Mortal sins of Anger

[Blue Tit]

Dear friends, unless my question is not directly or entirely about penance, I would like to have your advices about how to fight this kind of sins.

I'm an irascible woman, and this is my main fault.

The fact is that on every occasion, I lose my temper and say horrible things to every person I believe offended me.

No need to add that a painful contrition follows all these sins before a couple of hours. I go to the confession to my SD as soon as possible, and he sighs heavily each time but can't give me any practical advice that would help me not to fall again and again and again. The only thing he says is to stand on my guard against these sins by strong resolutions each morning...Of course I obey, but it doesn't seem to be sufficient to obtain a result !
He always gives me such insignifiant penances for these sins he admits easily to be mortal (a Misere or 3 Ave Laria) that I'm afraid I'll have to endure Purgatory for years if I don't offer a decent atonement to Our Lord !
Above that, I can't stand going on offending God so griefly, I act like a demon when I'm angry, and it has to stop.

After several years of trying, I got, 2 months ago, the conviction that my correction is not a human's job, and that only God can free me from this sin.

That's why I took some means to obtain this grace.
To explain myself, I have to say that when I was young, I had huge difficulties with impurety, because I had contracted such bad habits before my conversion, that it was impossible for me to get rid of it. So I thought that since only God could free me, I had to concentrate myself only on beseeching Him to deliver this poor sinner (I remembered the Ninivites).
After about 2 years of restless fight, He gave me what I asked for, and completely rescued me from these sins.

I thought I could apply the same medicine to my anger, and here is what it is :

- frequent confessions each time I fall in this sin (when I say frequent, it's really frequent, even if I have to go to my confessor 2 or 3 times a week !)

- frequent communions

- Continual physical penance for all these mortal sins (my usual ones are cilice and discipline, and since I use them to implore Our Lord to deilver me, there is no place for a compromise)
About "light" sins, I pay attention to make a light penance each time too.

- More frequent prayers and meditations on Our Lord's Passion, and I keep asking for forgiveness each day and every time I pray.

In all these things, I try above all to humble myself because I think that my anger probably comes from a hidden huge pride.
So I try to find the words and the attitude that give me the more humiliations possible when I am at my SD's feet, (and of course when I pray at home !)
The reading of St Jean Climaque helps me a lot in these matters.



The problem is that I feel alone in this fight : my confessor can't help; however he allows me the bodily penances under the condition they don't harm me.

Could you please, for the love of Our Lord, help me to cure myself ?
I need all advices of a fraternal correction, and of course prayers !

Thank you, God bless,

Blue Tit, poor sinner

[Scholastica]

I understand what you are saying. This is something I am sure we all struggle with; some sins are easy to eradicate, others remain as a thorn in our flesh, reminding us of our own fallibility.

I am not sure if this will help or not, but here goes. I have found that my own pride is my greatest enemy. I find myself thinking about whether or not to do particular penances, and reasoning myself in or out of them. This is why it is useful to come here, and find what other people are doing; it eliminates our own pride and opinions, and we see much more clearly.

One thing that I have tried to do, to curb my own self determination, is to acknowledge over and over again during the day that I am not the determiner of my own life. I am the servant of the Lord. So I kneel to pray and ask his permission before eating, drinking, leaving my house, going to bed, ending my prayers; all sorts of different everyday things. This is not for his sake, but for mine. Every time I do this it acts as a reminder to my pride that it no longer has charge of what I do or do not do. I must submit to a higher authority.

I think if you were to take this kind of low level approach to everything you do, your anger would not have the same control of you as it presently does. In a sense you would be de-escalating the pride before it gets strong enough to break out into anger.

If you do fall into anger, I would recommend seeking out and apologising to the person concerned as soon as you can, and when you have done that praying the Litany, followed by the Rosary; all fifteen mysteries for each outburst. Then forget about it, and start again. If you fall again, repeat this. Don't try to make it more or less; keep to the same pattern, even if it takes weeks or months. Our Lady will help you.

The second point is to regard any humiliation that comes your way as sent by God to benefit your soul. So instead of getting cross about it, kneel and thank God. Not in public, unless you are really brave, but quietly and privately. Every humiliation will help to break your self will, and every time your self will is broken, Christ becomes sovereign. Therefore, rather than railing against injustice, embrace it as a blessing.

