Wednesday.
Maybe you already know about this advice, but anyways: at least for me sinful pleasure is way more tempting when I am running _from_ something difficult in my life and the sin is not only a route to pleasure, but also a route to escapism.
A solution for me has been silent prayer, where I sit before God and let what troubles me to rise to the surface and my conscious attention, and practice finding acceptance and being content just being with God. Usually this involves identifying and renouncing some inordinate attachment (in my case e.g. the attachment to being popular and successful, and to deriving my value from these).
Another piece of advice (that you might already know, but I guess a reminder doesn't hurt) is to recognize that even getting to a discussion with the temptation is a battle almost lost, since the devil is a master tempter, as you write. Instead, immediately at the first sign of temptation, run to the arms of Jesus, begging for his mercy, e.g. via the Jesus prayer.
But in any case, even with the best help and methods, the fight against a specific sin can be a long and bloody fight, but still eventually if you keep fighting it ends in victory in the sense that the temptation gets much easier to resist. This is my experience. So don't lose hope! I'm praying for you!
Another tip that helped me is to do the silent prayer (+other prayer, including repentance and recollection) multiple times per day, so problems in my spiritual state get fixed sooner, before they accumulate and become more severe
So good to see your post, was genuinely worried. I’ve followed your interviews and writing for a while trying to figure out some dark places some acquaintances had gone. What joy to read your reconnection to yourself and your community with your parish and the saints.
I think it’s no coincidence that I read your article after just confessing to habitual sexual sin which has been an issue for me for the better part of this year, even after the full year I had of being chaste and being confirmed too. It’s been an extremely humbling and truthfully humiliating time, but even through I see the Glory of God’s Mercy in this struggle. I’m reminded of the scripture that tells us when an unclean spirit is gone out of a man he will return to find it empty, swept and garnished, but he then takes with him 7 other spirits more wicked than him who enter in and dwell there and last state of that made is made worst than the first. So it was with Us. But what I’ve learned is how indispensable the sacraments are to this struggle and how much God will give us signs to return to Him again even amidst this. I mean, for crying out loud I had dreams of going to confession for 2 or 3 nights in a row before finally confessing. God is good and He knows our struggle. God bless.
Thank you for sharing! And yes the warning about the seven unclear spirits is clear: new Christians are at great spiritual risk for falling even deeper into sin
I don't know whether it would interest you, but I often listen to chanted morning and night prayers of the Liturgy of the Hours. It's a youtube channel called Sing the Hours. It's so beautiful, and it helps me to remember God throughout the day.
I find that the easiest way to sin is to forget about our Lord. That is why His word urges us so often to remember.
Wonderful recommendation thank you! And yes, totally agree that thinking about the Lord all the time is a good way to avoid sin. This is a lesson I need to take to heart
Gloria tibi Domine. I stumbled across your Substack some months ago and see the battle God has given you. From an outsider’s view who also struggles with the vice of lust (manifested in a different way), it clouds our judgment in a way we like to rationalize our sins and sometimes goes to the extent like you said to completely blot out God.
While I’m not here to judge or advise to the level of a spiritual director who can truly understand, I would like to give some practical tips given to me by others that I hope can help you as well.
Firstly is to meet regularly with a spiritual director (regularly receiving the Sacraments of reception of the Eucharist and of Penance), or even a close friend who understands your situation and have them help you with accountability because God knows we can’t do this by our own. Iron sharpens iron and with the help of those who want the best for us (our salvation), we will be in a better spot than trying to battle it head on by ourselves. This life is a constant journey, and falls and setbacks do not mean we lost the war. God sees our efforts and knows if we are trying despite our efforts to be seemingly useless.
Oops, I accidentally posted but as I was saying secondly, but just as importantly we need to get out and just live. To take care of our bodies, whether it be finding something to light our creative spark the Father instills in us, or to work out, eat healthily and keep our minds and bodies busy. God requires this and it’s so common sensical it seems stupid to say but it’s so true.
I will continue to pray for you and your wellbeing! God bless you Ray!
I might have to do this in parts so please bear with me. First, we are all hopelessly enslaved in sin. My sin isn’t sexual; it is much more dangerous. I am addicted to anger. I get so angry that I black out and only want to destroy. Many times, I have had to leave the house so that I would not hurt anyone. Many other times, I barely made it out. I would drive crazily, dangerously, with no regard for anyone or anything. How I did not kill someone is proof of God’s overwhelming Grace.
I am in my late sixties and still have to confess this regularly, as recently as last week.
