Freedom and The Little Act

We now call our corrected notion of powerpointing as the original little way of St. Therese as we’ve discussed. If I am worthy, you may call me a son of St. Therese. This little act is further helped by the Blessed Virgin Mary’s question due to addict’s incapacity or servitude. The question “What good can you easily do here and now?” seems to be bereft of freedom of choice. But a careful examination of the question reveals that the one who will answer it is free to answer whatever good comes out from his mind, his talent or tendency, and his choices among goods. Does it mean we are forced to do what is good? If that is what is bothering you, then you are far from the Kingdom of God. Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied. It is not the focus of this topic to help you desire what is good (to love). The focus of this topic is that we are free to choose from among the multitude good acts we can do.

It’s not just in the careful examination of the question that we see freedom from the one who will answer it. When the question has been answered, it will be acted out. The acting out itself is the little act that sets one free. Little freedom is acquired against the formidable addictions or vices we’ve set ourselves to overcome. St. Therese told that when we always stumble on the ladder to heaven, one day God may have mercy on us and carry the little crying child up the ladder Himself.

Pardon me as I need to give example to my repentant sexual addict readers. In all modesty, someone is delusioning for example that he be married to his first cousin, which is forbidden by the Canon Law’s fourth degree of consanguinity. Let us call him Gilbert. And Gilbert’s delusion is a worst kind of sexual addiction. Gilbert heard that a priest from his parish dispensed and wedded secretly two souls who are first cousins since they already have children. But the counsel and common sense tells us that there are too many good souls out there aside from Gilbert’s first cousin. That is the more perfect will of God, aside from what is good, what is pleasing in God’s eyes. An addict can’t understand that, more so do that. And so the Blessed Virgin Mary’s question helps sinners to master himself at every level until he can already even accept the more perfect will of God, the hard foods of adult. “What good can you easily do here and now?” can be answered with “I will marry my first cousin,” to “I will identify what I like with my cousin and look for someone with those characteristics,” up till “I want whatever God wants for my marriage,” which is the hardest. “The more one does what is good, the freer one becomes," according to the Catechism of the Catholic Church. One day Gilbert will be able to say to himself after all the practicing of all the virtues the Blessed Virgin Mary is pointing him to practice that he can already embrace whatever God wants for his marriage. For now Gilbert needs to practice answering the Blessed Virgin Mary’s question and doing it even in the little moments of his life so that he may know afterwards what is pleasing and what is more perfect in God’s eyes.

In the Letter to the Bishops on Some Aspects of Christian Meditation of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, it is told that "...the emptiness which God requires is that of the renunciation of personal selfishness, not necessarily that of the renunciation of those created things which he has given us and among which he has placed us." I want to emphasize that it is wrong to think that God doesn't want a repentant sexual addict to marry for the maintenance of chastity (better to marry than to burn with passion 1 Cor. 7:9). But "...while he raises us up, God is free to 'empty' us of all that holds us back in this world..."

A repentant sexual addict not yet fully healed should be frightened to think that God doesn't want him to marry for chastity purpose. He need not fear though that every now and then God can lift him up and detach him from his attachment to sex in all its form. It doesn't mean though that God doesn't want one to marry. St. Augustine had lived with women and was converted before he renounced that failed marriage, and had been given by God even the capacity to devote himself to chaste celibate loving. If you still sin against chastity in whatever form, then you are still a sexual addict needing healing though repentant. The fact that you're still sinning is a fact that you're still repeatedly subscribing to the forbidden pleasures of sex outside marriage, and points to an addiction or vice. A fact that after years of struggle to master yourself, you have not been. It then points to a more suitable counsel which is to marry in love even you have that valid motive of maintaining your chastity. Telling yourself then that God doesn't want you to marry, is a very circumventing invention of your cycle to addiction not to subscribe to married sex. It's a rebellion indeed against God who created marriage for specific persons. A failed or unchecked healing of sexual addiction inside a formation house of future celibates can mean continuous toleration of abuse and scandal in the church. And so I pray that youth in such troubles might be enlightened unto their paths by proper authorities.

