Good evening, Father,

I am a thirty-year-old who reconverted after a long estrangement from the Catholic faith. I received all the sacraments in due time, but unfortunately, I never lived them as I should have, and starting from adolescence, I parted myself by following deceptive “spiritual” paths (from Eastern doctrines to various forms of esotericism and occultism, passing through New Age sects).

Recently, after a deep interior crisis, I surrendered and understood that only Jesus Christ is the Truth, the authentic one, not one artfully reworked by ancient and modern Gnostic heresies.

Now I live as a Christian: I go to Mass every Sunday, and possibly on other days too, I pray (especially the Holy Rosary, at least one daily), I stopped committing impure acts which totally imprisoned me before my conversion… But, despite having confessed several times, the weight of past sins crushes me. Or rather, I am constantly afraid that I did not confess them well, so deserving hell despite my current efforts to live according to the commandments.

In the confessions I made, I confessed in general ways: for example, I said that I had committed many impure acts both alone and with girls outside the marriage bond, that I had blasphemed many times, that I had followed false idols; was that enough or should I had been more specific?

In this regard, I was very disquieted when I read St. Don Bosco had a vision of boys ending up in hell because they had confessed only some of their impure acts or had “confessed them badly”: considering that I will never be able to specifically remember every impure act (especially those committed lonely), am I destined for eternal death? Also, last week I went to confess again because I remembered other past sins, but the priest absolved me, directly without making me tell them, saying that all those that come back to mind are automatically absolved, since I was already absolved for the past sins. Is that correct? And if I remember other sins, does this still apply or should I confess them?

Thank you for your patience, I will pray for you.

The Priest’s answer 

Dear,

1. I am glad that you have returned to the Lord.

Or rather: I am glad that the Lord has somehow done again with you what He did with St. Augustine.

Narrating his conversion in the “Confessions”, this saint said: [tr.] “You breathed your perfume upon me and I inhaled it. And now I long for You”.

Yes, that is exactly what happened. You went around looking for the truth. But, while the other teachers tell you what to do (assuming they tell the truth!), Jesus Christ came into you instead, not only as light and as truth, but also as life, with His person.

Now, you feel an interior fullness which you never felt before.

This is the great difference between Jesus Christ and all the other religions of this world, which have some bits of truth, however along with many gaps and errors.

2. Now, I come to the rest of what you wrote.

You say that, despite confessions, the weight of sins remains.

It is a weight that crushed Our Lord before you.

It crushed Him when He allowed the weight of sins to reverberate in His body as it occurred in the agony of the Garden of Olives when it fell on His face.

Tradition also sees Him crushed in the Via Crucis.

But this weight was nothing compared to what Jesus felt in His soul since the first moment of His existence when He saw each sin of all humanity from the beginning up to the end of history.

That was a pain greater than the pain suffered by all people put together.

This is why the author of the Imitation of Christ could say that “tota vita Christi crux fuit et martyrium” (Christ’s entire life was a cross and a martyrdom).

This is why Jesus is infinitely lovable. No one, no one, no one loved us as much as He loved us and as He loves us.

3. Therefore, do so: the weight of your sins shall remind you back to the weight of Jesus, shall open your heart to welcome the superabundant redemption He accomplished, and you do live a new life. Just as St. Paul says: “dead to sin and living for God in Christ Jesus.” (Rom 6:11).

4. Regarding the integrity of your confession: you can stay safe.

When you said that you had committed so many impure acts both alone and with girls outside of marriage, you told everything.

The priest well understood the state of your soul.

So much so that, when you returned to confess something which you forgot at the previous confession, the priest absolved you again without accusation.

The sins, you remembered, did not change the nature of those you had previously confessed.

On this point, therefore, do not go back and do not let yourself be overcome by scruples.

In this regard, you can recall the consoling words of St. Giovanni Bosco: [tr.] “Everything, which disturbs and takes away peace, does not come from God.”

5. About the vision by Don Bosco, which you referred to, we must analyze it: first, whether it is true; second, which context he pronounced it in; third, about the accuracy of the reported words. As Don Bosco was probably referring to the various types of sins against purity, which the young people confessed only some of thus making the confession void.

At last, we cannot imagine so many young people dying and, belonging to Don Bosco’s oratory, dying in a state of grave sin. So, rather than an effective vision, it might have been a prophetic vision, in the sense that if those boys had not amended themselves, they would have ended badly.

Therefore, on your side, decisively remove everything that comes to disturb your peace. When you returned to confession for the second time, the confessor behaved in a particularly eloquent way. Your sins have all been absolved.

From the deepness of my heart, I thank you for the prayer you said for me. I reciprocate willingly, and I bless you.

Father Angelo

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