The REAL Reason You Keep Falling into Sin—And How to Break Free!

Have you ever felt trapped, confessing the same sin over and over again—wondering if you'll ever break free? You’re not alone. There’s hope, and there’s a way out!

In our latest episode, Fr. Cristino reveals:
✅ The REAL reason you keep falling into habitual sin
✅ The hidden spiritual battle behind temptation
✅ The key steps to finally breaking free

If you’re serious about overcoming sin and growing in holiness, this is a episode is a must-listen.

Transcript

Father Cristino welcome back thank you so today uh let's talk about dealing with habitual sin okay Breaking Free from that uh I think all of us can experience that hold that sin can have in our life and that's really what happens we become a slave to sin it's more than simply oh we sinned and oops we broke a commandment or something the effect of sin is really we become enslaved to it sometimes and some particular habits that might be sinful gain a deeper hold in our lives let's say than others and so we have this experience in our life I think it's it's common to everyone uh and we feel like what can I do I've been going to confession over and over and over again for the same thing uh I feel like there's no hope maybe MH what do you say what's what's the plan for Freedom right well this is as you can imagine a very frequently occurring situation in many people's confessions uh the frustration at feeling like no matter what I seem to do I can't break out of this habit and you already pointed out the fact that what can end up happening in our spiritual lives uh is that a sin that maybe began as something uh that we thought was very shocking and maybe it was a kind of a one-off thing over time the it's not just about the frequency with which it occurs because you might notice that the frequency will diminish but the the sin still has a hold on you and that has more to do with what is my response what is my reaction to this o occurring this thing that's occurring in my life over and over again whether it's daily or weekly or monthly if it's still occurring with some regularity or even almost predictability then we need to examine how do I feel about it and what I mean by that is not just do I do it does it make me sad that this is happening am I becoming comfortable with it and that's where we have to really monitor what's going on in my heart because if we begin to make peace with the fact that this is just something that I do this is just how I am um and a lot of the ways I think that we approach a kind of modern pop psychology perspective is is to do everything in our power to make people not feel bad about things or feel bad about themselves and so we we take a lot of flak as Catholics about Catholic guilt right but Catholic guilt is good for us uh guilt inspires repentance and repentance is is necessary for conversion we and we always have to be in a the process of conversion and so feeling badly that I have sinned is important or else we'll never have any incentive to try and get over it but we feeling bad is not the same as hating yourself we must not hate ourselves because we notice ourselves falling into habitual sin in fact we need to love ourselves even more and we need to help ourselves to Rise Above This thing but it will take concrete action and the the phenomenon if you will of of just sort of accepting that unfortunately this is just my struggle this is how I am I think sometimes we take uh that passage from St Paul when he talks about the thorn in his side and that the the Lord would not remove it from him mhm was almost like if not an an excuse at least a kind of rationale or justification for saying well this is the thorn in my side I just can't ever get rid of it that doesn't mean we should ever stop wanting to do whatever I can to mitigate it in my life and not just let it run uh you know without any any measure of effort to to pull it back and so habitual sin in that sense is something that requires our attention but it doesn't necessarily mean that it's going to just disappear because I've tried really hard okay when we're speaking about habitual sin are we always speaking about mortal sin or we can venal sin also be habitual I would say that it's more frequently the case that it's our venial sins that become habitual uh and that's and that's what more what I'm referring to when I talk about the people who would say something like and I don't say the people as though this isn't me too but the way in which we kind of get comfortable and used to the fact that oh yeah I I just uh I can't help myself when I'm with these people we always just gossip well then what are you doing to try and not that's we need to be asking oursel okay okay uh so if somebody's feeling hearing this for the first time they feel like that that's them they're stuck in something that's always reoccurring and they've thought I will never break free can we say There's Hope oh there's always hope there's always hope but I think specifically with regard to overcoming habitual sin the hope lies in the fact that we can't do it by our self and so it must be with the help of the grace that God gives us and God can only give us the grace that we are capable of receiving and that's why going to confession is so important because it it red disposes ourselves to receiving Grace and that Grace from that Sacrament is exactly what will be the remedy for helping me to uh continue to fight in this battle of seeking to overcome all sin and most importantly habitual sin so action plan you touched on already confession someone might think well I'm going again and again and again for the same sin I feel embarrassed and your response to them would be get over it if if you're embarrassed then you have to ask yourself am I just compounding my sin because now it's about Pride when we go to confession it's not