Scrupulosity in Anxious Times

Dominican Father Patrick Hyde (Twitter: @frpatrickop) recently tweeted:

For those desiring the Sacrament of Confession: Perfect contrition, flowing from love of God, expressed by a sincere request for forgiveness (like praying the act of contrition) & with the intention to go to sacramental confession as soon as possible, obtains forgiveness of sins.
“Upon the Sacrament being made available to you again, you should get to Confession as soon as possible and confess these sins. But, in this time of crisis and chaos, God’s mercy remains readily available. 

Father Hyde meant, and did, very well here. The drama of life, however, includes human anxiety, suspiciousness,  implications and inferences everywhere.

Cue the genuine concern of, or on behalf of, the scrupulous person, who questions whether his or her contrition is ever perfect.

Scrupulosity is Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder directed toward moral matters. It is fueled by anxiety, which I term “the allergies of mental illness” (along the same lines that depression is its common cold).

It’s fair enough to say that there is a truth to be known and a goodness to be done. But with scrupulosity, the feverish drive for exactness is operative. ”Did I just sin here? Did I confess this sin properly? Did I perform my penance precisely as given?” 

The fear of eternal damnation registers highly, as well as the oppressive sense of quotidian sinfulness that prior generations termed “Catholic guilt” and used sometimes as a red herring to justify their abandonment of the Catholic faith. 

Detractors suggest that their teachers, especially women religious, were encouraging scrupulosity—not intentionally, I’d hope. I trust they wanted their charges to be faithful Catholics and no more/less; why wouldn’t they? But be an impressionable child, be a hormonally-laden teenager, and your impression might be otherwise.

(Be a wounded and sinful adult, and the impression you give might be corrupt. I’d be foolish to exclude that likelihood in many cases; hence our current scandals.)

Faithful Catholicism, faithful discipleship, includes detesting sin and seeking virtue. Lacking the tools and relationship to cultivate the latter in many cases, it becomes easier to foster the former and hope for the best.

Somewhere in my diagnostic history I was told I had a mild OCD along with a mild to moderate depression. I think that still is the case. I have an addictive personality, by which I mean not that people easily become addicted to me, but I to whatever item, practice or person interests me. Since those earlier assessments I think I’ve qualified for ADHD. I don’t want to levy these terms indiscriminately.

To return to the original Tweetroversy (it wasn’t really an argument, thank God, it was more of a dialogue, though the original poster—wisely?—added nothing further; maybe he muted the conversation):

When someone mentioned the scrupulous person’s doubts regarding “perfection” in contrition, I returned to Father Hyde’s tweet: the act of perfect contrition “flow[s] from love of God.” The traditional Act of Contrition speaks to God as “All-Good, and deserving of all my love.” 

It does not, incidentally, affirm the praying person’s love for God, only God’s worthiness of it and my offense of God by sin. Love has its own “Act” prayer, worth investigating and offering.

After reading this conversation, I entered the Divine Conversation of the Liturgy, where I heard Jesus’ scathing rebuke of those Jews opposed to Him (typically referred to as “the Jews”). It included, “...I know that you do not have the love of God in you” (Jn 5:42). If that doesn’t turn one into a pillar of salt, what would?

Elsewhere Saint John declared, “Perfect love casts out all fear” (1 Jn 4:18). That takes us back to *perfect* contrition, and for that matter, the dominical command to be “perfect as your Heavenly Father is perfect” (Mt 5:48). Here perfect is not “flawless,” but rather “as intended, following form and intention” (Gk teleios).

The scrupulous person can affirm, even if shakingly and wobblily as human lovers do, that he or she loves God. “Well, I fear God more than I love Him,” one might retort. 

Pare it down: Do you love Him at all? Do you want to be His friend and not His slave (cf. Jn 15:15)? Do you love Him more than “these,” as Jesus asks Peter, where “these” usually is thought of as the apostles gathered with them both, but we can extrapolate it into earthly relationships and attachments. 

Do you love Me more than the thrill of alcohol, lust, drugs, gambling, acquiring and spending, oversatiety, trying to control others, you name it (and claim it!)

—The addict, deep down, especially the “recovering” one (the one wanting to change and grow), may say, “I love You, Lord; help me love You more than *these*!”

—The scrupulous, deep down, may say, “I love You, Lord; help me love You more than I fear the effects of turning away from You, or the uncertainties I have about my distance from You or Your love for me.”

