Inner peace .. Jacques Phillipe - English version - my reflections

Keli published this excerpt (which was translated by google into English ):

''Let us understand this: for the person of good will, the gravity of sin lies not so much in the fault itself, as in the dejection (a sad and depressed state ) it causes. He who falls, but gets up immediately, has not lost much; rather, he has gained in humility and in experience of divine mercy. He who remains sad and dejected (sad and depressed) loses the most. The test of spiritual progress is not so much that of not falling, but of being able to rise quickly from falls.

Let's look at the following very important example: under the confusion that invades us when we fall into any fault, we generally feel the temptation to relax in our life of piety, to abandon, for example, our usual time of personal prayer. And we find good excuses: "How can I, who have just fallen into sin, who have just offended the Lord, go to present myself to Him in this state?" And sometimes it takes several days for us to regain our prayer habits. But that is a great mistake: it is nothing more than false humility inspired by the devil. It is essential not to vary (differ in size, amount, degree, or nature) our prayer habits, but quite the opposite. Where will we find the healing of our faults if not together with Jesus?''

My reflections:

Let's think about the potential usage of this approach in fight against pmo addiction.
This way differs completely from mine in the aspect of progress in fighting pmo.
My method includes the element of short time promises to God which are gradually prolonged - the goal of them is to ensure long periods of sobriety and in my case they work ensuring me 7 years of sobriety but I noticed that when I encouraged the system of promises to a few addicts who accepted it and tried to use the result was almost the same (I don't know if CPilot uses the promise system or not): they all sooner or later broke their promises and gave up my method. Maybe they were too ambitious at the beginning and prolonged promises too much or there could be another reasons.

The approach above is another one: I understand it practically so:
1. After each pmo act the addict tries hard to pray even more than before the fall and he enters prayer as soon as it is possible after watching porn and mast..ing. The ideal would be to enter the prayer immediatelly after pmo. Then he goes on with prayer every time the temptation comes to repeat the first fall.
2. Of course the addict tries hard to go to confession the sooner the better aiming to confess before the second fall happens.
3. After confession and even before it the addict increases his faith life ( for example - going on mass even on a week day, more frequent reading the Bible, longer and more frequent prayer frequent, more good deeds and help to other people etc.)
4. Keeping the iron discipline to do so for a long time - I mean at least for some months and if this all will work then prolonging it for years or forever.

So this system would be characterized by more intensive faith life after each fall than the 'normal' usual way - falling into depression and decreasing weak faith life or even giving up faith life for a day, 2 days or even more. So it would be contrary to human manner that after the fall we weaken our life of faith.

In this system the counter counting the sober days wouldn't be important because the aim wouldn't be the number of sober days but the gaining of God's grace and changing of one's whole life. And as a result first dicreasing of pmo acts and then maybe even longer sober periods or maybe very long ones.

I'm very interested in practical results (fruits) of such an approach. I'm on my promises way that's why I'm looking for somebody who would like to try out this (new) approach. My intuition says to me that such an approach has the potential to be effective.

So, who wants to try this out?

 

Hi, I'm glad you want to give it a try.
So when you are in day 5 your the best tactic for you now is to start praying any time when temptation or urge come and praying as long as you feel that the temptation is over. And when another temptation comes you start praying anew untill the grace of God extinguishes the temptation - and so on.
But when you fall one day then you start praying as soon as possible after your fall and then any time when a new temptation comes you will start praying as long as it lasts ... and so on you repeat all what is written above.

Plus try to go to confession as soon as possible after your fall.
Plus Bible reading - daily would be the best solution.
Plus going to prayer and formative meetings / groups in your parish.
Plus trying to do every day what church teaches.
Plus reading Catholic books - the best would be books written by saints.

Feel free to write here the results of your faith based efforts.

What happened that you were an atheist and why did you decide to come back to church?

 

Thanks CPilot for your entry - your input is very important because you tried something from the two approaches (1. small promises and 2. immediate prayer after pmo) and now you say from your experience that it's difficult to pray after pmo and another difficulty is to maintain this as a rule. Very valuable information which I couldn't experience and test having been for many years only on repentance, prayer, PROMISE method.

 

Hi Keli,
21 days is many days. Not many are 1 or 2 or 3 days of sobriety. I remember that when I was in my twenties then 3 weeks was for me an accomplishment. But I think it's not a sport. Much more important is how close we are to God and how we listen to Him and are obiedent to His church. 21 days means that this ''method'' works too. I call it a method because when I read a religious book I always try to find something practical to use in my life. The same with reading the Bible and church teaching or theology. I am a highly practical person and I often read something not to get to know some knowledge but to implement it in my life. Can you write what do you usually do when a temptation to pmo comes? What strategies do you have in such a temptation time?
The second issue - can you publish here what fr. Jacques Phillipe writes about prayer - how to pray?

