A warm hello to everyone in the Fellowship,
So it has been a few weeks since I last updated everyone on Men of Hope but rest assured, there are updates planned soon. In truth, my own business has kept me very occupied, which is a good thing from an addiction perspective. The Fellowship has reached its usual summer slow period and I guess that long daylight hours are keeping active minds and bodies busy 🙂
I want to first send out a big congratulations and thanks to our latest two members who have completed the Stage 1 Units. Looking back it is amazing to think that they both joined me for at least 8 Crypt Chat sessions lasting on average 2 hours each. It is never planned that way, but once we all get chatting time just seems to move quicker. I do recognise that this demands a lot of effort and sacrifice from our members but the work is well worth it – especially if you are determined to overcome your sexual addictions.
But is that the end of it for any of you…a never ending fight against temptation?
This is the question I really want you to be asking yourselves. This Fellowship is not just about ourselves it is also about demonstrating that we understand how hard it is face this addiction alone. Knowing this, then surely we must want to give our fellow sufferers as much help as is possible? We are Catholics and we firmly believe in the power of the Church Militant. We understand that help comes in many forms, and for us, one of the most powerful – is prayer and sacrifice.
That is why I am currently engaged in a 40 day challenge – I want my ‘suffering’ to be of value. This sacrifice is needed by someone. It may not be a particularly difficult sacrifice I make – but I make it with the knowledge that this may bring Graces where they are most needed. I don’t pretend to understand how all of this truly works – but as Catholics, we are definitely encouraged to use this as a remedy for ourselves and (more importantly) for others! So why do addicts seem to find the formal offering up of their own pains and struggles so difficult to do?
Surely, the knowledge that Our Lord loves us enough to entrust us with such a painful cross should bring us gratitude. We have been given the opportunity to fight something ‘daily’ that others never face. Imagine, if everytime you turned away from pornography or ‘that sexual thought’, you actively said,
“Oh my Jesus – I willingly offer up all of this horrible desire and temptation so that others may not have to face the same battle I do.”
You need to literally take hold of that temptation for sin and turn it on its head! Thank Jesus and then embrace the suffering as if you were on your own Road to Calvary. Whilst you are in such turmoil and conflict see the postive use it can be – offer it all up to Jesus so He may save other souls. Then, make a point of updating this website with your prayers, devotions and more importantly – your self denials. Just think, every time that you say ‘no’ counts as a self denial. So don’t waste it – it has real value if offered up…
This is your path to sanctity – you can actively save souls. It doesn’t matter that you are still engaged in your own battle – that’s what gives it true worth. So how can you not see this as truly virtuous and pleasing to God?
The act of ‘formally’ submitting what you have suffered is a way to demonstrate (anonymously) that other people do matter. This addiction is no longer just about ‘you’ – it is now about how ‘you’ can help others during your struggle. Everytime I update the Rosary Crusade page with prayers or self denials – I recognise that it will be of use to someone else in the depths of despair. I know this because it is what we are told in The Gospels and what we are told by the Church.
So please – let’s stop looking just to ourselves for help. Start working harder to make our own struggles against temptation a means of helping more than just ‘ME’.
I hope this makes some sense because that is the true purpose of having a Rosary Crusade page. Our Lady made it very clear that we must all be actively offering up prayers, sufferings and sacrifices to save all of those poor sinners from hell. Surely, that is a good enough reason to spend an extra minute on the Men of Hope website?
Who knows – it may well be one of our members Rosaries offered up on this site, that led you to find your way back into the light?
So – with all of this in mind, I will continue to do additional Rosaries and sacrifices as a means to not only keep me busy BUT also to be able to give spiritual aid to the ‘unknown’ others. It makes me feel good and it makes me feel valued knowing that something positive can come from the simple act of resisting temptation. Resisiting gives me purpose; and for that, I thank God.
deo Gratias,
SA James
This is so true, Sajames. Reparation for our own sins and the sins of others is the heart of the message of Our Lady of Fatima. In 1917, Our Lady told the three children to “say often, especially when making sacrifices” the following short prayer: “O my Jesus it is for love of Thee, for the conversion of sinners and in reparation for the sins committed against the Immaculate Heart of Mary.”
We might wonder whether the efforts we make to avoid sin are of value as sacrifices, and especially the kind of sacrifices asked for stop souls going to damnation as the children saw them doing in the terrible vision of hell vouchsafed to them at Fatima. And yet here is what Our Lord Himself told Sr Lucy, as she relates in a letter to a Portuguese bishop in 1943:
“The Good Lord will allow Himself to be appeased, but He complains bitterly and sadly about the very limited number of souls in the state of grace, disposed to deny themselves according to what the observance of His law requires of them. Here is the true penance which the Good Lord requests today: the sacrifice which everybody must impose on himself to lead a life of justice in the observance of His law. And He desires that this way be clearly made known to souls, for many give to the word ‘penance’ the sense of great austerities, and as they feel neither the strength nor the generosity for that, they get discouraged and let themselves go into a life of lukewarmness and sin. From Thursday to Friday, being in the chapel with my superiors’ permission, at midnight, Our Lord told me: ‘The penance that I request and require now is the sacrifice demanded of everybody by the accomplishment of his own duty and the observance of My law.'”
Keep up the good work, Men of Hope!
Fr Nicholas Mary