Pornography/ Masturbation
Is it something we should confess to our confessional fathers? How can we stop the urges/ temptations?
Please visit the following link to read the whole article. https://www.tyom.org/pornography-a-counterfeitlove
Pornography by definition is making a person “an object of enjoyment, intended for satisfaction without limits.” It violates the fundamental intention of God’s creation for sexaulity. While love involves sacrifice and commitment, porn teaches you to reduce others to sexual objects that can be used and discarded once the passion wears off. Our Lord warns anyone who looks lustfully at a women [or women at a man] commits sin with her in heart [Matt 5:28].
“Did you commit sin? Enter the Church and repent for your sin, for here is the physician, not a judge, here one is not investigated, one receives remission of sin”
St. John Chrysostom.
Practical advice on battling Pornography.”Work out your salvation with fear and trembling” [Phil. 2:12]
1. Need Repentance and Confession, and taking frequent Holly Communion
You need to talk to your confessional father and get counseling, direction and to ask him to pray for you and take the Holy Communion [medicine] Purity doesn’t come overnight. It requires perseverance along with the help of God. Purity is not a matter of wrestling our lust to the ground and putting it into a submission hold. To fight this sin, we need to follow what God has already revealed in the Bible. LIke stated above, we can’t battle this by ourselves [apart from the help of God] and need to admit it. God has given a power/authority to the priest “to drive out impure spirits [thought, lust] and to heal every disease and sickness” [Mt 10:1] and to absolve and make us free from all sin [Mt 18:18]. Ultimately when we confess we are allowing God to transform our heart through sacraments [Confession and Holy Communion] of the church offer. Participating in the Holy communion erases sin and often gives you the power to overcome the problem. If God is within us through Communion, who can defeat us?! Holy communion is like a medicine that will help us to heal our selfish desire to lust. However, confessing and taking Holy communion don’t remove our sexual desire or the causes of temptation. We have to do also the following :-
2. Remove the Temptation
Do whatever you can to rid yourself of occasions of sin. If you wish to have a pure mind, keep far away from the means that cause the corruption of thought. Keep away from all things that bring to your mind a sinful thought. Such thoughts may come as a result of faulty readings, of wicked things that are heard, or due to a sinful environment, bad company, or wicked friendship or internet. Job though a married man said if he was to be delivered from lustful thinking, he need to control his eye. He said, “I made a covenant with my eyes, not to look lustfully at a young woman”[Job 31:1]. One practical advice is to install filtering software [covenanteyes.com]*on your computer and phone. Another useful strategy is to put the holy Icon wherever you had the images. If it is on the Internet, put a crucifix or picture of Our Lady on top of the computer, and have a sacred image for your screen saver or computer wallpaper. You could also make the sign of the cross, or bless yourself with holy water when you feel tempted. Third, find a person [besides your confession of father - prefer if the person is a clergy, or Sunday School teacher] with whom you can be honest about your habit and be accountable to him/ her. The bottom line here is that if you want to overcome the temptation, “fix your mind on things which are holy and right and pure and beautiful and good” [Phil. 4:8]. The Spirit of God urges us constantly to lead every thought captive into the obedience of Christ [2 Cor. 10:5]. The way of life may be narrow and difficult, but the Holy Spirit can strengthen us to walk that way. *this is a website you download and help you overcome pornography by monitoring your Internet activity and sending a Report to a trusted friend who holds you accountable for your online choices. If you want to join this program, let me know [email, call or text me] and there are a group of people who want to join, and could do it as a group [we might even get a discount].
3. Pray for the redemption of your desire.
If we want to truly overcome or avoid the temptation, we need to be an active participant in overcoming the sin with constant pray. Prayer is essential for those who want to persevere in purity. Prayer is powerful competing responses that can defeat the lust that used to overpower us. Spending quiet time with God will allow us to rehabilitate the desire of our heart. Beside the regular prayer that you do in morning and night, train yourselves to pray short prayer repeatedly. Some examples are: "Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me a sinner", “Hasten, O God, to save me; come quickly, Lord, to help me[Ps. 70:1].. By repeating a prayer, it makes it register in your subconscious so it will be in your thoughts automatically and may stay with you even in your sleep. Along with that, it is advisable to add fasting when it gets hard even though you tried so much, as the Lord stated that some sin couldn’t be overcome without fasting and prayer [Mt 17:21].
4. Read the Holy Bible.
You don't go to battle without ammunition. St Paul said, “my brethren, be strong in the Lord and in the power of His might. Put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil. For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this age, against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places. Therefore take up the whole armor of God, that you may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand” [Eph 6:10-13] For this reason, King David said, “I have hidden your word in my heart that I might not sin against you” [Ps. 119:11]. We must fill our minds daily with the Word of God -for saturating our minds thus thus with God’s word is one of the surest safeguards against evil thinking. “Whenever you read the Gospel, Christ Himself is speaking to you. And while you read, you are praying and talking to Him.” St. Tikhon
5. Deepen your devotion and relation with Saints.
Pick a saint [i.e.St Mary, Archangel Michael, Abune Teklehaymanot] and deepen your devotion. God has favored the saints for the sake of me and you. We have seen God’s working through his saints. Our Church and our lives are a living testimony to the effectiveness of Saint’s intercession/help.
Please the chastity page [https://www.tyom.org/chastity ] on this website for more
God Bless