Category Archives: Sin

Temptation

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By Cynthia Aralu

Hello everyone! Pray the Rosary.

I hope you are doing well!

I write this knowing that for the past week or so I have been plagued in my body, in an on and off manner, with temptation, and it all started with a dream, in which I saw a form at the foot of the bed. I was so groggy in the dream that when I tried to pray the Hail Mary, I could only begin at “Holy Mary Mother of God”. It disappeared the moment I said that and then I woke up. I concluded it was not able to touch me because I have been wearing my rosary to sleep. I couldn’t say for sure what it was trying to do but what I could perceive was it was trying to unlock a memory, in order to tempt me to impurity, and as soon as I tried to understand my dream better, a memory came to the periphery of my mind which I pushed away but damage was already done. I prayed and then found a recitation of “Hail Mary” on Spotify which I allowed to play on my phone as I went back to sleep.

I have denied my eyes and ears of things that could possibly be sources of temptation, even before this day. I have denied my body as well, but I know my memory is not innocent and I know this is deserved.

I have been praying a lot of prayers. I get better while praying or at Church, especially after receiving communion, but it comes back. I am thankful to God, that my will and my mind is drawn to God, even in my dreams, and this is definitely a grace from God. 

I kept up playing the recording of Hail Mary as I slept until yesterday. In the morning of yesterday, as I lay in bed sleeping, I heard a voice tell me that God will not let me know if an action is a sin or something along those lines. I thought the voice came from the recording playing on my phone because it sounded like it; it even had the same pace of the voice on the recording. I got indignant and my thought was, “That’s a lie. He does and He has.” and I remembered a moment from a time when I was much younger that I heard an inner voice recite the commandment to me when I was about to break it without even realizing that I was about to.

I wondered why the recitation I had on would say that. So, I opened my eyes and turned towards my phone to listen to it, and it only recited the “Hail Mary”. Then, I got confused. To be honest, it is hard to tell if I was dreaming or awake but I had been asleep and then I was awake. I probably woke up when I opened my eyes.

It was trying to get me to distrust God and I think it was trying to play on my worries about the difficulty I have in discerning mortal sin from venial sin. I tend to think it might be mortal sin and it makes me so sad that I have actually missed communion once because of it. I realized I was wrong after studying about sin on EWTN multiple times (Link here: Sin) and praying for understanding, and then later on, the priest during confession told me it was venial. I also came close to doing so again this Sunday, but I prayed for discernment and came to realize it wasn’t mortal sin, although, I still had to speak with a priest in confession to be completely sure. 

Later on after waking up on Monday, I did an act of trust when I looked at the image of Jesus on my phone by saying “Jesus I trust in you” multiple times. 

All through yesterday, I was troubled; actually all along I have been troubled because I do not want to sin, and I would be foolish to underestimate the temptation. So, I prayed to Our Lady of Sorrows for discernment of what was happening to me. Afterwards, I googled “Saints that were tempted in the body” and came across a great post. The post gave me great comfort. I will leave the part which lifted my spirits here. “Temptations have besides the following advantages….they afford us a means of expiating sin in this life…” Of course this is only possible in union with Christ. Here is the link to the full post: Temptations. There is more on polishing and sanctification on the post and an urging anyone who is tempted to pray to God for strength to resist the temptation rather than to take it all away. I pray for both, if it is God’s will.

I couldn’t play the same recording to go to sleep last night after what happened, so I searched on Spotify for a recitation of the rosary and found Bishop Barron’s podcast “The Rosary with Bishop Barron” and kept the sorrowful mystery playing as I went to sleep. I woke up refreshed and to a good tool for meditating on the Rosary. 

My thoughts rest and resonate with the words of St. Paul, “So I find it to be a law that when I want to do right, evil lies close at hand. For I delight in the law of God, in my inmost self, but I see in my members another law at war with the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin which dwells in my members. Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, I of myself serve the law of God with my mind, but with my flesh I serve the law of sin.”

I also remember and dwell on the words of St. James, “Resist the devil and he will flee from you.” and I have hope that this is not forever. 