about me it's about the Lord when we make the act of contrition we say because my sin offends you my God who are so good and deserving of all of my love so if I'm going to confession and I'm making it be about me and how I feel and how I wish I was different we're missing the point we have to go to confession because our sin offends God and we don't want it to because we love him and we acknowledge that he deserves my love and so we have to get over ourselves and say yep I've got to go to confession again and I've got to say the same thing and the Lord is going to work through that humility uh if we're going to be humble then we're going to be humbled and the unfortunate path to humility is always humiliation that's the the only way forward and so if we find it humiliating to have to go to confession for the same thing over and over again that's exactly the point and that's part of the medicine is needing to submit ourselves to that humiliation because then the Lord is going to be able to heal us through that okay somebody may have heard that for the first time but if they are a embarrassed I'm so embarrassed I'm so embarrassed you're saying hey there's some pride there oh yeah okay that's that's a real key point cuz someone may have never recognized that before and then that's something else one can confess this isn't necessarily as accessible to everybody depending on where you live but I know plenty of people who if they live in a city with access to many confession times or different priests they'll go to the trouble of bouncing around to different places because they don't want the same priest to hear that they're committing the same sin over and over and over again I'm sorry that is pride if if we aren't prepared to submit ourselves imagine if you went to a different doctor in a different walk-in clinic to treat the same problem you're never going to get better because you need your doctor to be able to to track with you how things are going so having a consistent Confessor especially when you are battling habitual sin is very important partly because it's so humiliating and that's good for us we we need that so it's not automatically uh that you're proud if you happen to go to confession to a different priest occasionally because you you're in this place you needed to go at this time of day this week or whatever I'm not suggesting that unless you go to the same priest for every confession you ever make then you're you're committing the sin of Pride but we do need to ask ourselves what's motivating why I would be bouncing around if that is what I do and if it's because I don't want father to think badly of me I think I think about now I'm I'm out in a in a country Parish I'm it I'm all they've got at those poor people if they want to go to confession to a different priest they got to drive who knows how long to go to a different place to get a different priest just so what I don't think badly of them first of all I don't even know half the time who's talking to me and if I did know I can say I only love them more because of that humility so some fers of yours are hearing this for the first time and they're driving you're saying stop driving right if you are going to confession and listen to this exactly save the gas put that money in the collection

desk beautiful excellent okay confession moving on what else we need to have concrete action and so this is where I think a lot of times we we get tripped up and if your Confessor hopefully is going to help propose some of these things to you but I think we might think that going to confession is my concrete action but there's something in confession that we refer to as purpose of amendment that means I have to have a plan for how I expect this to be different and so if we don't adjust something in our life that is facilit ating or accompanies the occurrence of the habitual sin how would we ever expect it to be any different I'll I'll just use a simple example it's a very frequently occurring situation in the lives of many people that they struggle with uh indecent material on their devices and seeing this indecent material becomes a habitual sin and all sorts of other sins can begin to to flow from that if it is the case that you are accessing this let's say on your phone and it's almost always in the same place at the same time well then you need to address that somehow one of the things I counsel people very frequently is do not bring your phone with you to bed you don't need it there and so if after this confession and you say you want to try and do something different make that your concrete action the phone does not come into my room with me at night when I go to bed if it's your alarm clock go buy an alarm clock they're $10 at Walmart put it on your nightstand and that's how you can get woken up in the morning don't give yourself the excuse that you need to have your phone beside your bed if we are not willing to take some kind of concrete action like that don't ever expect your habitual sin to go away great moving on what's something else that you would advise someone to look at what else can I what else can I do father I always ask ask people if they can identify where they noticed this first beginning I I kind of like to refer to it as returning to the scene of the crime yeah if you don't go back and understand what was happening in your life or or or maybe what what's what was going on at the time that you fell into the Trap of something that has now become habitual you will not necessarily be able to remove or eliminate it because you don't understand why it's continuing to happen uh you know I think we've all probably experienced we we go to the fridge and we open the door and we stare inside of it we look for something and then we close the fridge and then 5 minutes later you come back and you open the fridge again what do you think