If you can say you love God, that is, as one poster acknowledged, “a concrete first step.”

Maybe the first first step is as the addicts in recovery might frame it for the scrupulous: “I am powerless over my thoughts and feelings concerning sin and perfection; my life is unmanageable.” The second step: “I came to believe that a Power greater than myself could restore me to sanity.”

Then: I made a decision to turn my will and my life [thoughts and actions] over to the care of God as I understood Him.” Trust motivates that turning-over (surrender) of will and life. Trust is a ray from the sun of love.

* * *

Another tweeter returned the conversation in the direction intended by the OP (get it? Original Poster/Ordo Praedicatorum? I’ll show myself out, but not before finishing this thought):

Viz: The reaffirmation of the forgiveness God gives in response to the Act of Perfect Contrition (sorry because I love God, Whom my sins offend), coupled with the intention to confess appropriately at the first available opportunity.

These anxious times have everyone by the tissues, not just the diagnosed. Anxious because many parishes now offer Confession even less than they had before COVID-19. Anxious because here is a life-threat that discriminates not. Faithful and seasonal Catholics won’t likely participate in Easter Mass because this virus shows no signs of abatement, neither will the in-place restrictions (at least I hope not, @RealDonald...)

“I may not get to make my Easter Duty [Communion at least once from the start of Lent to Trinity Sunday, and Confession of serious sins before Easter if possible]!” If it doesn’t happen because of the in-place restrictions and the limits of local pastoral offering, it’s not your fault that you didn’t make it unless you never intended to. And even there, if God spares, there’s still a chance to go, and at least this priest happily would facilitate that.

* * *

Obiter dictum: I am not a mental health practitioner or theoretician. I do not possess a  degree in Moral Theology. I am a parish priest working with the best available knowledge that I have accessed. I dare not give specific advice online regarding “internal forum” (confessional-worthy or confessed) matters. Please refer to your regular/local for such.

For more information and support (again, not as a substitute for one’s Confessor and Spiritual Director, as it will insist): https://scrupulousanonymous.org/

Pursuing Perfect Love

I came across this post recently from a site called The Chastity Project. I appreciated its message with regard to the use of novenas as a tool to discern one's vocation, or to obtain any particular definite answer. The greater concern is the human insecurity (fear) that underlies much of our prayer. Insecure people pray not to seek God's will for their lives but rather to dictate that will, to "control and enjoy" God much as alcoholics desire to "control and enjoy" their drinking.

Karl Marx was known to call religion "the opiate of the people." (I am surely quoting it out of context, but that makes me no different from many people.) The situations in which we find ourselves, and our insecurities about them, often admit of no easy--and sometimes no possible-- solution.

BUT!!! "Nothing is impossible for God" (Lk 1:37), right? "If you ask anything of me in my name, I will do it" (Jn 14:14), right? Then there's the Catechism, which quotes Tertullian: "Prayer is the only thing that can conquer God"!

Whence people of faith are known to turn to prayer, justifiably, to allay their fears and foster the sense that everything will be all right. Going all the way back to the pre-Pentecost days, followers of Christ have engaged in novenas--nine days of storming the heavens with their intentions. Disciples pray, and they enjoin others to pray for them. But with what motives? "If God sees that I'm serious about this matter, He'll have to grant it!" Now I don't believe that every praying person thinks so, but some must. The felt need to prove ourselves to God may be a subtle, even unconscious attitude, but it's there. And it's born of fear, betraying a lack of that "perfect love" that, to be honest, I haven't found in a great many people. (Should I just start keeping better company?)

The most egregious examples of the temptation to seek control of God include the consultation of mediums, interpretation of omens, etc. (cf. CCC 2110-2117). Conducted with full understanding and consent, these acts constitute grave sin. Manipulative intentions in prayer may well qualify as a venial sin, at best, but are nonetheless to be avoided.

Take the example covered by the Everts: Unmarried adults sometimes feel pressure from their parents or peers, or often from themselves, that "I should be married by now," or (if already paired, especially if cohabitating) "We should just get married." It can become a decision made out of fear/insecurity and not in the highest possible freedom of spirit. If this can happen with respect to such great decisions as marriage, how much more so with lesser concerns?

