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Question

Dear Father Angelo,

I am a 23 years old guy from …! First of all I would  like to wish you a happy Easter (even if it’s already over) and a happy Easter Monday. I am writing to you for the first time because, after having come across your website, I was impressed by the completeness of your answers to the most innumerable questions. That’s why I’m sending this email asking you to enlighten me about what is happening to me today: today I committed a sin (against purity, therefore a mortal sin), yet I don’t feel real repentance within me! Let me explain it better: it is as if I felt my heart closed, without any feeling for God and therefore without fear of his justice! I consider myself a practicing catholic man, I pray every day (in this Easter triduum I have come to pray the whole day, apart from breakfast and lunch, between particular functions in the Church, adorations and personal prayers). During this holy week I was really happy with Jesus indeed, I felt a great love for him within me. On Good Friday I placed an image of Jesus (Divine Mercy) in my room, it was beautiful! I felt my heart filled with love just by looking at it! But today, it is as if I can’t even look at Jesus! I had already had temptations against chastity for days, but I always pushed those desires away from me to avoid offending Jesus. Today, however, there was no proposition in me to fight against those desires and therefore I voluntarily wanted to sin, in fact, I sought sin in order to fall! What happened to me? Why this strange feeling? I hope it disappears, because I don’t want to walk away from Jesus. Now that I’m back home from the Easter Monday trip spent with my friends, I am praying the chaplet to the Divine Mercy asking Jesus to remove this state of numbness from me! I hope you answer me soon because I need to understand what happened to me and if it is normal for the human soul to live these experiences at times or if I have to fear a decrease in my feeling for Him. Please pray for me because I really need it ! Thank you in advance for your answer. Take care …

R!

Answer from the priest

Dear R,

1. what happened to you is very similar to the experience of the apostles.

They stayed with Jesus for three years. They shared everything with him: his life, his preaching, his miracles, even his warnings.

They probably knew everything about him.

But when the moment of temptation came, despite the fact that the Lord had recently warned them once more, they fled, abandoning him. Peter even denied him.

What happened? Jesus had told them: “Watch and pray that you may not undergo the test” (Mt 26:41).

But the apostles felt strong. Each of them thought in his heart and then said aloud what Saint Peter said: “Even if everyone denied you, I will never deny you”. He said this even after the Lord had guaranteed him that he would betray him.

So sure: “the others will fall… I will never fall”.

“And all the disciples spoke likewise” (Mt 26:35).

In his heart Peter committed a double sin: of presumption and (I…never!) and of contempt (“even if the others fell…”).

And he just fell so miserably.

2. More or less the same thing happened to you, too.

You lived the days of Holy Week in an extraordinary communion with the Lord: “I really had a good time with Jesus, I felt a great love for him in me. On Good Friday I placed an image of Jesus (Divine Mercy) in my room, it was beautiful! I felt my heart filled with love just by looking at it!”.

Was it not an experience somewhat similar to that of the apostles when they were together with Jesus for three years?

But even you, despite having heard the Lord’s warning “Watch and pray that you may not undergo the test” (Mt 26:41), have not paid attention to temptations. You felt strong, secure. “Others will fall… I won’t”.

But before the end of Easter Monday you had already fallen into impurity.

3. After the fall here’s what happened: “yet I don’t feel real repentance in me! Let me explain better: it is as if I felt my heart closed, without any feeling for God and therefore without fear of his justice!”

Your heart, after the sin, has become as hard as a stone. I’m not surprised.

I have written many times on this site that impurities make us lose the personal presence of God in our heart and extinguish the taste for heavenly realities.

4. I am sure that in the meantime you will recover and you will also have gone to confession. And it was a grace. But how many young people instead lie in impurity and sin. Without knowing it, they find their heart has become stone, “closed, without any feeling for God”, as you yourself wrote!

5.What did you have to do?

You had to put into practice the Lord’s admonition: “Watch” above all.

Temptations grew in you and you felt it.

You couldn’t pretend nothing was happening.

Your enemy was besieging you, looking for the right moment.

You had to put into practice what St. Paul says: “No, I drive my body and train it, for fear that, after having preached to others, I myself should be disqualified” (1 Cor 9,27).

You had to be more circumspect, make a small sacrifice, give up any lawful desire, start praying to the Lord and Our Lady.

Circumspection, vigilance, must be put into practice very carefully, convinced that we are always in battle.

6. Along with the “watch” warning also the “pray” part was needed, because without the presence and strength of the Lord one is unequal in battle.

It is as if you want to face the opponent without defense!

If on Easter Monday you had tried to relive all the apparitions of the risen Lord convinced that the Lord wanted to repeat them with you, you would have had very different experiences.

Thank God, after the sin you started praying with the chaplet of divine mercy. You did well.

But if you had prayed when you felt the tide was moving in!

I wish you a happy continuation of the Easter season and a fruitful Marian month.

I remember you to the Lord and bless you.

Father Angelo