something just magically popped up in there that wasn't there 5 minutes ago we're looking for something we're longing for something we're longing for something to fill us yeah and sometimes the things that have become habitual sins in our life were trying to fill a void or they were they were doing something for me at a moment when maybe my life is different now and perhaps I'm living under the the false pretense or or some kind of Illusion that this has to stay this way but if you go back and examine where did this come from why did this start how did this happen you might Identify some things where you say but that but that's not true anymore and now I have this or now I know that and being equipped with that Insight can help Shake us out of what's just become a pattern or or a habit or a routine if we can go back and find that I'm not necessarily saying you're always going to find something sometimes sin happens because we just don't think or because it feels good and then we become attached to the feeling there's all sorts of things that go on in in our consciences you we're complicated human beings are complicated but it's worth looking back to see how did this begin why did this start to become such a habit in my life and what could I do to try and help myself be in a different position now than I was and see if that can help break me out of the pattern what about if you recognize an emotion that's associated with the action like a great loneliness for example and then one acts in a way that is is sinful but it's always preceded by this you re oh it's when I'm really really feel isolated and lonely would it be a useful exercise to look back and see like when did this pattern of loneliness begin in my life was there was there hurtful situation that happened in my life was is is this associated with a wound what are your thoughts on that I think that that for sure there there that's kind of part of what I'm talking about with regard to going back to the scene of the crime as I say okay if if there is a wound attached to um acting out or a sinful Behavior that's probably the thing that that behavior is trying to fill or is trying try to heal or or cover over but but we know that it's it's bad medicine it's not actually going to do what you think you're you're using it for but if you know where that wound came from or you know why that wound is there in the first place then you can start trying to look at and and be creative about saying well what might be actually good medicine uh to to use in this case uh sometimes we are not even aware that the wound is there other times the wound is actually caused by the sinful behavior that at the time I didn't even realize was a sin uh sometimes we create bad habits for ourselves out of something that we only discover later is harming me uh but in the moment when it might have begun we wouldn't necessarily have have understood that at all uh because of numerous factors and ignorance ignorance is not Bliss ignorance can lead us down a path of destruction and so if I now I'm no longer ignorant of this that that's why I have to ask what order do I think things may have happened in to put me in this situation what are your thoughts on when someone's struggling with habitual sin uh and the combination between just the weakness of the Flesh and diabolical influences and whether it's a devil or particular demon has a hold of in that area of our life I think we we would all love to be able to default to say oh yeah the devil made me do it uh and in a certain way that can always be true because anything sinful we do has absolutely happened under the influence of the enemy uh at the very least because of temptation but then we can create demonic attachments or or we can become subject to demonic oppression because of having allowed something to become habitual in our life it's almost like we we we sort of form an agreement where we're saying to the devil I'm going to let you in on this I'm going to give permission to establish this connection in my life in my heart in my conscience however you want to formulate it and the devil is he is a ruthless kind of like like a lawyer He he'll examine and and find the fine print where it says no I have the right to this we have an agreement we're we're not necessarily even conscious that we've made that agreement uh but if we have participated in something over an extended period of time maybe the suggestion that we've ended up making whether we were conscious of it or not is I'm giving you permission to to control this part of my life and so it might be also necessary and and a I think a Discerning Confessor might be able to help a penitent to uncover this in their confession that it would be helpful to undertake some prayers of Deliverance uh to try and seek freedom from certain form forms of Oppression MH but that can't be seen as the Silver Bullet uh because you can pray and you can receive certain kinds of Deliverance and it's not necessarily that it didn't work or that you need more if the habitual sin doesn't go away we have to take responsibility we are the Agents of virtue or vice in our own life there will be other influences absolutely but it's not the case that it's only happening because of that influence if the influence was severed then it's just going to stop right right because we have habits too within the flesh like you know once once the Habit is developed the devil has no need of getting a foothold there if that's where we're going to go willingly or by nature of the Habit yes um what are your thoughts of let's say we'll go back to your your example of the indecent material on the phone one person feels like they're really being tempted by lust they recognize this and saying a spiritual W for a prayer such as in the name of Jesus Christ I command the spirit of L to leave me go directly to the foot of the