But this is true: where evil abounds, God’s Grace abounds more. After years of confessing this sin, our priest showed me a way that might work. For the first time, I have real hope of being healed. As trite as it sounds, if it can happen for me, it can happen for you.
The devil has no clay. He can only work with what you give him. I am working hard on recognizing the triggers I give him and counteracting them as soon as I feel them. It is hard. Salvation is not supposed to be easy. That is because you were trapped and he doesn’t want to let you go. You gave him free reign in your heat so knows all the ways to lure you in. Cut them off, one at a time. Stop counting the times you fall and focus on when you stand up again. How long you stay down doesn’t matter; standing up does. One lure; one trick at a time, take back your soul.
Last, you can’t do this alone. Stop trying to solve your problems by yourself. Get serious help. I strongly suggest you get to know St. Mary of Egypt. She is an incredible ally against sexual sin. Learn the full St. Michael prayer and beg him to sweep away the demons, keeping you from God. The Blessed Mother is , quite frankly, a beast. The devil is terrified of her. When I slip into sexual sin, I apologize to her and start a string of Hail Marys, until I can stand on my own again.
I guarantee this is true: God saved you because He loves you. He will give you the tools to stay in His Grace.
Bless you, friend.
Alex, my brother: your headline seriously spooked me. I'm worried about you.
There's nothing wrong with immersing yourself in the Word, of course. But, in addition to that: You probably also need some good friends, local friends, not only internet friends. People you can physically be with and do stuff with. Don't try to do this alone.
Yes, I have made some good in real life Catholic friends.
Seconding this strongly. Ray, I’ve been in recovery long enough to recognize when someone’s trying to white-knuckle their way through alone. Scripture and prayer are essential, but they’re not substitutes for embodied community.
I was also going to say this… it is absolutely necessary, go to Mass with these people, try to get to adoration every week with them… go for rosary walks together where you burn off some energy while praying.
Exercise yourself to exhaustion, if you don’t have a physical job, consider getting one etc.
As men, our physical world is a gift from God, and we can co-create with him. It literally keeps our hands busy and our minds focused on building things that are for other people.
I am Third…
God first,
Others Second,
Us Last. (Not conventional wisdom by today’s standards, but it is the truth people don’t want to hear in the name of ‘self care’, but putting God first is the real self care no one wants to admit).
I know how you feel....but my issue is anger.
As C. S. Lewis says, 'you don't know how bad you are until you try very hard to be good' and that has given comfort because it implies that he also struggled with sin. But it is better to struggle and fall than never struggle at all. Because you have the conviction to get up again. It's the difference between saints and sinners.
I hope that gives you comfort too.
Thank you 🙏
My struggles have not been as severe as yours, but I can relate to this, and I at least understand what it's like to wrestle with temptation, if not what you are precisely being tempted with. I will make sure to keep you in my prayers. And as one piece of advice, don't fall into hating yourself. Never let your struggle with sin cause you to despise or loathe yourself, this will only worsen the problem. You are Christ's beloved son and He will get you through this. God bless you and keep you
Thank you brother 🙏
I’m grateful you came back, Ray! I love you, brother, and I know all your friends both online and offline love you too. Please let us support you with our love and prayers and friendship in any way we can. You’re not a burden, you’re our brother. Holy Mother Church is one big family. Think of your autogynephilia as the one ring from Middle Earth. That was Frodo’s cross to carry, but he needed everyone in the Fellowship of the Ring to complete his mission, especially Samwise Gamgee. Find your real life Samwise Gamgee and your own fellowship of brothers that Jesus wants you to have to complete your quest of carrying this cross through life.
Thank you brother 🙏
Brother, I read this and recognized something I’ve lived through from a different angle: not the same content, but the same structure. That sense of being ensnared, caught between two impossible positions, where every direction leads to loss.
What struck me is how you frame this as sin having power over you, as being ensnared, trapped by something external. I wonder if there’s another way to see it that might be more liberating, though no less serious.
Augustine taught that sin isn’t a thing with its own substance or power. It’s a privation, a misdirection of good desire toward the wrong object. Aquinas built on this: every act of will seeks some good, even when it seeks it wrongly. What if the compulsion isn’t sin ensnaring you, but your own seeking that’s become misdirected? Not to minimize the reality of spiritual warfare or the seriousness of temptation, but to ask: what good are you actually seeking through these patterns? What real human need or desire is being expressed, however distortedly?
In my own recovery from hard drugs, I had to stop seeing myself as “powerless over addiction” (though I was) and start asking what I was seeking through the substances. Turns out I was seeking real things: transcendence, relief from unbearable self-awareness, connection. Just through means that couldn’t deliver them sustainably. The transformation came not from white-knuckling resistance to “ensnaring sin” but from reorienting that seeking toward its proper object.