Thank you for reading today’s post. Remember to like this post and share it with your friends if you enjoyed it. Follow me on my blog, Katmira’s blog or my podcast, Amara’s Musings, to receive notifications whenever I have a new post. You can also subscribe below to get an email notification whenever a new post is out. This is particularly helpful if you don’t have a WordPress account.

Pray the Rosary. Let it be, until we meet again or “Ka ọ dị” as it is said in Igbo.

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One of Us

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By Cynthia Aralu

Hello everyone! Pray the Rosary.

When you hear the scripture and people speak about Jesus and say, “He was one of us”, do you ever wonder what that really means?

The bible said He suffered and was tempted in every way, yet without sinning, and as such is able to sympathize with our weakness. This, He did all in the service of God, so that He may atone for our sins, through His sacrifice of Himself. So, we should have no fear, but be confident to draw close to the throne of grace, and in doing so, we will find mercy and the grace which will help us in our time of need.

I suppose when I have thought of Jesus, even after hearing that He was just like us in every way apart from sin, I have hated any depiction of Him that to my mind was less dignified. I have heard it said that on the cross He felt abandoned when He said, “Father, Father, why have You forsaken me?”. I think maybe to my mind, I interpreted that to mean that He believed He was abandoned, or perhaps I have heard it said as much. My memory is all jumbled up. Either way, I know Jesus is God, so I could not accept that He did not know that The Father was with Him. It was an imperfection that I just could not allow myself to believe. I suppose a part of me felt He found temptation easier, because He is God. I am not proud of that thought.

Today, I think I see things a little different and have another understanding of that moment when He said that. Partly because I have felt this before, but not even close to the degree to which He did, and also partly because, I heard someone say today, “He felt abandoned” and it finally clicked; “He felt”. So, this is only a feeling or emotion; the same emotion that people, including myself, have allowed to distort their grasp of the truth and then have fallen into sin. I say “only an emotion” not to belittle the strength of His emotions, but only to delve into the immensity of His emotions and to say, “what excellent will power, that he was able to hold on to the truth when He felt immense darkness, rejection and abandonment”. And that is only partly His emotional pain, not to talk of His physical suffering as He hung on the cross.

Perhaps it makes sense to me now because I know it is possible to feel an emotion which is at war with the truth of a situation which I am aware of 100%. It is the complexity of the Human situation and Jesus fully went through the human experience.

I believe while He felt abandoned, He knew His Father to be present and when He said that prayer from Psalm 22, “My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me”, in one way, He was uniting Himself to our suffering, our pain and our despair.

He was one of us.

I am sure this prayer also meant other things. Reading the Psalm will give you an idea, considering the suffering He went through, but I suppose, that other meaning, although equally important, is not the focus of what I am writing.

Following the prayer I mentioned above, He said another prayer just before He died, “Father, into Thy Hands, I commend My Spirit”, which spoke of trust in His Father to take care of Him and preserve Him. And God did preserve Him. He was raised from the dead by the Spirit of God and is now seated at the right hand of The Father, interceding for us. And the same Spirit of God which raised Him from the dead, dwells in all baptized Christians.

It would seem to me that He started off and lived His human life entrusting Himself to God and entrusting Himself to others. He entrusted Himself to the care of Mary and Joseph. He entrusted Himself to the 12 He chose, even knowing that Judas would betray Him. Man, He trusted. I do not know if I could trust people like that but maybe it is a call to entrust oneself to others. I do not know. I am only trying to see people through His Eyes, which are unjaded. I wonder if this would lead to more trust.

I am not a theologian, I might not be accurate in my understanding. In fact, I believe that there is so much that I do not know. I am only seeking understanding and contemplating God. If the answers never come, I am fine with it. There is a knowledge that leads to pride and destruction anyway. But, if you want to hear from people who have studied Theology, Ascension Presents has a couple of them.

Thank you for reading today’s post. Remember to like this post and share it with your friends if you enjoyed it. Follow me on my blog, Katmira’s blog or my podcast, Amara’s Musings, to receive notifications whenever I have a new post. You can also subscribe below to get an email notification whenever a new post is out. This is particularly helpful if you don’t have a WordPress account.

Let it be, until we meet again or “Ka ọ dị” as it is said in Igbo.

