Why is it that many people stop praying after they commit a mortal sin? I know many Catholics who seem to live in two completely divergent states, as disparate as night and day. When they are in a state of grace, they make effort, they pray, they do penance, they act piously. Then they fall into some grave sin, at which point they just give up everything—they stop making effort, stop praying, neglect all their penances, and sink into acedia. Then they just...slump along like this for a while until they feel so bad, so depressed, so down in the dumps that they finally rouse themselves, go to confession, and start living a regular Catholic life again.
This is incredibly stupid and very pathetic behavior. It's as if such persons find value in the spiritual life only insofar as they can feel happy about their progress. If they stumble, they become unhappy, and if they become unhappy, they cross their arms like a petulant child and say "Why bother?" and just check out.
This is unfortunate. Prayer should not be something that can be so easily diminished because we screwed up. There are some things in life we just do regardless. We breathe no matter what our circumstances. We eat regardless of whether we are happy with our lives or not. We get up in the morning, take a piss, put our clothes on, and go about our business. Prayer should be as routine as this. "Pray without ceasing" means we cry out to God continually, regardless of whether we are on the straight and narrow or have fallen off course.
If your instinct when you sin is to start scrupulizing about whether prayers said when you are not in grace are pleasing to God, whether they are efficacious, and so on, your mind is in the wrong place entirely. I can't pretend to know exactly how God evaluates everyone's prayers, but I guarantee you are better praying than not praying—and that is true in every circumstance. Stop thinking about the context or circumstance or quality or purity of your prayers and JUST PRAY. Not too long ago I wrote about consistency in prayer:
Imagine if you stopped thinking about how you felt during prayer...just stopped thinking about all that nonsense and just prayed. What if you clung to prayer like a man adrift on the sea clinging to a piece of driftwood, not caring how rugged the wood is, or how ugly, or how sore your arms from hanging on, or whither you were going, or any other consideration, for so long as you cling to it, you live, and living is the goal. Treat praying itself as the goal. When you pray, you have arrived at your destination already. ("Prayer—Consistency Matters More Than Method," USC, July 26, 2026)
God humiliates us in our falls, because in humiliation, we become humble. Always guard against the voice that says "How could I?" How could I? What am I? Nothing but sin.
ReplyDeleteEver since COVID came in and ruined everything, I've been in a pretty terrible state spiritually. Between being eaten up by scrupulosity every time I try to examine my conscience and being terrified of ever receiving the Host in mortal sin again - a very frequent occurrence in the immediate years after my conversion because it was never impressed on me just how grave a sin that was or even that withholding sins in Confession invalidates the Confession - I've only confessed once in a blue moon over the past six years and I've practically given up on receiving the Eucharist. But by the grace of God, one thing I've never given up on is maintaining my daily prayers. I frequently fall short of what I'd like to do, but I don't think a single day has gone by that I haven't offered at least one Hail Mary when an emergency vehicle goes by or called on St. Michael to help me when I'm scared or made an honest effort to offer up five decades of the Rosary, a Divine Mercy Chaplet, etc. Obviously, my current state of soul is not something to be okay with and I pray every day for the grace to fix it sooner rather than later, but it brings me great comfort knowing that I haven't been abandoned (after all, if not for the promptings of grace, how would I keep praying?).
ReplyDeleteEven if one day you should stop praying, God forbid, you haven't been abandoned. It's a theological fact that none of us know whether we're in a state of grace. We go to Confesssion and we trust to the love of our Lord.
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