So what makes me so special?

So what makes me so special?

For me, one of the most devious tools used by the devil is a form of ‘false’ pride.   It works in reverse from my perspective as an addict.  For 30 years I have lived the life of sexual addiction.  For nearly all of those years I have not had to fight – I was not catholic and had no reason to.  Society was happy to tell me that I had a right to enjoy life, a right to my own sexuality and a right for others not to ‘inflict’ their moral views upon my own.  God did not really matter in this modernist reality I lived.

When I converted the trouble started.  Years spent rehabilitating, of learning the faith and learning to trust others through God.  This is also the time when real shame and despair set in.  I now understood that lawful sexual activities were clearly defined by a set of moral rules – The Commandments.  I recognised the value of The Cross and the sacrifice made by Jesus on Calvary.  I began to realise that His sacrifice was an example for us all to follow if we were to live alongside him in Heaven.  But that is okay…in theory.

I also learned that sacrifice is not like switching off the kitchen light to save power.  It was really difficult and many days I just didn’t want to give up my earthly pleasures.  So I would sin, then I would feel shame and finally despair.  Then I would drag myself to confession, I would pour out my soul and feel good again.  We all know this cycle of sin and repentance – we all have to live it.  So what makes my case so different from yours?

WHY AM I SO SPECIAL?

Is my cross so very different from anybody else?  Do I deserve special sympathy and understanding because I happen to be a sex addict.  Is my fight against temptation any harder than yours?  Well in my head, until recently, it was!  I was inflicted with an addiction caused by the internet and fuelled by a permissive society.  My brain was forcibly altered and my addiction was the result.  I was not brought up a catholic and therefore not given any of the protective powers the rest of you had.  Of course my fight was harder than yours…

Absolute rubbish! 

This type of thinking allowed me to justify my failures or successes as understandable and almost heroic in nature.  I wasn’t just giving up chocolate, gossiping or laziness  – NO – I was giving up the hardest and toughest vice ever put on man!!  This allowed me to feel better about my falls and lack of perseverance.  This allowed me to judge other Catholic vices as ‘less difficult’ and thereby other sinners as less worthy.  Their fight was so much easier than mine – in fact – how come they kept having to go to confession?  This was the false pride of a sex addict and this was how I justified my many failures against others.  I made myself better than them because my cross was so much tougher than theirs…

I am writing this article because we all suffer from this form of false pride at different times of our lives.  It is a weapon of the devil and it will send us to hell as quickly as any other vice.  It will also hamper us in our attempts to amend our lives.  My sin, my cross, is no different from any other.  My neighbour’s sin will send him to hell as surely as mine will send me.  His battle against temptation is as hard as mine – that is how the devil works on us.  He makes us think that our struggle is different, harder than other people.  Well start understanding that the battle is the same and so is the price of failure.

The confessional is for sinners who wish to repent and find communion with God again.  Do not be scared of it and do not despair because you are in the line every week.  Many of us are in that line each week and many of us despair at our inability to amend our ways.  Whether that be laziness, selfishness, pride, greed, gluttony or lust – it doesn’t matter.  We each face the same battle and for each of us it feels impossible to change – so stop making your vice any different from theirs.

Just get on and fight like everyone else does – we are no different.  We are not special…

Yours in Jesus, Mary & Joseph,

SA James.