I am a Christian who unfortunately would be considered by many as from a different denomination to this man (I don't do tribes), and this guy hits the nail directly on the head regarding the subject topic. What an awesome interview. Very helpful indeed. May God bless you Mr Santa, you are epic and such a blessing.
I've had OCD for 13 years, eventually turning into scrupulosity. I've had the classic "tap something with right hand, then left hand, so many times in sequence". To feeling the need to compulsively pick up sticks while walking for no reason. After a while, your logic kicks in, there is no reason to pick up sticks, and you conquer that. Then scrupulosity comes in. I was Catholic, now agnostic (I still believe in God, and believe in the possibility of hell), so my mind has the teachings of Catholicism coupled with purely logical thinking. One of the first obsessions was thinking negative things about God. If you have just a slight slip up and think you're truly thinking it for a second(not the OCD, you), you believe you're going to hell. Over time you build a "tolerance" to that, you may think you'll go to hell but the duration between that and when logic kicks in becomes less over time. The other side of the coin is your brain obsesses over it again and again and you wonder if the cumulative thoughts make you a bad person. You actually become mad at God because you wonder why he would allow this to happen to you. Then as soon as you get somewhat of a handle on one aspect, your brain finds another new thing to be scrupulous about. And you have to rebuild your toolset again, and again, and again. And after 13 years I still have classic OCD, repeatedly checking things, etc., but the ratio between that and scrupulosity is much lower. If I don't tap a certain sequence or gulp a certain number of times while drinking water, I'm not a bad person (unless at the time you think not doing a certain mundane action means you are intentionally being negative towards God), whereas lying to someone with the intent to lie is much more serious. The lying isn't scrupulosity, the thought process afterwards is. It required forethought, therefore it was a conscious decision. If that is the case, am I an evil person? If there is even a 1% chance that is true, am I going to hell? Because hell isn't a thousand, a million, a billion, or a trillion years, it is forever. The worst pain imaginable coupled with knowing you could've lived your life to a higher standard, and hurt less people. The problem is, the standard can always go higher. Never tell a lie? Doesn't matter, you had a sexual thought of someone other than your wife but you stopped it. That's forgivable? Okay, now your brain obsesses over it again and again (can be every 20-30 seconds on average for months). Uh oh, you had the thought and didn't stop it for a couple of seconds, then a thousand more episodes, it squeaked out a few seconds! You would say "just stop thinking about it". To that I would say, if my brain is primarily logical, and it has reason to believe there is a possibility of hell, and it could be eternal, it's worth suffering my entire life for a slightly increased chance of not going there trying to do the right thing obsessively than to think "God will forgive me for these thoughts, I just need to concern myself with actual sins" and then realizing some of those thoughts could have been avoided, therefore I'm a bad person and going to hell. You could say to go to confession. I'm not a Catholic anymore. But even if I was and did go, where is the line where God finally says "Yes, you went to confession, you felt sorry for your sins, but you commited X number of actions of Y severity intentionally and didn't try hard enough to rectify your behavior." I see so many Christians in general that state they believe in the religion yet don't practice it, but they believe they will be saved even though they do not follow the teachings that specifically state to follow the teachings! If Chrisitanity is true, it seems logical that most on Earth are going to hell. I don't think God would create beings that would disproportionately suffer eternally due to not following specific teachings, or the religion at all. But, I believe God exists and he allowed religions to propagate, knowing full well the nature of our psyche and its ability to construe things in specific ways. So...there is a possibility(unknown true percentage) of eternal hell, infinity, contrasted to 100 years on Earth, which if lived correctly and you are genuinely a good person, you go to Heaven for eternity. You can't make that into a fraction or percentage. You could worry about it until the suffering on Earth comes close to hell, and why would it matter if it made you cautious enough to gain a 1% increased chance of going to Heaven? Who wouldn't be paranoid? Eventually though, your brain takes a break from thinking like that or you go batshit insane. But it's always at the back of your head, or that you could just be a bad/evil person in general and you hate yourself for thinking a certain way. And it ebbs and flows in various ways not even in a cycle, just random patterns year after year. Conquering one aspect by 50%, losing another by 20%, then losing 40% of the first. I hope this provides someone with insight into what I would consider to be "severe" scrupulosity. If this would be constant in life (it isn't, I can still be happy much of the time) and hell would still exceed it in suffering, I see no logic in why God would create a being that has a free will and has even a remote chance of condemning itself to eternal suffering of this or any degree. That seems truly evil to me. But God could make Earth itself alot worse, so God must be good or at least neutral. Honestly, I have no clue.
