John, Do two things:

1. Pray to the Blessed Mother. She is an unfailing source of purity.
   
   
2. Immerse yourself in Scripture.

You can go to the St. Joseph Covenant Keepers web site and find their pornography resources. As for your addiction to masturbation and porn, God, and the Church, understand how your freedom is impaired by addiction, but you must treat it as a recovering alcoholic treats alcohol — don't touch it. Go to Confession when you fail, so that you can get the added spiritual healing and grace that it brings.

As for the specific porn, be aware that you are being desensitized and you stand the risk of ruining your chances for a happy marriage and fatherhood. You risk ruining your relationships with children, and becoming involved in acts that are heinous and terribly destructive to children. You are also feeding a huge and evil industry. Of course, you are on the road to risking your soul if you do not change.

As for your friend, he will be saved if he followed the light God gave him. Without the Catholic Church, there would be no grace for anyone, but because of the presence of the Body of Christ in the world, even non-members can be saved, if they are truly following the light of conscience (which would have eventually brought them to knowledge of the faith). As for you, yes, pornography and masturbation are grave evils. Their guilt can be mitigated by compulsion, neurosis and addiction, but if you do not fight it, you are gravely culpable. It is not a sin to see something. It is a sin to look at porn with the intent of gratifying your lust. If you look at it briefly and put it away in a fight against the temptation, then you have avoided grave sin, probably, but you really must destroy all sources of such things in your life.

Mary Ann

Hi John,

On the second part of your question.

Beside what my colleague Mary Ann has said, I would try to get to daily Mass if possible.
Every day, I go to Mass in a state of grace and receive the Blessed Sacrament, I leave the church thanking the Lord for giving me the opportunity to "beat THE HECK out of Satan".

Try to also set aside 15 minutes in the morning to say a 5-decade Rosary.
As Fr. John Corapi has said, "It [his rosary] is his M-16, in spiritual combat."

This is what Our Blessed Mother said to St. Dominic when he handed him the Rosary:

"Dear Dominic, do you know which weapon the Blessed Trinity wants to use to reform the world?"

"Oh, my Lady," answered Saint Dominic, "you know far better than I do, because next to your Son Jesus Christ you have always been the chief instrument of our salvation."

Then Our Lady replied, "I want you to know that, in this kind of warfare, the principal weapon has always been the Angelic Psalter, which is the foundation-stone of the New Testament. Therefore, if you want to reach these hardened souls and win them over to God, preach my Psalter."

The Angelic Psalter, Our Blessed Mother is referring to is the Rosary.

My advice: Treat it like the American Express card: Don't leave home without it : )

BUT: Treat it the way the Church wants to you treat it, as a holy sacramental, not a superstitious charm or rabbit's foot. Catholic's don't believe in "good luck"; we believe in Divine Providence, or should.

On Concupiscence.

Due to the remnants of original sin on EVERYONES soul, we will always struggle with this. The key, like my colleague Mary Ann said, is staying close to the sacrament of Confession, but remember, in order for a good Confession, the penitent has to have a firm purpose of amendment.  For some, this can be very hard, but as long as you are sincerely trying:

• getting rid of the browser bookmarks
• any books, magazines, VHS tapes, videos, DVDs
• etc.

Don't worry. Just get up, go to Confession and then go to Mass or say the Rosary.

The Sacraments and prayer are the way WE beat the HECK out of Satan after he has beaten the HECK out of us.

I would also personally recommend being enrolled: [ front | back ] and wearing a Brown Scapular. Have a priest or your pastor bless it.

Mike