If there is any assurance to be gleaned therefrom, recall that there is a degree of insecurity in all of us. We seek the Lord's help to root out every deficiency that He reveals to us this side of the grave. And we continue to pray, both "directly" to the Lord and "indirectly" to the saints; these latter being fellow human beings who dealt successfully (i.e., faithfully) with their own "ill sets." We also seek help from trusted (living) human sources; and this without shame or worry, for those living sources need someone to extract them from their sinful attachments, lethargy, and neurosis, too!

A Steady Paycheck

I watched Ghostbusters when it first ran in the theater. It was among the earliest films I remember attending, which fact hints at my age. The character and lines of Winston Zeddemore didn't particularly stand out, until a TV show or something reminded me of this credo: "I'll believe in anything if there's a steady paycheck in it." As it turns out, that's not quite what he said. Nay rather, as Wikipedia tells:

Questioned extensively during his application by Janine Melnitz as to whether he believed in a large number of supernatural occurrences and beings (such as UFOs, the Loch Ness Monster and the theory of Atlantis among others), Zeddemore replied, "If there's a steady paycheck in it, I'll believe anything you say."

Macht nichts; it stands nonetheless, for me, as an axiom of our time. I have variously applied it in recent years. Tonight it came to me after glancing at a piece of paper and seeing a surname that triggered the memory of two other persons of that surname (likely unrelated to the person on the paper) who entered the Church years before.

The Big Deal: Not very long after their initiation, they stopped attending Mass. Despite a handful of earnest, welcoming encounters (I hope they were!), and about as many faint expressions of interest in further conversation and promises to return to Mass, nothing materialized. (Now watch they come back, to confound me! I'll take it.)

The sight of the names and subsequent rumination stirred a bushel of assorted fruits: anger, fear, and sadness. These are a kind of unholy trinity: always present and active together, though in the moment of revelation we tend to notice only one of them.

Anger: Often the first and loudest in the trinity. It often takes the form of rash judgments and sarcastic suspicions. An example: "People join so that they don't have to pay a non-Catholic tuition rate (a "steady paycheck" of sorts)!" "He came in just to get a sponsorship letter for his niece's Confirmation." "We have a pretty church with a long aisle, great musicians and great parking (all true), and we won't see them again until the baptism of their first child."

Fear: It lurks underneath, and for me it's a close second to, anger. "What am I doing wrong?" "The system has to be fouled up! How can we possibly remediate it and retain these people?" "How much longer can the Church, or our parish, last like this?"

Scratch the surface and find the seeds of those fruits (including but not at all limited to): high expectations; low estimation of/belief in human nature; weak organization, preparation, and follow-up in the RCIA process.

Sometimes anger can be righteous, but I can't lay much legitimate claim to that. It gets really dangerous whenever somebody like me tries to back up my peeves with Divine Sanctioning!  Sometimes my fears are well-founded, or at least they hold some truth. I am not the best organizer of things and persons. It takes a parish to raise a convert (not to mention the "wealth of nations" that we call the Communion of Saints)!

Sadness: The unholy spirit at the heart of it all. Discouragement is spiritual cancer (of the heart--cor).  One synonym is "disillusionment." Put that way, it's not so bad: after all, what's so good about illusions? Face it: people use the Church. In a sense, she puts herself out there to be used. It's an occupational hazard, when your occupation is the steady paycheck of Unconditional Love.

It's sad that venal incentives could possibly, in anyone's case, prompt them to enter the Catholic Church or to seek our "services."

Since Churches have started to look like superstores, have people been starting to use them so? Has the Parish Office become a Customer Service desk, as if "the Parishioner is always right," Divine or Canon Law be damned?

It is sad that many people are not so "entranced by the beauty before [them]" as to keep coming to Mass and draw ever nearer to the Audible and Tangible Lord who reveals Himself therein. It is sad that the beauty of Catholic doctrine, liturgy, morality, and prayer can be obscured by...priests, parishioners, trite music, McChurches, and other representatives of our holy faith.

God's Love is indeed unconditional, but somehow that truth is balanced against the conditions of law and the just consequences of bad choices. It is sad that people get themselves in complicated situations as a result of the abuse of their freedom.

But shall I say that it is sad that God trusts people so much as to reveal His wisdom, power, and love through feeble signs, to feeble senses? I cannot and dare not, for that trust is itself a manifestation of divine Love. "I would let you reject Me, for otherwise you could never love Me."

