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One of the greatest gifts that we have received in the Catholic Church is the gift of the sacrament of reconciliation, or as it is sometimes called the sacrament of confession. When I am conscious of having offended God in some way, I make my way to my local Church and enter a small room. In this room, there is a kneeler with a screen behind which sits my pastor. I cannot see him, he cannot see me. If I want to I can kneel down on the kneeler and confess my sins anonymously. I would tell him what sins I had committed since my last confession. He will listen to me and when I am done, he will give me some advice help me live out a better Christian life. I will then express my sorrow for the things that I had done that had become between me and God, assign me a penance to help me make up for what I had done, and then pronounce the words of absolution;
"God the Father of mercies, through the death and resurrection of your son, you have reconciled the world to yourself and sent the Holy Spirit among us for the forgiveness of sins. Through the ministry of the church may God grant you pardon and peace. And I absolve you of your sins, in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. "
"God the Father of mercies, through the death and resurrection of your son, you have reconciled the world to yourself and sent the Holy Spirit among us for the forgiveness of sins. Through the ministry of the church may God grant you pardon and peace. And I absolve you of your sins, in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. "
There are no words that are so pleasant to the ear than these. These words remove the stain of sin from souls and bring those who were living in darkness back into the light. Woe! Hold it! Calm yourself. I know that only God can forgive sin. No, I am not spouting hearsay here. Please continue reading.
A friend of mine, a good Christian, but not a Catholic, told me that she finds it strange that Catholics confess their sins to a priest. She said that when she realizes that she has done something that may have offended God, she goes directly to Him and asks for forgiveness and thus bypasses the human connection. She also says that she feels that she is forgiven. Praying to God for the forgiveness of sins is a good thing to do, and it is a brilliant first step in coming back to God after doing something that has injured your relationship with Him. When my friend goes directly to God for forgiveness, does she receive it? If she expresses perfect contrition for the sin and firm purpose to never commit the sin again I cannot imagine that God would not forgive her. The most important thing here is to have "perfect contrition" for the sin. Perfect contrition means that you are sorry not because you got caught with your hand in the cookie jar and you are sorry that you are going to be punished. No, perfect contrition would be that you were sorry that you were offending the very goodness of God. It pre-supposes that you love God above all things and you do not want to offend Him just because He is God. Perfect contrition is very hard to come by in our ordinary human life. Peter, the first Pope, was forgiven for his treachery on Good Friday by Christ when Jesus asked him three times if Peter loved Him. Jesus asked him if he loved with agape love, that is love for love's sake. Peter answered twice that He loved Jesus in a natural human way. The third time Jesus asked Peter if he loved Him in a natural human way and Peter told Jesus that he did. That was enough for Christ to forgive Peter. In confession, we go through a similar process. Normal, natural, human love is sufficient to attain forgiveness because the priest is not acting as a priest but actually in the person of Christ when he utters those beautiful words of absolution.
But how do we Catholics come up with a ritual that supposedly forgives sin? Didn't Jesus die once on the Cross to save us from sin? Are you Catholics saying it wasn't enough for Him to die?
The sacrament of confession, or penance, or reconciliation, is very Biblical in its origins and was, like all of the sacraments instituted by Christ to give grace. We read in the Gospel of John, Chapter 20 and verses 19 to 23; "Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you. And when he had said this he breathed on them and said to them, "Receive the Holy Spirit. Whose sins you forgive they are forgiven them and whose sins you retain, they are retained""
God breathes on human beings twice in recorded history. The first time was at creation and this is the second time. Jesus breathed the power of the Holy Spirit into the Apostles. They now had authority to forgive sins. We see also that they were not obligated to forgive all sins because they could retain them as well. This begs the question, how are they going to know what sins to forgive and which sins to retain unless the penitent tells them their sins? Verbal recitation of sins to a priest is, therefore mandatory for forgiveness.
But this sounds like nonsense to me. When I sin, I sin against God, not against a priest. Only God is offended by my sin, not my neighbor. Well, I hear you and I have to say that at one time I would have agreed with you. At one time I thought the Sacrament of Confession was not needed, that I could and should go directly to God since I offended Him. Sin is never a private thing. When we sin we sin against God, of course, but we also sin against the Body of Christ. We are the Body of Christ. We need to ask for forgiveness for injuring the unity of the Body of Christ, in other words, even the most private of sins, committed while alone, in darkness, offends the Body of Christ and needs to be forgiven by the Body of Christ. The ordinary way the Lord has given to us is the Sacrament of Confession.
