A few months ago, I wrote an essay about perfectionism. In the weeks following, a larger number of people than usual reached out to thank me for writing on that topic. It seems there are a lot of recovering perfectionists among us.
Because of the response, I thought I’d write about a related topic, a form of spiritual perfectionism called scrupulosity. If perfectionism is the unhealthy desire to control every effort we make in order to earn validation by being flawless, scrupulosity is also a desire to exert control.
A scrupulous person seeks to achieve spiritual progress by keeping every minute detail of the moral law. In doing so, they fall into a perfectionism well beyond what’s healthy or reasonable. To them, every motive is mixed, every passing thought a mental sin, every innocent mistake a crime.
The dilemma of the scrupulous
Scrupulosity thus creates an inability to leave sin in the past. Past transgressions continue to haunt scrupulous people and they doubt they’ve been forgiven. It also creates an inability to identify what sin is in the present moment. Innocent mistakes or random temptations are turned into sins and small sins are turned into large sins.
This is why scrupulous people come to confession extremely frequently (I’ve known some that wanted to come literally every day) and, even if they’ve been to confession recently, might skip receiving Holy Communion because they still feel unworthy. In the confessional, they struggle to come to the end of their list of sins and continue to dissect smaller and smaller details of their thoughts and actions.
It’s not uncommon that a scrupulous person will continue to add more sins they’ve thought of even while the priest is in the act of absolving them. Because they’re never sure if their confession was complete, they later worry the absolution wasn’t valid. Further, they worry if their apology was sincere enough, or, in the language of Catholic theology, if their contrition was “perfect.”
Limping through life
It’s often pointed out that the word scrupulous comes from a Latin word meaning, “a small, sharp stone or pebble.” People with scrupulosity limp along on their spiritual journey as if there’s a stone in their shoe causing pain with every step.
I should note, before going further, that I’m not talking about people with obsessive compulsive disorder, who might seem similar in some ways to scrupulous people. I’m not qualified to talk about medical issues and the thoughts that follow are limited to the spiritual phenomenon of scrupulosity, not OCD.
If you are suffering from a mental health illness, please seek out care from a mental health professional who can give you the care you need.
Overcoming scrupulosity
That said, I really have witnessed people put scrupulosity behind them, so if you struggle with the idea that everything you do is a sin against God or the people around you, keep reading. Here are some things they’ve told me they find helpful.
First, I want it burned brightly and permanently into the minds of scrupulous people that God loves you.
God forgives you. He desires a relationship with you. He knows you in the confessional with all your imperfections and he still loves you. This is the bedrock teaching of our faith and we don’t have a right to doubt God when he tells us that we are loved and forgiven. When in the grip of scrupulosity, always return to positive, rational reminders that God loves you.
Second, it’s vital to gain unbiased perspective from a regular confessor.
St. Alphonsus Liguori, who struggled with scrupulosity himself, advises that anyone troubled by it follow their confessor’s opinion without question when he tells you if your sin is mortal or not, and if you should receive Holy Communion or not. Your confessor might tell you to only come to confession once every two weeks, or once a week. Don’t ignore him. Make it simple and place your spiritual struggle in the hands of a competent spiritual authority.
Third, pray about it.
God knows you better than you know yourself, so ask him for accurate self-knowledge and a trustworthy, sensitive conscience that is neither too scrupulous nor lax. Don’t fixate on the sins themselves but, rather, on God’s love and goodness. Give thanks to him for his mercy and forgiveness. Then make a quick, simple inventory of your sins but don’t dwell on them.
For a scrupulous person, far more time during spiritual reflection and prayer should be devoted to love of God than to examining sins. And when you do examine your sins, you might ask God to hear his voice identifying the sins. Once you’re made your examination, take the results with you into the confessional and resist the urge to add to it.
Finally, to structure your prayer time, read on the scriptures or the writings of a saint.
Unstructured prayer time that drifts back to obsessing over sins only reinforces bad habits, but a positive, inspiring meditation on spiritual reading will help create a good habit to replace the bad one.
God's perfect love
In the end, I think it’s probably true that we all suffer from at least some scrupulous fears. Was I sorry enough? Does God still love me? Did he hear me? Did the priest do Mass right? Was my participation good enough? The answer to all these questions hinges on one, simple question – Did I do my best? If the answer is yes, then be assured that Christ makes up the difference. He has promised this. Examinations of conscience, no matter how thorough, are always imperfect. Contrition is always imperfect. But Christ, by his grace, makes them perfect.
Ultimately, we are made perfect not by any effort of our own, but by the love of God. It’s time to take that pebble out of your shoe and walk.