Sherman T. Potter thats why you should buy fr santa book or follow hom on scrupulous anonymus, his counsel are really great. You also have to find a priest or someone else who must be well verse in both tradition and scrupulous mind. Trust me im like you and i still have those bad tought and fear of comiting sin, i dont know if it will ever disapear, but that's the thing with God, he ask us a lot of thing , but he do not judge someone who truly want to please him and is grace is not easyly dislodged, if ever. If thats true for a murderer, its true for you. Like jesus said to man its impossible, but for God everything is possible, and where sin abond, grace abond even more. He will do whatever it take and if you turned to him he will not forsaken you. if you are scare and disgust by something it mean you dont want it, so you dont want those thought and arent yours, other answer will come later since right now you need to learn to trust God, by with patience and humility, both virtue God will offer you in time, understanding will come. Say God i believe, give me faith and forgive me a sinner and trust him, if you fall do it again and again, also go see a priest and tell him you have a scrupulous mind ask him to give you time and help, if he dont want to leave him and find another one knowing God know your weakness but even more your will to please him.
Michael, hang in there! I am going through this as well. I'll keep you in my prayers! Pray and trust that Christ loves you and wants to grant you pardon and peace.
@@anthonysalvatore468Thank you. I'm a lot better than I was then. I've still got it, but the fear has down, but still scared of confession, and the Eucharist. Cbt helped, saints and scruples the book, and father Santa's book. The blessed mother really has helped. How are you getting through it?
I'm gonna that trying to pray all four Rosaries everyday is likely bad idea for the scrupulous as it may cause more anxiety and pain. It can be very frustrating and worrisome to try to pray long formulated prayers and often lead to repetition and not making any progress
I was deeply saddened by his book on scrupulosity. It was really just contrary to the beliefs of the Church. I mean really negative. Though, what he said in the interview was maybe okay, please don’t buy his book. I really advise against it.
Arttu Sjöblom Well, it was something like horoscopes were okay, essentially and that as long as you have a good intent. And there was something else but we didn’t get far into the book so there might be more. I’ll let you know when once I figure out/remember. But here is the teaching horoscopes directly from the Catechism itself, The Catechism of the Catholic Church states, “All forms of divination are to be rejected: recourse to Satan or demons, conjuring up the dead or other practices falsely supposed to ‘unveil’ the future. Consulting horoscopes, astrology, palm reading, interpretation of omens and lots, the phenomena of clairvoyance, and recourse to mediums all conceal a desire for power over time, history, and, in the last analysis, other human beings, as well as a wish to conciliate hidden powers. They contradict the honor, respect, and loving fear that we owe to God alone” (CCC 2116). I hope you found this helpful!
Arttu Sjöblom Nope, but do at your own risk. Do you not agree that’s wrong? What’s the matter? Why buy a book with that included? Lord knows I tried smh.
Thank you so much for making this available on TH-cam for those of us outside your audience to watch. There are so few resources on this subject.
I am a Christian who unfortunately would be considered by many as from a different denomination to this man (I don't do tribes), and this guy hits the nail directly on the head regarding the subject topic. What an awesome interview. Very helpful indeed. May God bless you Mr Santa, you are epic and such a blessing.
Father Thomas Santa is a godsend.