If in your heart you're still choosing marriage as your vocation, then it is God's will, and should no longer be questioned that further inhibits one's desire to marry. For those who are still struggling against a seeming contradiction between God's will and one's freedom of choice, I highly recommend reading Peter Kreeft's article. Remember the Blessed Virgin Mary fully respecting our freedom by asking us "What good can you easily do here and now?" and not tell us directly this is the exact and only will of God that you should be doing. Peter Kreeft clarified in the article how such situation of God directly telling individual his specific will is very limited in the bible and in the lives of the saints, illogical since all our moves should do God's specific will, nay it's the exeption to the general rule. A rule according to St. John Chrysostom that we shouldn't be hearing God's voice, suffice it that we have our conscience and reason.

St. Therese, teach us your little way!
St. Augustine, pray for our healing!
Mother Mary, refuge of sinners, have mercy on us!

How to have ADHD/Delusion and Worsen Your Addiction

The following is a sarcastic instruction to have it:
1. Sleep less than 5 hours.
2. Drink 5 or more 50mg caffeine a day.
3. Watch TV, use smart phone, do online things all day.
4. After having a headache, eat more sweets and chocolates.
5. Drink some more sugar laden juices, and avoid eating vegetables.
6. When sick already, drink supplements from herbs and fish you don't know contains higher than recommended limit of mercury.
7. Sip some more hot herb concoction that you don't know makes you strong and... unable to sleep.
8. Finally when wide awake, solve your personal problems, and think until you're stressed to burned out. Conclude it with a gym work out if your body fever isn't going down.
9. Repeat the cycle from number 1 to 8.

How To Be Dumb

I tried Bullet Journaling. Now I just need a 1/4 sheet of paper not the whole journal to put my checklist of what I will do that day which I toss like a scratch paper after they're done. But my mind can't really put on calendar anything and doing it. (Note taking I still do on my journal the long form as I've been accustomed way back in the seminary which is more of a spiritual journaling. I think I favor more the long form because I'm a writer.) It's better in my seminary days when others get to plan and calendar it for me where everything is done by the hour, it's better in the corporate world where I do tasks scheduled and deadlined by my company.

Matthew 6:34 in particular says, "Do not worry about tomorrow; tomorrow will take care of itself. Sufficient for a day is its own evil."

In this article it is written:

A religious who lived very close to St John Bosco was asked whether the Saint was ever worried in the midst of his countless works, in his sometimes tumultuous life. The religious replied in this manner: "Don Bosco never, not even a minute before, thought about what he was about to do a minute later." Don Bosco, who understood the action of grace, always sought to do the will of God in the present moment. And following this path he fulfilled his vocation.

Would I still be alive in the future to still do all those things I plan to do? No one knows.

St. Therese spirituality earlier taught me to trust blindly in Jesus' Divine Mercy.

I need to be dumb or to be atention deficit about the future stuffs which may not even happen. As David Allen taught above in the TEDx Youtube that our brain wasn't designed to hold on to more than 4 stuffs, and that we need to clear it of stuffs to make it work. Though he teaches how to do it in his books, I focused more on his insight.

Today's information age just made us very aware of these things unlike before.

But why am I still anxious--this isn't a psychological problem I think--it's a spiritual problem of needing to trust God's mercy blindly.

We've forgotten to pray this:

At dawn let me hear of your kindness, for in you I trust. Show me the path I should walk, for to you I entrust my life. Psalm 143:8

What good can you easily do here and now?

The Blessed Virgin Mary promises me that my day will become good and she will take care of my problems as long as I ask myself the whole day every now and then what good I can easily do here and now and then act on it.

I don’t know why but even the bestseller Atomic Habits is pointing on this psychological technique except that being open to God's will for the day is our Marian practice using ethics to answer the here and now question.

But boy did I started everything purely psychological and I’m still anxious.

But with a spiritual trust in God’s Divine mercy, I’m not anymore. You should thus be able to tell yourself that this is the only good thing I can easily do here and now. I don't know anything else for now. May God be merciful to me. 

Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners, now, and at the hour of our death. Amen.

*recommended reading on the word "here and now" and how our dreams and visions are in the background

Marriage is a Sacrament of Salvation

Any sacrament is sanctified, by whom.

By Jesus, included in the seven sacraments.

It is not marriage that saves.

It is Jesus, without whom marriage won't even work any more than save.

To reiterate, St. Paul told us that it is better to be married than to be aflamed with passion. The salvific effect of marriage is Pauline, not mine. Reformed sexual addicts should benefit from the vocation to marriage, sanctified by Jesus Christ.

There is a clear teaching treasured by the Catholic Church founded by Jesus Christ about marriage. Consider an old practice of polygamy where romantic love can't really bloom. Consider aborting fetuses to be practiced by those who can't afford or aren't yet prepared lovers. It is the teaching of Jesus that made marriage sacramental and thus salvific. It is transformed by Jesus into something good and then salvific.

Jesus made clear what the good of marriage consist. It does not consist of adultery for example. Concupiscense is still present of course because we aren't angels or resurrected bodies to be transformed by Christ in parousia. We have a fallen body. And lust as called forth by St. Paul above as passion can be eased by marriage, the sacrament of marriage to be specific. The union in sexual intercourse isn't just merely bodily, but a sacral act, a reenactment of the romantic love solidified and blessed when the husband and wife said yes to each other in front of God. Yes it is carnal, but is transformed by Jesus as good interpreted as that longing of God for His people in Song of songs. When it is clear that almsgiving can be used to show people how good you are, then sexual intercourse can also be. The blog I have written is for reforming sexual addicts in particular, nor for normal people, please read carefully on my Pages section Letter to My Reader. If marriage can kill concupiscence, I would have jumped to marrying as it would surely save my soul. But I have written this blog to pinpoint what practices are there traditionally named chastity by the Catholic Church that can enable the effectivity of the sacrament of marriage. For non-addicts please note carefully that these points aren't clear for us in the first place. If these points have been clear to us, we would not have been sexual addicts. If you're struggling lately against one of the deadly 7 capital or deadly sins, lust, then this blog can still benefit you too.

There are the three vocations of single blessedness, consecrated life, and marriage. Evagrius won't allow those struggling against lust to enter the consecrated life. I advice that temporary singlehood can be used by those preparing for marriage even they are struggling against lust by reading and practicing what is written here in my blog for example. But it is marriage that such strong urge to sexual union can be disciplined and then sanctified. None on this earth can. However, former sexual addicts like St. Augustine made it to consecrated life. Evagrius though adviced to first learn and discipline oneself to chastity before entering consecrated life. We have a discussion for that in my book.

St. Augustine, St. Paul, pray for us reformed sexual addicts!

ADHD and Sexual Addiction

"ADHD (attention deficit hyperactivity disorder) is a highly comorbid disorder with hypersexuality: up to 67% of individuals with hypersexuality [or sexual addiction] reported some patterns of ADHD in prior studies." (https://www.psypost.org/2019/07/study-adult-adhd-symptoms-play-important-role-in-hypersexuality-and-problematic-pornography-use-53995)

The solution for the former can be the solution for the latter as well. "Tips for Managing Adult ADHD" will tell you things sexual addicts can benefit from.

How do you know if you have mild or moderate ADHD? This ADHD Test will tell you.

How on earth did I became aware? I wasn't until now.

I was looking to up my journaling offline when the Bullet Journaling of Ryder Carroll, who has ADHD, caught my attention. Can I really have some sort of even mild ADHD since I really can't calendar and plan, I asked myself. Well, the test told me I have moderate ADHD, worse than mild.

Let me tell my short story. As a child I use to bump my front head because it's too painful or I'm too anxious (now I know I have headache caused by neurological condition). I don't know why I do that. But ADHD causes gives me clues. I have a cigarette addict father. My mother drinks. Chemical playing could've exacerbated it. Now I find myself really incapable of planning/calendaring, has low frustration tolerance, can't easily organize, etc. But what I found out earlier was that sexual addicts have damaged prefrontal cortex, disabling my setting and achieving goals or executive functioning, a condition that is affirmed by my meandering career situation. Compared to my colleagues, I really feel that there's something wrong with me. I don't mean to point this to play the blame game to excuse myself, but to capacitate myself to add the ADHD's coping mechanism to enable myself. My sexual addiction could have not evolved this far if not for an unknown neurological damage in me.