A lovely song to listen to!

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2022 In Review

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By Cynthia Aralu

Hi everyone! Pray the Rosary.

I started off the year feeling hopeful. I wished to remain hopeful and persevere once again this year.

There were moments I lost hope. I felt hurt. I felt pain. I could not see the light. When I caught myself doing this, I reminded myself to hope once again. I am glad I kept on hoping.

Wonderful things happened to me this year in the midst of life’s turbulence. I got a merit raise. I am thankful to God that I had the courage to ask for a raise…and for the raise as well. The raise didn’t even come to me until 3 months had passed after I had asked. I wanted more in the way of professional development into a future career path I am hopeful for but when I asked I was not given that opportunity.

After a long wait this year, my Canadian PR was approved and in the same month as my mom’s too.

I dealt with unsavoury characters and thrived in a hostile environment. A character showed a softness towards the end of my time in London that I never expected.

I had a conversation with someone about this and she told me we attract everything that happens to us. I don’t agree with what I had been told about attracting all that I am because I have not had unkindness dealt towards me because this is what I put out. I had had a tough time in London. I had met difficult people and the wall I developed was higher than that of the wall of China. I never let myself be soft with these people. I matched their toughness and defended myself. Even though I didn’t fully agree with her, I did wonder if there was some level of truth to what she said. It made me sad. It made me ask myself these questions.

“Is it faith I’m lacking,

Is it hope I’m lacking,

Is it love?

Maybe it’s all.”

– Me (23 Sep 2022)

While I do not agree with her now, I do see how I could have reacted differently to the way I had been treated. I could have been soft towards them while they were terrible to me and rejoiced in it. Now, I see it as a chance I could have used to draw even closer to God. To know His word, To know His Will. To know Him.

I was complacent in my spirituality and I didn’t realize this until I had moved to Canada. I actually had a thought in London prior to moving, “If God is not angry with me because He was still good to me. Then, it must be fine. I must be doing nothing wrong.”

I had a tough time with my job applications in Canada and I thought, “Could God be mad at me?”

I had felt I was good relatively, but upon self examination, I realized I was far from being okay and I resolved to fix things.

I am not quite sure what spurred on my study of the bible.

Was it the funny skit that Ariel Fitzpatrick made. The one where she said, “God answers the prayer of the righteous”. That skit had caused me to pause. I did not feel righteous. I always imagined it impossible to be righteous so, I never really thought I could win there and I never tried, but I did know I am a daughter of The Most High and I am loved regardless of my imperfections.

Was it the bible notification I received which said to “Seek first His kingdom and everything else will be added onto you”. Did that do it?

I know I sensed I was supposed to seek God. Even heard a voice say, “Seek me” at some point. I read about Abraham, who himself was a nomad, and I could relate to him in that aspect of his life. Reading about Abraham made me realize what it meant to be righteous. Obedience to God. Then, I read the Bible even more. I explored devotional plans on YouVersion that I felt I was supposed to read and I learnt more about God and how I have not exactly been living a life that was pleasing to God and it felt ridiculous to me that I had even been complacent.

I found God once again, but also quite differently. This time I care enough to do what pleases Him because he really does care about what I do and I love Him. I think I am still learning and growing to be firm in these things, praying and asking for His help every step of the way.

The year ends soon. I am so hopeful for all the New Year will hold. I am expectant of the blessings God has in store for me and I feel His love for me; His presence in my life.

In the New Year, I hope to have an even stronger understanding of who God is and to live as he would want. I hope for all things good and soft in the New Year. I especially hope to have faith, hope and love, swirling within me and everywhere all around me.

Thank you for reading or listening to today’s post. Remember to like this post and share it with your friends if you enjoyed it. Follow me on my blog, katmira’s blog or my podcast, Amara’s Musings, to receive notifications whenever I have a new post. You can also subscribe below to get an email notification whenever a new blog post is out. This is particularly helpful if you don’t have a WordPress account.

Pray the Rosary. Let it be, until we meet again or “Ka ọ dị” as it is said in Igbo.

2022 In Review By Cynthia Aralu (Audio Recording)
Listen On My Podcast @Amara’s Musings
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