What a kind caring upstanding man you are.
I have his book. I recomend his book undestanding scrupulosity
I've had OCD for 13 years, eventually turning into scrupulosity. I've had the classic "tap something with right hand, then left hand, so many times in sequence". To feeling the need to compulsively pick up sticks while walking for no reason. After a while, your logic kicks in, there is no reason to pick up sticks, and you conquer that. Then scrupulosity comes in. I was Catholic, now agnostic (I still believe in God, and believe in the possibility of hell), so my mind has the teachings of Catholicism coupled with purely logical thinking. One of the first obsessions was thinking negative things about God. If you have just a slight slip up and think you're truly thinking it for a second(not the OCD, you), you believe you're going to hell. Over time you build a "tolerance" to that, you may think you'll go to hell but the duration between that and when logic kicks in becomes less over time. The other side of the coin is your brain obsesses over it again and again and you wonder if the cumulative thoughts make you a bad person. You actually become mad at God because you wonder why he would allow this to happen to you. Then as soon as you get somewhat of a handle on one aspect, your brain finds another new thing to be scrupulous about. And you have to rebuild your toolset again, and again, and again. And after 13 years I still have classic OCD, repeatedly checking things, etc., but the ratio between that and scrupulosity is much lower. If I don't tap a certain sequence or gulp a certain number of times while drinking water, I'm not a bad person (unless at the time you think not doing a certain mundane action means you are intentionally being negative towards God), whereas lying to someone with the intent to lie is much more serious. The lying isn't scrupulosity, the thought process afterwards is. It required forethought, therefore it was a conscious decision. If that is the case, am I an evil person? If there is even a 1% chance that is true, am I going to hell? Because hell isn't a thousand, a million, a billion, or a trillion years, it is forever. The worst pain imaginable coupled with knowing you could've lived your life to a higher standard, and hurt less people. The problem is, the standard can always go higher. Never tell a lie? Doesn't matter, you had a sexual thought of someone other than your wife but you stopped it. That's forgivable? Okay, now your brain obsesses over it again and again (can be every 20-30 seconds on average for months). Uh oh, you had the thought and didn't stop it for a couple of seconds, then a thousand more episodes, it squeaked out a few seconds! You would say "just stop thinking about it". To that I would say, if my brain is primarily logical, and it has reason to believe there is a possibility of hell, and it could be eternal, it's worth suffering my entire life for a slightly increased chance of not going there trying to do the right thing obsessively than to think "God will forgive me for these thoughts, I just need to concern myself with actual sins" and then realizing some of those thoughts could have been avoided, therefore I'm a bad person and going to hell. You could say to go to confession. I'm not a Catholic anymore. But even if I was and did go, where is the line where God finally says "Yes, you went to confession, you felt sorry for your sins, but you commited X number of actions of Y severity intentionally and didn't try hard enough to rectify your behavior." I see so many Christians in general that state they believe in the religion yet don't practice it, but they believe they will be saved even though they do not follow the teachings that specifically state to follow the teachings! If Chrisitanity is true, it seems logical that most on Earth are going to hell. I don't think God would create beings that would disproportionately suffer eternally due to not following specific teachings, or the religion at all. But, I believe God exists and he allowed religions to propagate, knowing full well the nature of our psyche and its ability to construe things in specific ways. So...there is a possibility(unknown true percentage) of eternal hell, infinity, contrasted to 100 years on Earth, which if lived correctly and you are genuinely a good person, you go to Heaven for eternity. You can't make that into a fraction or percentage. You could worry about it until the suffering on Earth comes close to hell, and why would it matter if it made you cautious enough to gain a 1% increased chance of going to Heaven? Who wouldn't be paranoid? Eventually though, your brain takes a break from thinking like that or you go batshit insane. But it's always at the back of your head, or that you could just be a bad/evil person in general and you hate yourself for thinking a certain way. And it ebbs and flows in various ways not even in a cycle, just random patterns year after year. Conquering one aspect by 50%, losing another by 20%, then losing 40% of the first. I hope this provides someone with insight into what I would consider to be "severe" scrupulosity. If this would be constant in life (it isn't, I can still be happy much of the time) and hell would still exceed it in suffering, I see no logic in why God would create a being that has a free will and has even a remote chance of condemning itself to eternal suffering of this or any degree. That seems truly evil to me. But God could make Earth itself alot worse, so God must be good or at least neutral. Honestly, I have no clue.