I’m not saying this to offer easy answers. The crossdressing/transition patterns clearly have a compulsive quality that won’t yield to simple willpower. But maybe the question isn’t “how do I resist this sin that has me ensnared” but “what am I seeking through this, and how do I participate in that good rightly?”
The warfare model (you versus sin, resisting the Devil) keeps you in a reactive stance. It doesn’t let you ask what you’re actually for, what telos you’re oriented toward. And without that question, the old patterns will keep surging back whenever the white-knuckling fails or life doesn’t deliver what you (perhaps unconsciously) expected.
Romans 6 isn’t just about resisting sin. Paul writes: “We know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body of sin might be destroyed, and we might no longer be enslaved to sin. For whoever has died is freed from sin” (Rom 6:6-7). And later: “So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus” (Rom 6:11). It’s not about fighting the old self, not white-knuckling against it. It’s about being dead to it. Actually letting it die, being buried with Christ, so something new can live. That requires asking what the old self was seeking so the new self can seek it rightly.
I say this as someone who’s been where you are structurally, though with different content. You know I’m in recovery, you know I take faith seriously. If you ever want to talk about this stuff outside the framework of spiritual warfare and resistance (not to abandon that language entirely, but to supplement it with questions about desire and participation), I’m here. No agenda, no judgment. Just someone who’s found that transformation requires more than resistance.
Praying for you, brother.
Thank you 🙏
Thank you Ray for this honest, insightful, compelling piece. Like other commenters below, I very much see myself in what you describe—not in the particular sin but, what's more important, in the pattern of the struggle to overcome it. You're describing the stuff of spiritual warfare, of Christian discipleship.
I was mired in grave sins of the flesh at the time of my reversion, and these didn't go away overnight; on the contrary, it took years for me to see them clearly and to overcome them. But I can say without pride that I have—not through my own effort but (this is so important) through the fountain of grace on offer in the life of the Church, and also through the influence of other models of virtue. The same struggle against sin very much remains, though now on other fronts and in new forms.
I guess I would distill my own journey thus far, then, into three bits of advice for you:
(1) Strive mightily, availing yourself of confession and making the Eucharist, and reception in the state of grace, your firm ground to advance by steady steps. And turning to God's Word is a wise decision, because there we find there the summons and encouragement to fight. The New Testament is chock full of this! But we also find a frank recognition that we will, despite our best efforts, stumble and fall—and can only find rest in Christ. Which leads to:
(2) Be patient with yourself and your failures. This isn't the same thing as being patient with sin. The devil will happily take your despair if he can't count on your presumption. The law of life in Christ, by contrast, is what John Paul II called the "law of gradualness." Grace surrounds us and works on us continually and often imperceptibly. The spiritual life so often feels like three steps forward, two steps back; but there is real progress to be had, even as the struggle always persists this side of eternity.
(3) Surround yourself with friends on the Way. This includes friends here below, of course, but also the saints above, especially those whose struggles mirror our own. The New Year is a great time to do this: Pick a saint for 2026 to accompany you throughout the year. Augustine could be a great choice—his Confessions is a must-read if you haven't read it—or maybe Saint Paul or Saint Francis of Assisi. But we need those examples of holiness to surround us and encourage us to keep moving. None of us can do this alone. We need each other!
Wonderful advice. Thank you brother 🙏
Look, it's pretty common effect of conversion that the devil will tempt one into even deeper sin than what they were involved with previously. It had you and it wants you back under its thrall. You're not alone. conversion is a daily thing, not one-and-done.
Some tips:
Regular confession, like weekly - confessing venials adds grace
Daily Mass- every da'n day. No skips
Pray twice a day :morning and evening start with a few minutes than ramp it up over time
Say the rosary, daily
Probably the best tip is get a spiritual director. A GOOD priest that you can talk to outside of confession about struggles, prayer life etc.
Get out and about- too much time on the box or alone is just opportunities for trouble. Find something outside of yourself volunteering (helping you did Dad good thing- keep it up!) But mainly things to get you out of yourself.
And when temptation strikes- get out of whatever you're doing at that moment . Go for a walk, anything.
But most of all, don't despair- keep getting back up when you fall. Despair is the best tool in the devil's toolbox.
Most people have one of these sins and pretend they don't. Keep up the journey! You could become a great saint. Satan is obviously worried about you.
