Catechism

As I mentioned in my last post, I can add one more reason as to why black and purple are my favorite colors. As a lifelong Roman Catholic, I see these colors as signs of penance, and penance is something I practice practically everyday because I accept that I am a sinner. In fact, I’ve spent most of my life feeling like a sinner. Yes, I know that the Church teaches that we are all sinners, but in my case I feel especially sinful because of my lifelong struggle with sexual sin.

My first encounter with this sin occurred quite accidentally. As a child and as an adolescent, I had certain chores assigned to me while others were assigned to my younger sister. One of my chores was to put away the laundry after it had been washed, dried and folded. One day as I put my father's socks in the top drawer of his chest of drawers, I found his stash of adult magazines. I made a similar discovery in my mother's underwear drawer. And then on another occasion, I found the books The Joy of Sex and More Joy of Sex in their closet while hanging up my father's shirts.

In my childhood home, my parents didn't talk about sex. In fact, when my sister, who is two years younger than me, came home early from school after soiling herself with her first period, my mother handed her a pamplet which discussed menstrual cycles and walked away from her. End of conversation. Hence, these magazines and books became a gateway for me into learning what I could about this secretive subject as I sneaked them out of my parents' room when I was home alone. Since both of my parents worked and my sister frequently went from school to her best friends' house on the other side of the block we lived on, I was quite frequently alone. And in that solitude I discovered masturbation.

The first time I ejaculated I thought I had hurt myself, that this was pus coming out of me. I considered calling my mother to tell her what had happened and ask her to come home to take me to the doctor, but then I realized that she might ask certain questions and then I would need to divulge that I had been looking at the magazines and books I had secreted from their hiding places. My bathroom was across the hall from my room, so I dashed over to it, wet a washcloth, wiped myself off, then wiped up what had fallen on the bed. And since I was now doing my own laundry, I quickly undressed, put the clothes I had soiled in the washer with detergent, then went back to my room and put on another set of school clothes, and thought up a lie: I was having a glass of Kool-Aid with my after school snack, and I spilled it on my clothes, so I put them in the wash right away to keep them from being stained. I then put the books and magazines away and started on my homework, still dreading that I had caused myself terrible harm and might have to go to the hospital that night.

But to my surprise and relief, I woke up in the morning just fine. And when I came home from school that afternoon, I went to the bookshelves in the living room, pulled out the appropriate volume of the Encyclopdia Americana, and looked up "penis." In the detailed article, which included a line drawing of a cross-section of a penis, a drawing I studied intently, I learned about erections and ejaculations and semen. I was relieved to learn that I hadn't hurt myself, that I had masturbated, and that semen, not pus, had come out of me. I put the volume back on the shelf, went back to my room, disrobed, and did it again. And this time I noticed how good it felt.

Masturbation became a part of my daily routine. I would come home from school, go to my room, undress, and pleasure myself, sometimes more than once, before cleaning myself up and starting on homework. And many times I borrowed a book or a magazine and fantasized while touching myself.

And so it went until high school when one Sunday evening the high school religious ed teacher gave us a talk on human sexuality, and I learned that anything sexual done outside of marriage was a mortal sin.

I didn't want to be in danger of Hell, so I swore off masturbation. But within a few days, I was at it again. And again. I had also learned that pornography was a sin, but the urge to look at pictures was too strong, especially since my parents purchased new magazines every month, and I felt a compulsion to study the bodies of these nude men and women while pleasuring myelf.

As much as I enjoyed what I was doing to myself, I started to feel horrible afterward. I had committed a mortal sin, and if I died in my sleep or got into an accident on the way to school, I would go to Hell, and so I prayed that I wouldn't die before I had the opportunity to go to Confession on Saturday afternoon.

This sentiment followed me from high school to seminary. But in seminary I learned both in a theology class and in a human biology class that masturbation is normal, that the desire to bring one's self to orgasm is acceptable behavior for adolescents and young adults who are not married. In fact, during Confession a priest said to me, "Phil, if everyone was as scrupulous about masturbation as you are, only three people [among my fellow seminarians] would get up to receive Communion at Mass--and it would be a different three at each Mass!"

And so I relaxed and stopped considering myelf a terrible sinner. Until the day I was lying nude in my dormitory bed with the door shut pleasuring myself. I thought the window into my room was fully covered, but some of the covering had given away just enough for a crowd of my classmates to pass by and notice what I was doing in the privacy of my room. I felt immediate shame as talk of what I was doing passed through the crowdout in the hall. I covered myself with a sheet and waited until the crowd had departed to get out of bed and get dressed. Fortunately, no one mentioned it to me directly, but at dinner in the dining hall that evening I heard someone talking quietly at another table about masturbation, and I assumed they were referring to me.

For reasons not at all associated with sexual sin, I was asked to leave the seminary. I temporarily moved back in with my parents as I applied to a nearby university for admission and, once accepted, rented an inexpensive apartment near the campus. This apartment was near a 7-11 during the time the chain sold adult magazines, so it was not uncommon for me to stop by on the way home from school or work to purchase a couple of magazines, then go home and masturbate to them, sometimes so loudly that my next-door neighbor ridiculed me by standing outside my door imitating the sounds I made as I reached orgasm.

As for sex itself, many opportunities presented themselves from both men and women, but I turned them down, afraid of going to Hell for engaging in premarital intercourse. Then one evening a young woman forced herself on me by leading me to believe that if we didn't have sex, she would end our relationship. I didn't want to lose this person, whom I cared for dearly, so I acquiesced and then cried on the way home for fear of my immortal soul.

She ended the relationship anyway, but by then I had been transformed. I was now a predator, and every young woman I dated I tried to get into bed with me, succeeding a few times and not most of the time. I even tried to get the woman I would eventually marry into bed, and after several months she gave in, and it was painful for her and difficult for me. I apologized and waited almost a year until she was truly ready to be sexual, and our time together became more gentle and pleasant.

As I alluded, we did marry, and I thought my days of sexual sin were behind me. But it became apparent that her libido was not as strong as mine, and when we got our first computer, I couldn't wait to go online to watch pornography and masturbate whenever she wasn't home. I always cleared the history, but the guilt tore at me as I felt unfaithful to my beloved.

Then one day in my forties when I was watching some porn online, but I wasn't feeling anything. I wondered why, and as I explored my feelings, I realized how futile this exercise had become. After all, I reasoned, I would become horny, twist one off, and then feel miserable about myself afterward, so I closed the internet browser and stopped looking at porn. Just like that.

That wasn't the end of my sexual sins, but that's enough for now. But as the frequency of my committing sexual sins has decreased, I've felt better about myself and more loved by my God. Not that I thought that God had ever forsaken me while I was deep into sexual sin, but the walls I had been erecting about my soul started to crumble,and as they fell away, I felt his love enter me more fully.

But I still see a need to do penance for the sins I have committed and continue to commit, which is why I make the effort to go to Confession at least once a month and why I embrace purple and black as signs of a penitential heart.