Holy Mary, health of the sick, pray for us, sinners!

Christ's Saving Effect in My Soul

Viva El Sto. Niño Jesus!

The Christmas season is almost over. Does it still matter if Christ's incarnation has still some saving effect on my poor soul as a repentant sexual addict? It seems it doesn't matter anymore.

Let's rather count how many hours are there in a day. For that 24 hour given to you, how many hours did God gave you with chastity and no struggle against it?

That's it! I should rather focus on celebrating the chaste hours of my life than wallow in pity my last relapse. And rather than always worry about recurrences and future relapses, just enjoy the present chastity God is giving us repentant sexual addicts here and now. What a gift that I have been praying for for so long but I am just not minding! It is this fruit of God's mercy in my soul that I should celebrate and be always conscious of and joyful with. What does it profit me if I gave all my riches to the poor while I still commit sexual sins! But alas, God is making me experience the fruit of His graces of chastity I don't deserve even a bit. His Great Mercy has worked, is working, and will always work in me.

Jesus, Jesus, come to us! 

Our Worries And Our Hopes

Taste and see that the Lord is good... (Psalm 34:8) I am talking about marriage, the sacrament of marriage instituted by Christ...and the battle against unchastity which Our Lady of Fatima told Jacinta that "More souls go to Hell because of sins of the flesh than for any other reason." Again, I thank the Lord that love songs still reign. Fucking out of the context of real love is meaningless, and although pleasurable, real love is way beyond it, it is real joy not just pleasurable. It is even the element that gives a happy life from the world's longest studies of adult life. Good relationships keep us happier and healthier...watch below

Unless the world really wants to be miserable as a Facebook share tells below. Some details are somewhat questionable like the incest in Germany. The incest was unintended since the siblings were separated and didn't know they're siblings until they have four children, two of whom were disabled. It could have been judged unintended against the law without any need to change the law. Policy makers around the world aren't idiots, they're just unchristian. If that is what appeals to their reason, then their reason is clouded by their sinful desires that Christ from the very beginning of his ministry has corrected. Christ's grace has empowered us to be worthy christian, worthier than Aristotle's rational animal, and the author is but right in questioning where the world is heading.
https://www.facebook.com/kitroyalhotel/posts/where-is-the-world-going1-adultery-is-allowed-in-south-africa-man-or-woman-no-lo/1503476029686049/

Where is the world going?
1-Adultery is allowed in South Africa,
Man or woman no longer has the right to repudiate
the other because of adultery
2-The United States confirmed that for all countries in the
world to build good relations with the great power, these countries must practice
homosexual marriage (woman + woman = 1 or
Man + man = 1).
3. Germany had just signed the law which declares
that there is no more incest, that is to say: Brother and
Sisters can get married, Mum with her son and
Dad with his daughter ..
4-The City of Miami is now proclaiming a City of public sex which means that on the road, church, market, football field etc if you need sex you can have it en route
without having any problem.
5-Canada allows bestiality (sex with Animals) In Spain: pornographic films are allowed in high school and universities.
6- The authorization of the prostitution of minors,
Marg Luker declares that any young girl at the age of 10 feels sexual pleasure and
no one should defend that person from discovering how her body works.
7- Finally, the US has opened the church of satanic publicly. Dear brothers and sisters, the end is near, the departure in the Glory approach.
The Lord Jesus is coming soon! MARANATHA
Christians are being distracted, and the devil wants to take maximum number of souls with him in order to stop them from divine mercy.
If you have a minute ... share this message.
Why do we sleep in church but stay awake in the bars?
Why is it so hard to talk about God but so easy to make gossip?
Why is it so easy to ignore God's msg but to send back dirty easy messages?
Will you send this message to your friends or will you ignore it? Jesus said, "If you deny me before your friends, I will deny you before my father."
God bless you. Amen!!!

