In Reply to: Re: of course... part 1 posted by Recovering Catholic on October 06, 2006 at 22:46:56:
"So you made this very personal act of penance, and you felt more burdened by the self-offering than freed of self and reborn? Is that sort of what you're talking about? "
Yes, exactly. See untill i met the family at 17 and heard about simply asking Jesus into your heart... I was convinced that the priest was the magic ingredient to being forgiven. So i figured (then) that the ernest praying i had done to God was at best second rate, at worst a shoddy deception. That may have held some of the appeal of the family, is how it freed me from that guilt.
"God, I know what it's like to carry around a guilty secret as a child. What of innocence? Is that why you see your act of penance as the purist thing you've ever done? "
Yes... its hard to explain why, i'm just going on the feeling of vulnerability i attach with it and carried with it, the complete ernestness i had... and how i thought up on my own to go directly to god, even tho it had been taught to me that you went through the priest. Individual praying was saying the 'hail mary' and the 'our father', saying it more if you've been bad... never of talking to god like he understood plain language and human emotion, no, he was just up there waiting for your repetitudes.