I was scared. Terribly scared! But I felt He would help me. I knelt down in the confessional, closed my eyes, and began to speak. I overcame my fear and shame
The Movement of Pure Hearts is my way to heaven. Even a few months ago I never imagined that I could be so happy. And yet it is so. I have entrusted to God my whole life, every step I take, every moment I have—in a word, my whole self.
My journey to the Movement of Pure Hearts has been long and full of sharp turns. It all began when I was six or seven years old, when a girlfriend I played with began telling me about “adult life.” It was all so interesting that I wanted to know more. And so it happened. For fun and amusement I began to explore the field of eroticism, which was then quite strange to me. I did not know it was a sin. But by the sixth grade I had totally lost my innocence. I was sinning against the sixth commandment with abandon.
After a while, thoughts alone were not enough—I needed more. I fell in with bad company that drank alcohol and taught me to swear and curse. I drifted away from God. I went to church only on Sundays and Holy Days of Obligation, and prayed only in the evening, and then only if there was time and I felt like it. Pornography led me astray. I read all kinds of magazines, used foul language, looked at erotic pictures, watched dirty films, and thought about impure things. I did whatever I felt like doing.
It was only in grade eleven, while preparing for Confirmation, that I realized how gravely sinful pornography was. I said to myself, “Enough!” For a while, all the bad thoughts vanished, but not for long. After receiving the sacrament of Confirmation, I felt the old thoughts returning. I treated my body as something equal with God. Worse than that, God was not most important to me. Only my desires counted. I sinned, and then I would look at the crucifix and beg forgiveness. That’s how it was every time. Pleasure first, then He—until the day came when a friend of mine passed me a copy of Love One Another Magazine. I looked it through on the bus on the way home. An article on pornography caught my attention. On reading it, I felt a sharp pain in my heart and I began to cry. For the first time I called my sin by name: masturbation. I was losing my purity—by my own actions!
After thinking the matter over, I decided to go to confession. But before I could do that I had to prepare myself. My conversion began when I knelt down in church and for the first time in my life burst into tears while praying for God’s forgiveness and help. Ever since then I try to go to church as often as I can, preferably every day. My prayer has become a conversation with God, sometimes lasting several hours. I used to have trouble finding five minutes for prayer. Now I kneel before the cross several times daily.
The day of confession finally came. I was scared. Terribly scared! But I felt He would help me. I knelt down in the confessional, closed my eyes, and began to speak. I overcame my fear and shame. For the first time I hid no sin from God. That was a wonderful feeling. But after the confession I did not feel much relief. In my heart, yes, for God had forgiven me, but there was still my conscience, which torments me to this day. But I have come to see that everything is easier at His side. If it were not for God, I would not have made a clean breast of my sin in the confessional. If it were not for God, I would not have joined the Movement of Pure Hearts.
That was a marvelous day. Our Savior’s birthday! For me it was like God’s birth within me, the birth of my heart—the birth of love. On going up to Communion before joining MPH, I was very fearful. The question arose: “Will I persevere?” But as we were walking up, someone in the line pushed me to the front. It was He. And then I did it. I entrusted my whole life to Jesus!
Afterwards, before Blessed Caroline’s relics, I asked for the strength to continue the struggle. I promised God and myself that I would take up my cross and follow daily in Christ’s footsteps. I am not afraid, since I know He holds me by the hand and will never let me go. And if I should fall, He will be there to help me pick myself up again.
A convert