When Jesus gave the power to bind and loose to his Apostles, he knew human nature. After all, Jesus was both fully human and fully Divine when he was on earth. He went through life feeling the warm sun on his back. He heard the children playing their games. He felt love for his mother and father. He worked and earned his bread by the sweat of His brow. He felt joy when his followers understood a truth he labored to give them and he felt disappointment when his discourse failed to persuade. So Jesus knew what it was like to be a human. He also knew that we could make a case for anything that we did. As a human, He knew that we could talk ourselves into any position and that included the power to turn what was wrong into something that was right. This is one reason we are called in the Book of James to confess our sins to one another. In confession, we take ownership of those things that we have done. We lay them on the table and with the priest who is in persona Christi, we admit our faults and promise to work hard to avoid this sin in the future. Then, we are forgiven, as the priest, acting as Christ, formally forgives us in the name of the Church, and in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. We do not have to guess if we had perfect contrition for our sins, they are forgiven by the power of the Divine Judge Himself through our priest.
In the book James, Chapter 5 verse 10 we read;
Confess your sins to one another and pray for one another, that you may be healed.” – James 5:16
I hear some of you saying that on such and such a date at such and such a time, I answered the altar call and made Jesus my personal God and Savior. From that time on I was saved and once saved, always saved! Really? That is not what the Bible says. Recall please Matthew, Chapter 25 to 36 where those that fed Jesus, clothed Him, and visited Him was brought into heaven and those that did not do these things were marched off to hell. Both of the groups had one thing in common. They both knew that the Lord was God and had accepted Him as their savior. In spite of this, those that did not do the His will are taken out of his sight forever. So, once saved, always saved does not really work.
The Sacrament of Confession is a very important sacrament. It is the ordinary way we receive forgiveness of the sins we commit every day. Confessing keeps us honest and humble. I have to say that I think that in my generation and after the sacrament has fallen into disfavor with the congregation. When I was a boy, we went to confession almost every Saturday. At my parish, there were four priests that heard confessions and there was a line at each of the confessional boxes. Today, my parish has one priest and is able to fit all of the people who want to go to confession into a one hour slot on Saturday afternoon. It is possible that perhaps sin is on a downward trend and that people are really not as sinful as they used to be. Or it may just be the fact that they are afraid and uncomfortable to go to confession. That feeling of fear and discomfort about confessing has a technical name, it is called "conscience." I go to confession once a month. I am never comfortable doing it. When I am sitting there with my Pastor and he is carefully listening to me recite the errors of my ways I am very uncomfortable. When I hear those wonderful words of forgiveness, that free me from my sins, the discomfort is displaced by joy in my heart. Besides the Eucharist, I believe that the Sacrament of Confession is this most powerful of the gifts that Jesus gave to his Apostles that have been passed down to us through the ages.
The Catechism of the Catholic Church explains in easy to understand detail both what the Church believes and why the Church believes it. This resource is available for free for everybody online. I heartily recommend that both those that love the Church and those that do not reference this resource and use the Church's own words to bolster your arguments. It is a funny thing but once you start reading this book you begin to see that it all coalesces into a very neat package that provides both the what and the why and the Biblical source for beliefs. This is why I recommend this book to those that hate the Catholic Church. What better source than the Church's own writings to bring her down? The writings Lorraine Bittner and Jack Chick are filled with half-truths and outright lies about the Church. Using them to bolster arguments against the Church only serve to perpetuate lies and ignorance. Get the straight dope, go to the source.
Below are 21 reasons to go to confession. I copied them from the Aggie Catholic Blog.
21 Reasons To Go To Confession
God commanded we confess our sins to one another in the Bible. (James 5:16)
It is the ordinary way to have our sins forgiven.
We receive grace to resist sin through the Sacrament, as well as forgiveness.
We learn humility by having to confess to another person.
There is built-in accountability.
Our relationship with the rest of the Church is healed.