I am not sure if that will help; perhaps others will have other ideas as well.

[Blue Tit]

Thank you dear Scholastica,
I love your idea of recognizing I'm entirely dependant on God : these little acts you talk about, very simple to do, will for sure be very useful for me.
I've been doing something quite similar for about 10 days : kneeling at least 10 times a day, begging Our Lord for His forgiveness. So, I'll go on doing it according the way you suggest, and I thank you very much for this good advice !



About accepting humiliations, it won't do the job for me, because I have been so humiliated, despised, betrayed and attacked in my whole life, that I'm afraid I'm no more touched by anything ! Unfortunately, it's not at all a virtue in me, but only a HUUUUUGE disdain about what people say or think of me. You can see by this on what level of sin I am, poor me. so please pray for me !

[Swainl12]

Dear Blue Tit,
It was a bit edifying to read your post. I resonate deeply with your dilemma. I also have a quick temper, and I carry grudges. And I then justify that behavior. I am wrong when I do that, and it is wrong of me to subject others to my temper, impatience, and to my anger.
I have embarked on therapy on order to work this through, and my therapist is a spiritual person. That makes the battle half won. I have learned, am learning, to watch myself, apologise to others immediately, whether they know why or not. Also, I love the examples of the saints and penitents. I have chosen to not fuel the devil's fire. I will not hurt innocents. I will not reamain so full of pride and arrogance. For every person that has been subjected to my anger or wrath, that person is one more child of God that I have hurt. And my conscience cannot abide that sort of behavior. And when I hurt a child of God, I am hurting God through my bad behavior. No one deserves to be subjected to my rage. Its just wrong of me.
I understand the challenges of controlling my temper, and I do so hope and pray that you become delivered from that terrible temper. It can happen. Not overnight, but God can change us, if we continue to make room for Him to do so.
Penances? I wear my hair shirt, I step away from time and pray. I fight the guilt that I feel when I wrong another. In my opinion, dealing with a bad conscience is worse than any physical penance that one can visit upon oneself. And know that you will be prayed for without ceasing. Take care, and God bless.

Over and out,
Swainl
http://www.buyhairshirts.com

[Blue Tit]

Thank you Swainl, thanks for your prayers !

I'm not sure what you mean by having "bad conscience". Do you mean "remorse" ? I have the grace that my SD is a benedict monk always available for confessions, so I don't stay in state of mortal sin more than a couple of hours (poor confessor, he is condemned to see me arrive at high speed, at everytime !).
Considering this, I never have remorse : no time for that !
On the contrary, God usually gives me such a strong repentance : it's a great grace He has always given to me.
I consider repentance is exactly the opposite to remorse, in fact.

The more surprising thing about my anger, is that it's quite recent. I was not like that 9 or 10 years ago. Then, I began to become more and more choleric, to arrive at this awful and sinful! result. I don't know where it comes from, but it probably increased all long these years until it became an habit.


(please excuse my english I suppose worse than ordinary, because here in France it's late, and when I'm tired, it tends to become a "little-negro" jargon ! )

[Scholastica]

Thank you dear Scholastica,
I love your idea of recognizing I'm entirely dependant on God : these little acts you talk about, very simple to do, will for sure be very useful for me.
I've been doing something quite similar for about 10 days : kneeling at least 10 times a day, begging Our Lord for His forgiveness. So, I'll go on doing it according the way you suggest, and I thank you very much for this good advice !

You are more than welcome. I know from experience how much I need this reminder, constantly, to curb my pride and self will.

There is a LOT of it to curb.

About accepting humiliations, it won't do the job for me, because I have been so humiliated, despised, betrayed and attacked in my whole life, that I'm afraid I'm no more touched by anything ! Unfortunately, it's not at all a virtue in me, but only a HUUUUUGE disdain about what people say or think of me. You can see by this on what level of sin I am, poor me. so please pray for me !

It sounds as if you may have ptsd. If this is the case then any subsequent rejection will trigger retraumatisation, and the adrenaline from that will result in the outburst you describe. It is a symptom, in other words, not a sin. So is that state you describe as being untouched. That is dissociation; another symptom.

