“Bless me, Father, for I have sinned. It has been a day since my last confession. I wanted to Stooge-slap someone yesterday...”
Posted on 03/28/2014 6:23:12 PM PDT by NYer
Then you have no way of knowing whether or not your sins are forgiven. That is why our Lord entrusted it to the Apostles and those who came after them.
"And when he had said this, he breathed on [them], and saith unto them, Receive ye the Holy Ghost: Whose soever sins ye remit, they are remitted unto them; [and] whose soever [sins] ye retain, they are retained." - John 20:22-23
From the Catechism of the Catholic Church - "The confessor is not the master of God's forgiveness, but its servant. The minister of this sacrament should unite himself to the intention and charity of Christ. [Cf. PO 13.] He should have a proven knowledge of Christian behavior, experience of human affairs, respect and sensitivity toward the one who has fallen; he must love the truth, be faithful to the Magisterium of the Church, and lead the penitent with patience toward healing and full maturity. He must pray and do penance for his penitent, entrusting him to the Lord's mercy."
Is there precedent for this? Have other popes gone to confession or is Francesco I the first?
John Paul II went to Confession weekly.
All popes go to confession because, like you and me, they too are sinners. What sets this particular incident apart is that he chose to do so in full view of those waiting to have their confessions heard. IOW, he set the example. Another extraordinary example of humility occurred with Pope JPII. See the link at my post #7.
Because a priest says so? The Bible tells me that if I confess my sins to Jesus they will be forgiven.
During my waking hours, I pray to Jesus every time I realize I have sinned. At night, before I go to sleep, I spend time asking Jesus for forgiveness for all the sins I have committed during the day. I go to sleep every night knowing I am forgiven and if Jesus decides to take me to heaven during the night, I know I go with a clear conscience and a forgiven soul.
And no priest needed.
You won’t confuse it with a present-day action film, but I like it.
Thank you both. I hadn’t realized this.
The Bible says to go through a mediator.
"And when he had said this, he breathed on [them], and saith unto them, Receive ye the Holy Ghost: Whose soever sins ye remit, they are remitted unto them; [and] whose soever [sins] ye retain, they are retained." - John 20:22-23
1Timothy 2v5:”For there is one God, and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus.
Nice to see you back 2ndDivisionVet (((((Hugs)))))
And Jesus, the mediator, entrusted to his Apostles the responsibility to hear confession, as stated in John 20:22-23. Scripture is quite clear.
In John 20:22-23 Jesus first invested the disciples with the power of the Holy Spirit, and immediately conveyed the ability to either forgive sins or not. This simply means that they were being empowered to bring people into the Church. Any time we “bring someone to the Lord” by saying the sinner’s prayer with them, we are exercising the same power.
This is not an issue of confessing to a priest and doing whatever penance He determines to receive forgiveness. 1 John 1:9 says we can confess our sins directly to the Lord and are immediately forgiven without prejudice. No third party is necessary to accomplish this.
doc1019 in post 25: "The Bible tells me that if I confess my sins to Jesus they will be forgiven."
doc1019 in post 32: "1 John 1:9 says we can confess our sins directly to the Lord and are immediately forgiven without prejudice. No third party is necessary to accomplish this. "
= = = = = = = = = = = = =
For very good reasons, God chooses middlemen and middlewomen to do so very many things through God's kind and gracious delegation processes.
For example, God could easily have just said, "Let there be a Bible!", and a complete Bible would immediately appear, with every single word in it, but, instead, God chose to use weak and humble "middlemen" sinners to write every single word in His Bible that you and I can read today.
God also could have just said, "Let there be doc1019!", and there you would have been also, but, instead, God chose to use a "middleman" and a "middlewoman" (your Dad and Mom) to work with Him to bring you here.
It is always and everywhere much better to accept God's holy, sovereign, omniscient choices than to reject them. (And God's Bible does tell you how God set that "confession" process up -- see post #21. That also provides another way for people to receive guidance concerning some specific sins they might be struggling with right now, from a "spiritual-director priest", who can sort of provide a specifically directed "mini-sermon" to help them out with what they are dealing with at the present time in their own personal lives.)
By the way, Catholics also confess our sins directly to Jesus, and ask his forgiveness and direct guidance, but why would we want to reject the "Sacrament of Reconciliation" God deliberately chose to set up for us for our own good, any more than we would want to reject the Bible God chose to have written and set up for us completely by middlemen for our own good, even though He could just as easily have merely spoken all those Biblical words directly to our hearts and minds, without using any middlemen at all?
Here is what 1 John 1:9 actually says:
- - - - - - - - - - - - -
If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. 1 John 1:9- - - - - - - - - - - - -
(Notice the real truth that there is absolutely nothing whatsoever in that text that actually tells you how to do that "confessing" -- you are completely making those ideas up in your own mind that it means just confessing directly to Jesus at various times of the day, with no one else -- no third party -- ever involved, which it obviously does NOT say anywhere in that text, and the sacramental mechanism Jesus defined for doing that confession is actually specified in those other texts in the Bible which were already shared with you.)
“Bless me, Father, for I have sinned. It has been a day since my last confession. I wanted to Stooge-slap someone yesterday...”
Lol..you made my morning.
Forgiveness Through a Priest
http://www.bereanbeacon.org/article/sorted/01_On_Catholicism/Forgiveness_through_a_priest.pdf
Don’t let the traditions of popery bind your conscience. Come to Christ and find rest and true liberty.
“If the Son therefore shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed.”
—John 8:36
“Beware lest any man spoil you through philosophy and vain deceit, after the tradition of men, after the rudiments of the world, and not after Christ.”
—Colossians 2:8
Dollinger was excommunicated in 1871. As for his declaration, that too is false.
"God never threatens the repentant, rather He pardons the penitent. You will say that it is God alone who can do this. True enough, but it is likewise true that He does it through his priests, who exercise His power." - St. Pacianus of Barcelona (4th century A.D.)
It better be good in light of the story posted above this one.
Do not be surprised when it gets closer to when Blessed Pope John Paul II is declared a saint in about a month’s time, that article will “travel” online more.
Good one. Now one for you. We had a confirmation teen become pregnant. She still wanted to be confirmed and after meeting with our Pastor, he allowed her to continue. When we had the Reconciliation service, she came to me and nervously stated she did not remember the date she got pregnant to confess to the Priest! I smiled and told her to just speak from her heart. She came out of the confessional with a beautiful glow. Good news is baby was born healthy and she and the dad should be getting married soon.
P.S. Before I knew she was pregnant, I (really was the Holy Spirit) gave her small class group the assignment to make a poster about the Church’s position on abortion. She did a beautiful job of taking the Catechism words into a simple message for the class.
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