🙏
Thanks be to God Ray. I sent you a message because I was concerned about no posts and that perhaps you were busy with your Dad. I’m sorry to hear your report but it is good you are dealing with it using the gifts Jesus has given us. Satan never gives up, he is ruthless. Much if society today doesnt even recognize him. At 75 I still have to deal with him. My challenges have more to do with my relationships to my wife of 53 years and my children. They are “nice” but far from holy. They have all left the church and in most ways don’t recognize God or Satan. That’s my cross now, age has subdued most of the other problems. Will say a special prayer for you when I sing at midnight mass Wednesday.
Very glad to have you back!
Maybe you already know about this advice, but anyways: at least for me sinful pleasure is way more tempting when I am running _from_ something difficult in my life and the sin is not only a route to pleasure, but also a route to escapism.
A solution for me has been silent prayer, where I sit before God and let what troubles me to rise to the surface and my conscious attention, and practice finding acceptance and being content just being with God. Usually this involves identifying and renouncing some inordinate attachment (in my case e.g. the attachment to being popular and successful, and to deriving my value from these).
Another piece of advice (that you might already know, but I guess a reminder doesn't hurt) is to recognize that even getting to a discussion with the temptation is a battle almost lost, since the devil is a master tempter, as you write. Instead, immediately at the first sign of temptation, run to the arms of Jesus, begging for his mercy, e.g. via the Jesus prayer.
But in any case, even with the best help and methods, the fight against a specific sin can be a long and bloody fight, but still eventually if you keep fighting it ends in victory in the sense that the temptation gets much easier to resist. This is my experience. So don't lose hope! I'm praying for you!
Another tip that helped me is to do the silent prayer (+other prayer, including repentance and recollection) multiple times per day, so problems in my spiritual state get fixed sooner, before they accumulate and become more severe
So good to see your post, was genuinely worried. I’ve followed your interviews and writing for a while trying to figure out some dark places some acquaintances had gone. What joy to read your reconnection to yourself and your community with your parish and the saints.
I think it’s no coincidence that I read your article after just confessing to habitual sexual sin which has been an issue for me for the better part of this year, even after the full year I had of being chaste and being confirmed too. It’s been an extremely humbling and truthfully humiliating time, but even through I see the Glory of God’s Mercy in this struggle. I’m reminded of the scripture that tells us when an unclean spirit is gone out of a man he will return to find it empty, swept and garnished, but he then takes with him 7 other spirits more wicked than him who enter in and dwell there and last state of that made is made worst than the first. So it was with Us. But what I’ve learned is how indispensable the sacraments are to this struggle and how much God will give us signs to return to Him again even amidst this. I mean, for crying out loud I had dreams of going to confession for 2 or 3 nights in a row before finally confessing. God is good and He knows our struggle. God bless.
Thank you for sharing! And yes the warning about the seven unclear spirits is clear: new Christians are at great spiritual risk for falling even deeper into sin
I don't know whether it would interest you, but I often listen to chanted morning and night prayers of the Liturgy of the Hours. It's a youtube channel called Sing the Hours. It's so beautiful, and it helps me to remember God throughout the day.
I find that the easiest way to sin is to forget about our Lord. That is why His word urges us so often to remember.
Wonderful recommendation thank you! And yes, totally agree that thinking about the Lord all the time is a good way to avoid sin. This is a lesson I need to take to heart
Gloria tibi Domine. I stumbled across your Substack some months ago and see the battle God has given you. From an outsider’s view who also struggles with the vice of lust (manifested in a different way), it clouds our judgment in a way we like to rationalize our sins and sometimes goes to the extent like you said to completely blot out God.
While I’m not here to judge or advise to the level of a spiritual director who can truly understand, I would like to give some practical tips given to me by others that I hope can help you as well.
Firstly is to meet regularly with a spiritual director (regularly receiving the Sacraments of reception of the Eucharist and of Penance), or even a close friend who understands your situation and have them help you with accountability because God knows we can’t do this by our own. Iron sharpens iron and with the help of those who want the best for us (our salvation), we will be in a better spot than trying to battle it head on by ourselves. This life is a constant journey, and falls and setbacks do not mean we lost the war. God sees our efforts and knows if we are trying despite our efforts to be seemingly useless.
Secondly but I think
Oops, I accidentally posted but as I was saying secondly, but just as importantly we need to get out and just live. To take care of our bodies, whether it be finding something to light our creative spark the Father instills in us, or to work out, eat healthily and keep our minds and bodies busy. God requires this and it’s so common sensical it seems stupid to say but it’s so true.
I will continue to pray for you and your wellbeing! God bless you Ray!
Thank you for the wise words of advice 🙏
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