 Love is heaven here below, despite the sacrifices. The Lord is indeed sweet!

O Immaculata, pray for us who have recourse to You!
"She will crush your head...You alone have destroyed all heresies in the whole world." 

Trial and Judgement of Sexual Addictions of Our Good Shepherds

Homosexual or heterosexual addiction, has no difference. Heterosexual abuse of minors, womanizing, etc., would have to be differentiated though from heterosexual attempt to establish faithful good marriage within chaste celibacy though both sinful, but is outside the scope of our present article.

Two factors exists in such trial and judgement. One is the sentence of God, the other is of man. Whether or not a repentant sexual addict is incarcerated, his chastity works should not stop until death. But guilt has to be established by human court, and justice be served. God's judgement though is different, and is based on our continuing faithfulness to our chastity works. Don't think that jail time can appease God's wrath for the innocence lost by this little ones because of the sexual offense. "It would be better for him if a millstone were put around his neck and he be thrown into the sea than for him to cause one of these little ones to sin." (Luke 17:2). But I've put the word repentant sexual addicts, to call on God's mercy rather.

Evading justice is an offender's work, sorry to say that. It could have been avoided from the beginning. We've carried Evagrius' advice, and that sexual addicts don't belong to the call of chaste celibacy, but rather to St. Paul's advice to marry than burn in hell. (This article has not the scope of discussing psychological theory to manipulate and normalize homosexual tendency to focus on opposite sex, on homosexual men's capacity to have an erection which is a promising capacity for vaginal penetration and orgasm, and then be subjugated to the fulfilling union of marriage.) To live a homosexual life as a laity has lesser offense, but to live as a laity healing one's sexual addiction is better.

Establishing one's guilt by oneself rather than by one's neighbor or by God

It's important to know every temptation assaults whether you entertained them slightly (venial sin), or thoroughly (mortal sin), or not at all (innocent). Make sure to always start today as always the day of conversion, no more to go back to your filthy ways no matter how unbelievable such act is for you at this very moment since with God all things are possible. Ask forgiveness if you sinned, repent, make amends, and start again your day of conversion. Then you can be at peace after the temptation subsides. When temptation returns back, rename the desire and behavior as abnormal, relax and rechannel one's mind to good things and name it as the normal behavior or even virtuous one, then life goes on. After the struggle, say to yourself my conscience is clean and it isn't bothering me. Thanks be to God! "How blessed are those to whom Yahweh imputes no guilt, whose spirit harbours no deceit." (Psalm 32:2) This is the height of our freedom from the chains of sexual addiction, and we can rejoice.

Pope Francis Outlines 8-Point Plan for ‘All-Out Battle’ Against Sexual Abuse

Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners!
St. Paul, St. Augustine, pray for us. 

Mental Disorder or Not, SA Leads To Brain Abnormalcy

If WHO classifies compulsive sexual behavior as a mental health disorder, APA doesn't yet, according to this article.

On our part, whether or not it is a mental health disorder, it can lead to brain abnormalcy, our mind becoming dependent on the substance/activity being abused, and our brain beginning to rely on that substance/activity to produce certain chemicals most often connected with the reward system. see https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/neuroscience/ventral-striatum  see also the link between Alcohol abuse and Porn addiction

Recent research has shown that non-drug addictions such as gambling, binge-eating, and sexual activities affect brain function in ways similar to alcohol and drug addiction. https://www.mentalhelp.net/articles/the-brains-of-porn-addicts/

All of it causing havoc on our capacity to decide and manage working memory.

Consider bodybuilding rewarding us with good looking physique if not health benefits too. Consider just checking and trying to lift that heavier weights once per week only, and then twice, and then finally 8 times rep on two sets after a year or two.