Try reading Trauma and Recovery by Judith Herman. The more you understand, the easier it will be to avoid getting triggered. You do not need to repent before God for this; you are not the agent of this condition, and you are not making choices.

As a brief summary, ptsd triggers the primitive brain, which is the locus of fear. When this part of the mind is triggered, it takes over temporarily, and disconnects the higher brain functions of rational thought. This makes sense because when we are in danger it is sensible to act first and think later. The problem is, in your case that acting first is leading you into hurting other people and yourself. You need to find out how to de-escalate that process. It is not easy, but it can be done, and the first step is to recognise what is actually happening.

I have ptsd myself. I bet you guessed that already.

[Blue Tit]

hmmmm, I don't think that I can take a psychological fact as an excuse for sin. Even with my adrenalin boiling !

God always gives us choice, in free-will, and a past psychological harm, unless it can decrease the seriousness of a sin, can't make that a sin is no more ...a sin. Don't you agree dear Scholastica ?

[Scholastica]

hmmmm, I don't think that I can take a psychological fact as an excuse for sin. Even with my adrenalin boiling !

God always gives us choice, in free-will, and a past psychological harm, unless it can decrease the seriousness of a sin, can't make that a sin is no more ...a sin. Don't you agree dear Scholastica ?

It is a sin if it is volitional. If it is symptomatic of an underlying condition, over which you do not have control, then it is not volitional. It is no more a sin than a heart attack is.

Having determined that it is a condition (and of course that is not yet certain), it would be a sin to deliberately choose not to attempt to find healing, but having the condition itself does not bring anyone into sin.

Past psychological harm can leave us with an inability to deal rationally with certain situations. We are not mentally ill if this happens, we are phychologically damaged. You could compare it with someone who has a broken leg. The leg itself is not diseased or defective; it is just broken. Once it is given appropriate treatment, it will work fine again. The same is true of those who have been chronically traumatised. There is nothing inherently wrong with them, but at times the effects of triggering become far stronger than their own volition. Clearly we remain legally responsible for whatever we do in such a situation, but morally I do not think we can be held culpable, especially not by a loving God.

[Blue Tit]

well, I don't say it is not possible, but I know it is not my case. When one commits a sin, one knows it for sure, and also whether it's mortal or not.
I should be able to avoid these sins, if I took the right means to obtain a result. (that's the first and major subject of my first post)

I'm persuaded that the fact I was so severely injured in the past, was only the will of Our Lord.
I have always considered it as a punishment of my God for some infidelities I did, but my confessor says he's not sure, and that it is more probably a trial. Whatever it can be, I had to accept this and kiss the Hand who gave me such a correction !

To explain more, so that you understand the point, I had to endure a persecution from a religious woman who was the Superior of a convent where I worked (as a teacher). Noone knows what, but she became to conceive a strong detestation against me. She setted a cabal against me, involving my SD of these years, and casting calumnies against he and me, at the point it made a scandal and that the superior of the whole order had to intervene. I was "asked" to leave the convent, and was soon forced to leave the country too, because my reputation was completely ruined : she had succeded in showing me as an immodest and an hypocrite. My SD (poor priest, who was so pure, and so sullied by this woman !) and another priest worked together to help me survive and offer Our Lord all these sufferings. I have to confess it has been the most important tempest in my whole life, and without their charity and mercy, I would probably have lost the faith.

As you see, I can't take these sufferings as an excuse for my actual sins : it was God's will, He allowed these things to happen, things that are so UN-NATURAL, that I don't dare to consider them as a simple "psychological harm", and I would insult Him if I took pretext on them now !

I hope you understood what I tried to explain, it was necessary. I won't allow myself to talk about these years anymore here, for fear to offend Him.

[Scholastica]

As you see, I can't take these sufferings as an excuse for my actual sins : it was God's will, He allowed these things to happen, things that are so UN-NATURAL, that I don't dare to consider them as a simple "psychological harm", and I would insult Him if I took pretext on them now !

I hope you understood what I tried to explain, it was necessary. I won't allow myself to talk about these years anymore here, for fear to offend Him.

I understand.

God be with you.