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Question

Dear Father Angelo,

I am writing to you because I am in serious difficulties.  It’s not easy for me to write to you about these issues because I have always frequentend the church and I am a believer.  So, I would have never thought of falling into these kinds of tentations.

I am young and recently married.  Everything with my wife is working out very well.  So, I don’t know why, I feel as if the devil is pushing me to sin, and specifically, to cheat and I am unable to react in a decisive manner.  I am very weak from the point of view of impure acts and, unfortunately, because of the internet the situation gets even harder.

Pornography enslaved me, I try to resist even for long periods of time, especially after the confessions (good or bad, I go every month), but then, I inexorably fall for it, again. Also, I discovered a site (through a television report) where you can randomly enter webcam chats with people from all over the world where they often show themselves naked while concealing their faces and, a few times, I also did it.  Although realizing that I was doing something wrong, for me it was like entering another dimension, as if in that moment a new parenthesis opened up to alienate me from my life and from who I really am.  After everything is over, I feel really bad since I am aware of what I have done and I am tormented about the thought that my wife does not deserve someone like me.  I also spend a lot of time at home by myself without my wife ( because of work), so this temptation snaps into my head, just like when my parents used to leave the house and I would run in front of the computer to masturbate since those were the only times I could do it.  Furthermore, I live in a neighborhood where there are prostitutes in the streets and, occasionally, I would take the long way home from work just to see them, but then, this became habitual.  Initially, I didn’t give it any weight.  But, once I realized that I wasn’t able to avoid that stretch of road, I understood that it was becoming a big problem.  Also, this was happening before I was married.  Indeed, I talked to my confessor about it, feeling extremely ashamed since I was about to get married.  It was much harder to talk to my wife about it, but I felt it was the right thing to do.  She did forgive me.

After my marriage, I only once took the long way home to fall into this tentation, but this time, I don’t have the courage to talk to my confessor about it during reconciliation.

Father, I need your help to enlighten my path and to give me concrete solutions to defeat the devil leading me into these terrible temptations.  More than for me, It’s for my wife who does not deserve to be disrespected this way.  Actually, she is a sweet, sensitive girl I can trust blindly.  After she forgave me, she never made me feel bad for that incident, not even during our sporadic arguments.  I want to be the husband she deserves and a true Christian.

My infinite thanks for the service you donate.

May God bless you for what you do and for what I hope you can do for me.

You can reply to me privately or publicly hoping that you will enlighten those people that are in the same situation as me, as well.

Thank you, again.

Answer

My dear friend,

1.Few days ago, one of our visitors wrote to us about his addiction to pornography.  He also told us how he was able to overcome it, and that after three years, unfortunately, he relapsed.  Right now, he is in a situation in which he let himself go, alternating confession and dependency.  

Also that visitor of ours is a young, married man, just like you.

2. I reply to you publicly, also, because you are not the only one with this problem, unfortunately.  First of all, I would like to emphasize how the problems related to purity cannot magically be solved because you start an engagement and then marry.  Nor do they resolve on their own because you get older.  At no age our adversary cease to be a hungry lion in search of preys to devour.

Saint Augustine said that he saw the cedars of Lebanon fall, that is venerable men because of their incorruptibility and advanced age.  

3. The young married man to which I referred said of overcoming this addiction by drawing closer to the Church, through the words of God he had begun feeling passionate for, by thinking about the eternal perdition (hell), and by becoming interested in Marian apparitions and the lives of the Saints.  That’s how he decided to purge himself interiously. 

4.Your letter gives me the opportunity to add something more, especially because you are married.  Our Lord doesn’t save us alone, but through the community, that is through the Church in which He is always alive and active.  Well, the first Church to which you belong to is the family you formed  with your wife.  It is the domestic Church.  In this Church Jesus is present and active.  He is even more so when together, you and your wife, beseech him and listen to His word.  In particular, He is together with you when you let yourselves be filled with his presence and your hearts burn while He talks to you.  He is when together you look for the goal of your faith, that is your sanctification.  He is when together you help each other to prevent the temptations.  He is when you help each other to win the fight against it.  He is when together, winning against any false modesty and reluctance among yourselves, you make a sincere revision of life, as if the husband, or wife, is your spiritual director.  

At the dawn of man’s creation God said: “It is not good for the man to be alone.  I will make a helper suited for him” (Gn 2,18)

5. In any case, this does not mean that it would not be of great help such a spiritual director which generally coincides with the confessor.  But, this spiritual director, important and also necessary, is a director from outside the family. 

6. Certainly, the main problem in your family is not the pornography.  Yet, in your personal life there is also this. It is very true that the path of sanctification is a personal itinerary and nobody can substitute our commitment.  But, why not search for the first resources right from the help offered by the domestic Church, the family?  Maybe, it is unnecessary to come out with this argument, explicitly.  It may not be appropriate.  Instead, one could say of feeling the necessity to walk a path together, yes, this must be told and must be done.  The younger couples, contrary to those in older times, have more dialogue, more intimacy.  They should have it more here: walking the spiritual life together.

7. Therefore, it is a matter of resetting the family by placing in its center Jesus Christ and the itinerary of sanctification to walk together.  Husband and wife are not called reciprocally to become each other’s confessor.  So that for some thoughts or feelings, some sinful actions is enough that only the confessor priest knows about it, and it is up to him to purify the souls and communicate to them the power of the sanctifying grace.

8. I should also mention another resource that the Lord has donated to us:  Our Lady.  She is the Mother of the Church and she is the mother of your family, as well.  The Lord has donated her to us because from Her we are never apart.  Her presence is sufficient to keep our adversary far away.  Our Lord had put enmity between the woman and the devil (Gn 3,15).  You make Her present and active, in a particular way, when together you pray the Holy Rosary.  That quarter of an hour in which you stop and pray together is the most precious and most powerful moment for your lives and your family.  In that moment you bring Christ’s presence among yourselves with His saving omnipotence.  At the same time, you bring the presence of our collective Mother, to which the Lord refuses nothing, in your favor.

9.  Tomorrow, a new year begins (2019) and it is also the Solemnity of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Mother of God.  Why not begin, for the new year, to put effort into praying together and every day the Holy Rosary?  I am not saying that this will solve everything by itself.  But, it won’t be long before you begin to feel the grace and the supernatural power that will derive from this moment of prayer for the benefit of your family and each one of you.

10.  After reciting this prayer you will feel a particular sensation of peace and the presence of our Lord and you will start to talk about your spiritual lives with great spontaneity, as you have never done before.

Also, you will feel the mutual assignment that the Lord is giving to you and you will live without doubt in a new manner, concretely bringing Jesus Christ at the centre of your lives.

I entrust Our Lady with the suggestions that I presented to you, so that you’ll be ready to implement them.

Shortly, I will recite a Rosary just for you and your wife and, then, I will continue to remember you in my prayers and the Holy Mass.

I wish you a peaceful and happy New Year. I wish it to be new for your spiritual lives, as well.

I bless you, both.

Father Angelo