Consider in reverse then to positively imagine your twice relapse to sexual addiction per week becomes once a week, and then once a year only when you got drunk and you had a fight with your wife. The strength and muscle built we will see in such chastity capacity building is our astute or razor-sharp capacity to executively decide and achieve things we never had again after becoming a sexual addict. Start then the habit and practice answering Our Blessed Mother's question, "What good can you easily do here and now?" Then do it.

Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners! 

Did Marriage Really Cured Their Sexual Addiction?

As I've said before, the number one cure for sexual addiction is marriage, a divinely inspired cure from St. Paul.

I Thought Marriage Would Cure My Addiction {He Said} This article is telling that her wife had pain in the first year of marriage that "The lack of sex in our marriage left me vulnerable to find fulfillment elsewhere: pornography." It was the lack of satisfying sexual union that made the marriage ineffective. And it happened in the first year of marriage which is crucial.

No, Marriage is Not the Cure for Lust This article tells to practice resisting lust before marriage which is somewhat similar to my stand. But I have the same counter argument to reinterpret St. Paul's stand as correct, not because it is a Word of God, in the Bible, or anything we can believe blindly, but because it is true. The author has the double problem of sexual addiction and drug addiction. Drug addiction is worse than self-injected delusion that I was talking about. Marriage is not the answer though to drug addiction. But the twin headed addiction must first be beheaded to one only before marriage can be of help.

Then again my reminder that marriage will not cure you if you will not practice our recommendations here. Why is marriage the somewhat unconfirmed solution of atheist to their sexual addiction? Well, is there something else in common with the theist? Perhaps they don't care to report it.

Then here I am. Still being sustained by God in single blessedness, if not for this work He seems to be wanting me to still continue as an unmarried person. I am telling you to marry to cure your sexual addiction. How? Outside marriage you will find managing sexual addiction very difficult if not impossible without God's mercy and compassion. Period. You want to tread the road less traveled like I did? I tell you don't. But if you're not really addicted to sex, and you're gifted by God with the capacity for celibate loving, then go. Then why am I not living my own counsel to already marry. I tell you I have stormed heaven with my prayers for so long and so intense why God isn't still giving me a wife that the only reason God hints me with is that this chastity work I am doing is according to His will or so I think only. But this is my vocation: to tell you that managing sexual addiction outside marriage is very difficult. It is not your calling. God made me to tell you to already prepare for marriage as you do our chastity works here because there is nothing but marriage which is the number one cure for sexual addiction. Other natural techniques pales in comparison.

The two authors above are correct though that it is God who will cure us really, be it before, during, or after marriage.

So what is the point of my ranting? It is that our first interpretation of St. Paul is correct. And no you don't experiment like I did in searching for answers to sexual addiction outside marriage. What you may get is that you will loose your time and youth without finances for marriage, you don't know how to cook for your wife and children, that is why I am saying again PREPARE FOR MARRIAGE, and then marry. Hear me or suffer the consequences, choose then your path. I have delivered my message clearly.

Permitting Masturbation to the Loving Imagination of One's Beloved

Only through the motive of mercy and understanding, we permit it, to prevent xxx-rated masturbation becoming ingrained or hardened again.

But the rule still applies that if one can, let one marry and not just imagine marrying.

If not for the culture of pornography, if not for the culture that prevents real communication and encounter, I would not permit this vicious cycle coming from an artificial psychological incapacity.

The challenge is to let repentant sexual addicts become capable financially, psychologically, spiritually, socially, to bear the sweet burden of marriage as a kind of one's sharing in Christ's cross.

If there will be permission it was due to the hardness of the heart. And this is not the official teaching of the Church, so whatever the Church calls us towards, like in the living of the fullness of life, let this teaching be done away with.

Likewise it was permitted for the process of healing sexual addiction which aims towards the habituation of chastity itself in its fullness. So it was like a temporary permission only with a view towards doing away with it when the complete healing comes.

The backlash after the temporary permission is granted is that there is a fixation effect of the chaste celibate body to transition to a body already accommodating that of the married body's orientation. In effect it will still long for sexual union without the marriage which is not yet even in sight. The target is to let the body stay on the chaste singlehood equilibrium until marriage is already granted by God.

St. Augustine, pray for us!