We receive counsel from the priest.
We can be comforted hearing the words of absolution.
All are sins are wiped away.
Helps give you the strength to forgive others.
It doesn’t cost anything.
We may not be positive that we have “perfect” contrition without it.
Helps us go deep within and think about how we can improve.
It feels good emotionally.
When we realize (again) we are sinners, it is easier to be patient with others.
Always confidential – what is said in the confessional stays in the confessional.
No more guilt.
We are better prepared to receive the Eucharist.
Forgiveness is a necessary part of growing in holiness.
Our consciences can be better formed.
If we have mortally sinned, then Confession brings us back into the family of God – The Church as well as restores sanctifying grace in our souls
A friend of mine, a good Christian, but not a Catholic, told me that she finds it strange that Catholics confess their sins to a priest. She said that when she realizes that she has done something that may have offended God, she goes directly to Him and asks for forgiveness and thus bypasses the human connection. She also says that she feels that she is forgiven. Praying to God for the forgiveness of sins is a good thing to do, and it is a brilliant first step in coming back to God after doing something that has injured your relationship with Him. When my friend goes directly to God for forgiveness, does she receive it? If she expresses perfect contrition for the sin and firm purpose to never commit the sin again I cannot imagine that God would not forgive her. The most important thing here is to have "perfect contrition" for the sin. Perfect contrition means that you are sorry not because you got caught with your hand in the cookie jar and you are sorry that you are going to be punished. No, perfect contrition would be that you were sorry that you were offending the very goodness of God. It pre-supposes that you love God above all things and you do not want to offend Him just because He is God. Perfect contrition is very hard to come by in our ordinary human life. Peter, the first Pope, was forgiven for his treachery on Good Friday by Christ when Jesus asked him three times if Peter loved Him. Jesus asked him if he loved with agape love, that is love for love's sake. Peter answered twice that He loved Jesus in a natural human way. The third time Jesus asked Peter if he loved Him in a natural human way and Peter told Jesus that he did. That was enough for Christ to forgive Peter. In confession, we go through a similar process. Normal, natural, human love is sufficient to attain forgiveness because the priest is not acting as a priest but actually in the person of Christ when he utters those beautiful words of absolution.
But how do we Catholics come up with a ritual that supposedly forgives sin? Didn't Jesus die once on the Cross to save us from sin? Are you Catholics saying it wasn't enough for Him to die?
The sacrament of confession, or penance, or reconciliation, is very Biblical in its origins and was, like all of the sacraments instituted by Christ to give grace. We read in the Gospel of John, Chapter 20 and verses 19 to 23; "Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you. And when he had said this he breathed on them and said to them, "Receive the Holy Spirit. Whose sins you forgive they are forgiven them and whose sins you retain, they are retained""
God breathes on human beings twice in recorded history. The first time was at creation and this is the second time. Jesus breathed the power of the Holy Spirit into the Apostles. They now had authority to forgive sins. We see also that they were not obligated to forgive all sins because they could retain them as well. This begs the question, how are they going to know what sins to forgive and which sins to retain unless the penitent tells them their sins? Verbal recitation of sins to a priest is, therefore mandatory for forgiveness.
But this sounds like nonsense to me. When I sin, I sin against God, not against a priest. Only God is offended by my sin, not my neighbor. Well, I hear you and I have to say that at one time I would have agreed with you. At one time I thought the Sacrament of Confession was not needed, that I could and should go directly to God since I offended Him. Sin is never a private thing. When we sin we sin against God, of course, but we also sin against the Body of Christ. We are the Body of Christ. We need to ask for forgiveness for injuring the unity of the Body of Christ, in other words, even the most private of sins, committed while alone, in darkness, offends the Body of Christ and needs to be forgiven by the Body of Christ. The ordinary way the Lord has given to us is the Sacrament of Confession.
