Dear Father Angelo,

I have already written to you several times and, unfortunately, I pathetically return asking for your help.

The topic is always the same: masturbation. I state that I am not praying  the rosary as you told me because I forget etc. but, about this, I do not justify myself. I’m trying in every way not to fall for it but sometimes I find it difficult and I relapse. I would ask you something regarding this problem! Usually, is it normal to change gradually or should it all happen at once? I know that my doing deeply offends God and I regret it. I would ask you (assuming you are aware of it) if those, who have this habit, usually stop gradually or sharply. By gradually I mean they fall into sin sometimes, and by sharply if they never relapse. The priest, where I went to confession, told me that I could relapse, being this a war against temptation and the devil pushes me to sin, to betray God.

So, I would like to know if it is or not normal to experience a gradual detachment from sin or whether I am still doing something wrong. I state that for me this, as I surely have already told you, is very important! I want to be pure and live in purity, as I have spent my life in impurity without even knowing it.

I take this opportunity to present you with my best wishes for Christmas and a Happy New Year.

Lorenzo

Dear Lorenzo,

from my pastoral experience I can tell you that, about the question you pose, there are four categories of people.

1. The first is constituted by those who by the grace of God have never fallen into that disorder and that sin .

Although there are some who stubbornly say that everyone falls, at least sometimes, I must say that it is not true.

As a matter of fact, “it cannot be ignored that masturbation is not known in all cultures, since it is not present in environments where there are strong stimuli for an early integration of the self and the assumption of social and family’s responsibilities; therefore, it cannot be said that masturbation is a compulsory phase of life” (tr. from A. DEDÉ, Gesti e parole espressivi dell’io, educazione alla maturità sessuale [tr. Gestures and expressive words of the ego, education for sexual maturity], 120-121).

2. Those who stopped immediately belong to the second category.

The testimony of a young man, who is 21, came precisely in these days. Besides the story about him and his conversion, he told me that he immediately felt freed after having found a prayer by Father Amorth on the internet.

He also wrote: “Holy Mary also gave me the gift of chastity, I asked her because I never wanted to fall again into that horror of impurity that destroyed and emptied me so much… and it is only by Her Grace if since I was 17 up to now, 21, I have no more relapsed in relation to the sixth commandment”.

For this young man as for others it was a true gift from heaven.

The prompt discontinuance of autoeroticism is due to the supernatural infusion of another attraction, which has extinguished the carnal one.

St. Augustine referred to such attraction writing: “How sweet did it suddenly become to me, the very doing without the sweetness of those toys! And what I had feared to lose I now delighted to part with.

For Thou didst cast them from me, Thou true and sovereign Sweetness. Thou didst cast them away, and didst enter in instead of them, Thyself, dearer than all sweetness” (Confessions, IX,1).

3. Others, of their own will, decided to quit and made it.

Generally, people who stop immediately by their own will or by a gift received from Heaven, no longer suffer falls.

Evidently, they are strong-willed people by their character, or they are made strong-willed by a gift of grace, capable of serious self-determination and of remaining firm in their commitments.

4. The third category is constituted by people who came out gradually, that is after a fight with victories and defeats.

Here I would like to clarify that graduality does not mean allowing oneself some setbacks every now and then.

In fact, I speak of “fight“ and therefore about resisting temptations and about victories.

These steps forward are accompanied at first by fairly regular falls, which then fade more and more until they cease.

5. Graduality does not therefore consist in waiting for the phenomenon to disappear by itself, as if by inertia.

The drives and temptations do not disappear simply because you go on in the years, because you become an adult or because you get married.

In a specific document  the Italian Bishops’ Conference warns that it “must be confirmed as a profoundly wrong attitude to believe that spontaneous maturation and automatic overcoming of difficulties, errors, selfish and de-responsible tendencies are possible in this field”,” (tr. from Evangelizzazione e cultura della vita umana [tr. Evangelization and culture of human life], 45).

6. And so I come to the fourth category of people: those who carry this burden for their whole life.

It is beyond your question to answer the reasons for this behavior.

And I gladly remain faithful to your question.

However, beyond the various reasons, there is undoubtedly an inner fragility, that inner fragility for which this vice in Latin was also called mollities (tr. softness) as it manifests the soul’s weakness.

It is quite the opposite of chastity, which is essentially inner energy and strength.

7. Finally, I would like to remind you that this strength or purity of soul is not acquired once and for all.

As the Catechism of the Catholic Church recalls, “self-mastery is a long and exacting work […]. It presupposes renewed effort at all stages of life (ref. Tit 2:1-6)” (CCC 2342).

Thus, it accompanies us throughout life, in all seasons and in all states.

It can never be considered definitive.

The Catechism of the Catholic Church still says: the virtuous and chaste man “day by day builds himself up through his many free decisions; and so he knows, loves, and accomplishes moral good by stages of growth” (CCC 2343).

8. Of course, “the effort required can be more intense in certain periods, such as when the personality is being formed during childhood and adolescence” (CCC 2342).

If initially for many it is a matter of fight and also of falls, and therefore of conquest, afterwards purity, or chastity, becomes a need for life, a breath in which one lives, and the serene exercise of one’s own affections.

Broadly wishing you these sentiments, I bless you.

Father Angelo

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