Your Will is Yours

I know we're currently in the liturgical season of Ordinary Time, but let me make a plug for my favorite Stations of the Cross: Everyone's Way of the Cross (1970) by Fr. Clarence Enzler. We often used it in my home parish.

The old cover...not even the oldest!

Originally it was called "Everyman's Way of the Cross." A more enlightened era solved that problem! To be honest, I hadn't realized the changes until I discovered an older copy. Kinda like archaeology, ain't?

Say what you will about 70s holdovers: I still like EWOTC because of its spirituality. The author's premise is that everyone is Christ's "other self," and therefore ought to act accordingly not only in grand trials, but also--especially--in life's ordinary moments.

This approach applies to every baptized person's identification with Christ as priest, prophet, and king. Every priest shares in that identity in a particular way, as expressed in that awesome moniker, alter Christus. An awesome responsibility not just for priests, but for all the baptized. Whether Enzler was trying to downplay sacerdotal uniqueness or elevate baptismal dignity, one may never know. (I would favor the latter, which in fact does not accomplish the former.)

Persons who pray the Liturgy of the Hours frequently read the Psalms; as a result, and through the Holy Spirit, a phrase from a psalm or canticle often comes to mind at appropriate times. Lines from EWOTC also occur to me in this fashion.

During a recent conversation, I thought of this one from the ninth station (I had to look it up, as I couldn't recall its precise origin):

"No force on earth and none in hell can take away your will. Your will is yours."

This came to mind because I was talking to someone who was feeling trapped by family difficulties. It's easy to allow other people, even our own family members, to impinge upon our freedom. "S/he demands too much!" But how much, and what sort of allowance, do you give him/her? Before long, if you want to be well, you have to look closely and honestly at your own responsibility in the matter, accept what you can change, be willing and courageous to change what you can, and seek the wisdom to discern the difference. Does s/he, or anyone else, make you feel this way or that? One may retort, "Well, you can't choose to feel, can you?" Perhaps not, but you can choose what feelings to entertain. You can weigh them against the truth, even when the truth doesn't seem as clear as you'd prefer it to be. And what sort of factors muddle the truth, anyhow? Fear tops the list; and you are free to add your own.

Human beings are going to experience fears. When Jesus says, "Fear is useless, what is needed is trust" (Mk 5:36), we might feel further disappointment in ourselves for fearing someone or something. "Aw, that's not what disciples do!" Well, run that assertion by the Apostles to whom Jesus felt it necessary to say that.

Trust--faith--is needed; but trust is more than feeling that "everything's gonna work itself out." That's an important dimension, but it doesn't present the complete picture. Faith involves action. When we begin to experience fear, we need to get in the habit of asking God as soon as possible what the proper response is, whether it take the form of words, actions, or (usually the case) some combination of these.

The devil can toy with our imagination and our memory, but he can't toy with our intellect and our will. It's not easy to pause and consider the distinction between these human faculties in real time, in the midst of a challenging situation. Spiritual companionship helps: it helps to have on hand someone who can help you to seek consoling yet challenging clarification. And it helps us to seek that clarification explicitly, open to whatever he or she may offer. In the event that such a friend is not readily available, remember that God is! If at times it sounds to us like we're complaining, we can be grateful that some listeners (human and divine) are willing to listen to us; but beware that some of them may ask us what we're willing to do for a change. Who'd blame them for it?

Eventually we are once again reminded of our deepest freedom, where God is present, whereby we can make it through another day.

+ + + + +

Now this day is U.S. Independence Day. At this national moment there are voices announcing threats to religious freedom in our country, with proposed mandates for contraceptive and abortifacient coverage in health insurance. This is supposed to be of particular concern to Catholics, who have steadfastly held the immorality of artificial contraception.  But this ought to be of particular concern to all Americans, who would not be forced by any human power to violate fundamental freedoms.

Will we allow this to happen--specifically, will we allow this coverage to become mandatory? Will it result in more restrictions on the basic liberties of Americans? Will enough people care? It may depend on what freedoms seem to be restricted at the time. What's one more?
People might be willing to endure certain restrictions if they don't feel the undesirable effects of those restrictions. If they do feel undesirable effects, they will have to summon the motivation to make the necessary changes and consider their options. But nothing will happen until the discomfort level is high enough. People will complain, but their current options will seem rather limited, so that's as far as it will go.

"They demand too much!"