Sherman T. Potter thats why you should buy fr santa book or follow hom on scrupulous anonymus, his counsel are really great. You also have to find a priest or someone else who must be well verse in both tradition and scrupulous mind. Trust me im like you and i still have those bad tought and fear of comiting sin, i dont know if it will ever disapear, but that's the thing with God, he ask us a lot of thing , but he do not judge someone who truly want to please him and is grace is not easyly dislodged, if ever. If thats true for a murderer, its true for you. Like jesus said to man its impossible, but for God everything is possible, and where sin abond, grace abond even more. He will do whatever it take and if you turned to him he will not forsaken you. if you are scare and disgust by something it mean you dont want it, so you dont want those thought and arent yours, other answer will come later since right now you need to learn to trust God, by with patience and humility, both virtue God will offer you in time, understanding will come. Say God i believe, give me faith and forgive me a sinner and trust him, if you fall do it again and again, also go see a priest and tell him you have a scrupulous mind ask him to give you time and help, if he dont want to leave him and find another one knowing God know your weakness but even more your will to please him.
This man is Blessed by Almighty God, he is very intelligent.
I'm struggling with this, I'm not eating properly and I'm in a right panic. Help, please!
Michael, hang in there! I am going through this as well. I'll keep you in my prayers! Pray and trust that Christ loves you and wants to grant you pardon and peace.
@@anthonysalvatore468Thank you. I'm a lot better than I was then. I've still got it, but the fear has down, but still scared of confession, and the Eucharist.
Cbt helped, saints and scruples the book, and father Santa's book. The blessed mother really has helped. How are you getting through it?
@@michaellawlor5625 Pray all 4 Mysteries of the Rosary every day !
I'm gonna that trying to pray all four Rosaries everyday is likely bad idea for the scrupulous as it may cause more anxiety and pain. It can be very frustrating and worrisome to try to pray long formulated prayers and often lead to repetition and not making any progress
Fr Santa answers concisely. But as an interviewer, please formulate your questions better.
I was deeply saddened by his book on scrupulosity. It was really just contrary to the beliefs of the Church. I mean really negative. Though, what he said in the interview was maybe okay, please don’t buy his book. I really advise against it.
What exactly was said in the book that was contradictory?
Arttu Sjöblom Well, it was something like horoscopes were okay, essentially and that as long as you have a good intent. And there was something else but we didn’t get far into the book so there might be more. I’ll let you know when once I figure out/remember.
But here is the teaching horoscopes directly from the Catechism itself, The Catechism of the Catholic Church states, “All forms of divination are to be rejected: recourse to Satan or demons, conjuring up the dead or other practices falsely supposed to ‘unveil’ the future. Consulting horoscopes, astrology, palm reading, interpretation of omens and lots, the phenomena of clairvoyance, and recourse to mediums all conceal a desire for power over time, history, and, in the last analysis, other human beings, as well as a wish to conciliate hidden powers. They contradict the honor, respect, and loving fear that we owe to God alone” (CCC 2116). I hope you found this helpful!
@@NervousDisordo hmm, maybe I should get the book myself
Arttu Sjöblom Nope, but do at your own risk. Do you not agree that’s wrong? What’s the matter? Why buy a book with that included? Lord knows I tried smh.
@@Recusant_ Yeah, I’ve heard of it. They say it’s good. Thank you for caring. God bless!
This man is Blessed by Almighty God, he is very intelligent.