When Jesus gave the power to bind and loose to his Apostles, he knew human nature. After all, Jesus was both fully human and fully Divine when he was on earth. He went through life feeling the warm sun on his back. He heard the children playing their games. He felt love for his mother and father. He worked and earned his bread by the sweat of His brow. He felt joy when his followers understood a truth he labored to give them and he felt disappointment when his discourse failed to persuade. So Jesus knew what it was like to be a human. He also knew that we could make a case for anything that we did. As a human, He knew that we could talk ourselves into any position and that included the power to turn what was wrong into something that was right. This is one reason we are called in the Book of James to confess our sins to one another. In confession, we take ownership of those things that we have done. We lay them on the table and with the priest who is in persona Christi, we admit our faults and promise to work hard to avoid this sin in the future. Then, we are forgiven, as the priest, acting as Christ, formally forgives us in the name of the Church, and in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. We do not have to guess if we had perfect contrition for our sins, they are forgiven by the power of the Divine Judge Himself through our priest.
In the book James, Chapter 5 verse 10 we read;
Confess your sins to one another and pray for one another, that you may be healed.” – James 5:16
I hear some of you saying that on such and such a date at such and such a time, I answered the altar call and made Jesus my personal God and Savior. From that time on I was saved and once saved, always saved! Really? That is not what the Bible says. Recall please Matthew, Chapter 25 to 36 where those that fed Jesus, clothed Him, and visited Him was brought into heaven and those that did not do these things were marched off to hell. Both of the groups had one thing in common. They both knew that the Lord was God and had accepted Him as their savior. In spite of this, those that did not do the His will are taken out of his sight forever. So, once saved, always saved does not really work.
The Sacrament of Confession is a very important sacrament. It is the ordinary way we receive forgiveness of the sins we commit every day. Confessing keeps us honest and humble. I have to say that I think that in my generation and after the sacrament has fallen into disfavor with the congregation. When I was a boy, we went to confession almost every Saturday. At my parish, there were four priests that heard confessions and there was a line at each of the confessional boxes. Today, my parish has one priest and is able to fit all of the people who want to go to confession into a one hour slot on Saturday afternoon. It is possible that perhaps sin is on a downward trend and that people are really not as sinful as they used to be. Or it may just be the fact that they are afraid and uncomfortable to go to confession. That feeling of fear and discomfort about confessing has a technical name, it is called "conscience." I go to confession once a month. I am never comfortable doing it. When I am sitting there with my Pastor and he is carefully listening to me recite the errors of my ways I am very uncomfortable. When I hear those wonderful words of forgiveness, that free me from my sins, the discomfort is displaced by joy in my heart. Besides the Eucharist, I believe that the Sacrament of Confession is this most powerful of the gifts that Jesus gave to his Apostles that have been passed down to us through the ages.
The Catechism of the Catholic Church explains in easy to understand detail both what the Church believes and why the Church believes it. This resource is available for free for everybody online. I heartily recommend that both those that love the Church and those that do not reference this resource and use the Church's own words to bolster your arguments. It is a funny thing but once you start reading this book you begin to see that it all coalesces into a very neat package that provides both the what and the why and the Biblical source for beliefs. This is why I recommend this book to those that hate the Catholic Church. What better source than the Church's own writings to bring her down? The writings Lorraine Bittner and Jack Chick are filled with half-truths and outright lies about the Church. Using them to bolster arguments against the Church only serve to perpetuate lies and ignorance. Get the straight dope, go to the source.
Below are 21 reasons to go to confession. I copied them from the Aggie Catholic Blog.
21 Reasons To Go To Confession
God commanded we confess our sins to one another in the Bible. (James 5:16)
It is the ordinary way to have our sins forgiven.
We receive grace to resist sin through the Sacrament, as well as forgiveness.
We learn humility by having to confess to another person.
There is built-in accountability.
Our relationship with the rest of the Church is healed.
We receive counsel from the priest.
We can be comforted hearing the words of absolution.
All are sins are wiped away.
Helps give you the strength to forgive others.
It doesn’t cost anything.
We may not be positive that we have “perfect” contrition without it.
Helps us go deep within and think about how we can improve.
It feels good emotionally.
When we realize (again) we are sinners, it is easier to be patient with others.
Always confidential – what is said in the confessional stays in the confessional.
No more guilt.
We are better prepared to receive the Eucharist.
Forgiveness is a necessary part of growing in holiness.
Our consciences can be better formed.
If we have mortally sinned, then Confession brings us back into the family of God – The Church as well as restores sanctifying grace in our souls
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