cross of Jesus Jesus fill me with your Purity but recognizing the the habitual sin and it just maybe saying any evil spirits associated with us leave me now in jesus' name Jesus fill me with your the the opposing fill me with your strength fill me with your Purity what's your thoughts on saying those kind of prayers I think that they're extremely helpful and if for no other reason it reminds us that in a moment of Temptation the first place that we should be turning is to prayer right I think our instinct is that we we have to just run away and yes if you can flee from Temptation one always ought to try and flee from temptation but to also realize that the most important remedy for my temptation is going to come from from our Lord himself and so if I if I turn to him and not just away from the temptation but if I turn to him or if I run that I run from the thing but not just to run from it to run to Jesus that I have to go to him that I need him to help me in this situation that is I think what you're addressing when you say what if I establish a routine or a habit or a pattern of praying in X Y or Zed way when I'm facing a Temptation absolutely but remember that it's because you're turning to the the Lord You're it's not that you're reciting some kind of magic formula yeah so I want to share uh in the last 6 months a prayer that I say consistently probably multiple times during the day when I'm struggling and I struggle with like with sometimes a thought that I know this is not of the Lord a pattern of thinking and I will say you know Jesus I abandoned myself to you take care of everything this is a phrase that I come to many times during the day and I've shared it before with our listeners I go out and I walk on the trails behind our house and and I say that the whole time I'm walking and I have found this and I'm Shing sharing this as a tip because I found it tremendously useful that simple turning towards the Lord uh particularly I use if someone's like well what is Ken struggling with I'll share like when I'm uh anxious I I get anxious sometimes when I look at our our children and sometimes our I don't know situations in life and I just feel fear and anxiety worry creeping into my life I just say Jesus I abandoned myself to you and take care of everything and so it's to your point of turning to the Lord and also again in times of Temptation turning toward the lord as he is the remedy and the solution and the protector I I I found great I found tangible Grace actually in in saying that and making that the Habit in my life I'm very grateful for it mhm um anything any other points regarding overcoming habitual sin what what about just uh some practical things about getting enough sleep you know in in your experience as a Confessor does sleep and sin have a a relationship oh gosh everything it's all part of a whole we we aren't compartmentalized our body our soul our mind our spirit our emotions they're they all are connected to each other so for taking terrible physical care of ourself it's no surprise if we find ourselves falling into patterns of sin in fact we might say I actually only sin in this way when I'm tired when I'm hungry when I'm isolated and so if we if we can see that kind of pattern we need to address that issue as well I've told people sometimes in confession and I've had it told to me my that your Penance is to go to bed tonight go to bed at this time and it there's a there's a a saying of of St Maria SCA that we have to live by the heroic minute and by that he meant at the time appointed for Rising when the alarm goes off or whatever time you know you need to get out of bed that you get up and get out of bed no snooze button no rolling over and pulling the covers up but then he later talked about the other heroic minute is bedtime and it's almost even more important than the time for Rising because what makes Rising so difficult is what time you went to bed and so being disciplined about certain things like that are absolutely going to either help us uh eliminate the the tendency towards the sin or at least give us the strength to be able to fight off the Temptation and have that plan I would say like you you say Okay bedtime you have the plan say it's like 10:00 10:30 what whatever it is when that happens you have the predetermined point when you're going to go to bed so when you get to that point you don't have to negotiate with yourself that's right it's just scheduled because when you start negotiating with yourself usually the a bad deal happens yes so you stick to the plan and same thing with in the morning the alarm goes off you don't neg negotiate with yourself and think should I hit that snooze oh I'm a little bit tight there's no negotiation you had the predetermined time to get up and you have a predetermined time when you go to bed and I just have found in myself when I have that dialogue with myself usually the the the the voice that's a little bit louder wins and it's one that appeals to my flesh yes always I I don't even think I can say usually it is always and only the case that the minute I start negotiating with myself I've already lost and I all I was negotiating for was something to make me more comfortable see you put it so much better t i all right very uh over is there anything else oh how about Bad Company well I think that again like you know the devil made me do it we have to be careful that we don't blame other people around us uh you know I I always sort of have to heave a sigh when I hear someone's confession forgive me Father for I have sinned my wife is very uh impatient you cannot confess someone else's sin here what are you responsible for and so we do have to take personal responsibility but one of the things that we can do to be responsible is to say am I putting myself in the occasion of sin by keeping X Y or Zed people for company if we