 

Keli,

I sometimes experienced in my past very strong temptation / urges that's why I know well what you describe here. Such temptations were so sudden and vehement that I melted in seconds and I knew that I had to pmo because any resistance would be very painful for me and pmo lured me into the extasy. So I chose pmo extasy.
I would like to give you a tip which rescued me in such extreme situations of strong temptations. Please, try this tip when your next strong temptation comes and write me back what was the effect.

1. When the strong temptation comes don't try to get up at first because you usually won't have the power and determination to do it ( your mind and emotions will be occupied with a perspective of comming extasy and your will power will be very weak)

2. At first force yourself to start praying begging God for rescue and faith (because in such moments there is a very strong attack on our faith and trust - if God exists or if His help can be sufficient). Force yourself to pray because in such a moment you won't have any desire to pray (maybe you will feel an aversion to pray).

3. After you started praying ( it's very difficult - at first it will be only fighting to try to focuse your attention on God ) get up and walk out of your bedroom but continue praying - don't cease it.

4. Praying try to focuse more and more attention on Jesus. You could even repeat: Jesus, Jesus, Jesus rescue!, Jesus... without adding many words - the most important is to try to focuse on the presence of Jesus ( the words are only a help, don't focuse your attention so much on the words of prayer but on Jesus before all.

5. Continue praying more and more focusing your attention on God ... untill you start feeling that you are innerly healed and that your temptation is (almost) over.

6. I can guarantee to you that mostly after the first wave of temptations it will come the second and maybe the third wave ( or rarely the next waves) - so when you go back to bed and fall asleep or when you lie awaiting the sleep be ready to repeat the points from 1. to 6. when the next temptation wave comes. But sometimes it's enough to fight the first temptation and the second doesn't come. But be careful - you don't know if it comes back in 15 minutes or not. Be ready.

7. Don't hope for a good sleep that night when it happens - it will be a fighting night. You will sleep good as a baby during the next day when you will be the winner and you joyfully go to sleep.

About one point I didn't write because it's maybe too soon. Please - try to use this procedure at least once and you'll get to know how God powerfully works and heals in temptation.

 

I mostly experience that peace (shalom) as a deep inner healing feeling, inner balm and no necessity to think about what happens, no plans, lack of contemplating my past , sometimes lack of thoughts and being filled by something strange , not usual (Holy Spirit?). It's like a relief soon after you burnt your finger on cooker and you put this finger in the flowing cold water from the tap when you put aside the finger it begins to hurt fast but if you put it anew in the cold running water .... I experience it the most when adoring the Most Holy Sacrament in total silence (nobody there or only a few who don't make noise ) of the church.

 

It's very good but this is only a beginning. Your prayer after this consecration must last as long as the urge / temptation lasts. Imagine that you are attacked by a criminal. Will you fight against him only the first 15 seconds or will you fight untill he gives up his attack seeing that you are not passive that you are shouting as loud as you can '' help , help!! ( in real situation the police in Poland advises to shout - fire, fire!!!! because many people are afraid of criminals but everybody will help hearing fire) the longer you shout fire, fire and the louder the better. Imagine the criminal attacking you is the devil influencing you strong temptations - shouting help, help!! is prayer, shouting help, help!!! loudly is an intense, deep prayer ( we must learn to pray deeply - we must exercise our prayer daily). Try to do like that at least once and you'll be suprised how effective it is .

 

I'll ask de San Juan Pablo II (one of my favourite saints) for you - you know he can better understand polish language
and you are the first person I talk to in Spanish (although I don't speak Spanish beside a few words like: si, no, carramba, mucho gratias and buenos dias )

 

If your wish will be completed one day in future - my wife and me could be your guides. We could show you our religious movement ( light - life movement) which members we are and whose founder fr. Franciszek Blachnicki was a very close friend of our pope John Paul and the practical teaching of this movement was influenced by our pope too. The pope encouraged this movement very much and was on many retreats of it before he was elected as a pope. This movement is for married couples and for the youth and for children and priests too - it has various branches. Or maybe you would have in a not definite future some time and money to take part in a retreat of this movement in the mountain region, in the little town Krościenko - the base of this movement. We could be your guides there too.

 

There are retreats there in Krościenko for international groups - from all continents - the lingua franca is English. How is your English? Are you from Spain?

In Polish it's called a pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostella. When I was young and single I wasn't interested in it because I lived in pmo drug. When I married I was interested in it but I couldn't leave my family because the pilgrimage lasts longer time. All I did ( as a single then) was a 2 week pilgrimage to the most known shrine in Poland - Częstochowa. I had 3 intents - to find a future wife ( I found her at that pilgrimage, for one little girl who had had a dangerous accident ( her mother told me some years later that at hospital it occured that it was not serious ) and intent number 3 I don't remember.