know that I I I've said to people before okay if there's someone at work that you know you cannot help but fall into gossiping with don't take your coffee break at the same time MH see if there's some way that you can avoid being in the lunchroom together we have to take uh control over what we can be in control over if the person that you love to gossip with the most is your spouse well you can't keep yourself separate from each other but then maybe you need to be maybe you need to be the one to say honey I think we need to work on this and let's work on it together uh because we can't extricate ourselves from every form of company that might be contributing towards or leading us into sin and perhaps we need to be the model or the example to the people that we're with to help lift them up out of it too um there's a discipline with within the church we haven't talked about we'll do a episode maybe down the road on it but that is fasting and the role of fasting of Breaking Free from uh habitual sin I think about the scripture where Jesus has the apostles with them and the apostles are trying to cast out a demon but the demon won't go right don't you hate that when it happens and they come to Jesus and say this one went but like how this one didn't go how how come and Jesus says I tell you the truth or truly truly I say to you if you had the faith of a mustard seed you'll tell the mountain to move and move but this kind cannot go out except through prayer and fasting so when I first read that I always thought there's certain mountains in our life that won't move if we're just praying mhm but we also need the discipline of fasting sometimes what are your thoughts on that do you think that's true oh absolutely and I think the more important reason is to understand why what is fasting doing F and and I think you're right we deserve an entire other conversation about the bigger topic of self-denial but fasting is a form of self-denial and just like we were saying a moment ago about negotiating with ourselves is always for the sake of making myself more comfortable yeah fasting is a a very noticeable and defined way in which I know that I am subjecting myself to discomfort I am choosing to be uncomfortable so that I can help break myself free from my attachment to comfort and when we've trained oursel to break free from attachment to comfort we will realize that whatever is causing us habitual sin in our life is ex exactly for the same reason something about it is making me feel more comfortable in the moment and so as I train myself to be less attached to comfort in general I will be more easily able or I will be better equipped to break free from this particular kind of comfort that is attached to the habitual sin see I think that's a really key point that sometimes isn't articulated but there is an attachment to comfort associated with the habitual sin yes in some way yes it it may be a it is always a distorted understanding of comfort but there's something in it that is pleasurable or delightful or if we go back to the Garden pleasing to the eye M because there's something that appeals unfortunately like I mean had the Apple looked rotten they probably would have taken it right what you're describing is is referred to as concupisent right the the the nature the tendency towards sin so at our baptism we are set free from original sin but the scar that's left on our soul from having been afflicted by original sin is always a it's a scar that's kind of aching to be reopened and that's what concupiscence is it's always looking around to see where can I satisfy this this longing I have for sin and so the The Great Battle of our whole spiritual lives is to try and break ourselves free from being dominated by our concupisent we will be we will face Temptations somehow or another until we take our our dying breath that's why we pray for the grace of final perseverance as it's called traditionally because something could could come up in our lives you could be the greatest Saint and that and if the devil finds some way in there two minutes before you die to see if there's some way he can try and take you away from the Lord he will do it and so our concu our concupiscible nature as we call it is always looking around to see what can I find to satisfy this longing for sin and so we're really actively trying to not just break free from specific individual habitual sins we're we're ultimately trying to break free from the habit of wanting to sin that's that's what undergirds all the rest of it is the the fundamental habit of wanting it we're asking for the grace to be set free from even wanting to sin that's beautiful I know on this channel many times you've done videos reflecting upon St alonsus and one of the remedies that he often recommends in terms of breaking free from sin causing a a distaste for it is to meditate upon the passion of Christ mhm and just to look at a crucifix or pray the Stations of the Cross and his Stations of the Cross they just so well they're so widely used within the tradition of the church which we have on this channel maybe we'll Link at the end of this video but when you I think his point is when you see how much God has done for us how much Jesus has loved us on that cross how much he he withheld nothing it it it puts sin into perspective a little bit mhm and it causes this this taste I mean that's our hope so uh please share with us below what stood out to you and why and uh we will end with the prayer but also we will link with uh the Stations of the Cross here at the end of this video it's Friday so very

appropriate Oh my Jesus forgive us our sins save us from the fires of Hell lead All Souls to heaven especially those in most need of thy mercy beneath your compassion we take refuge oh Mother of God do not despise our petitions in time of trouble but rescue us from dangers amen