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In those words, Jesus Christ ordains the sacrament of Repentance meaning that he bestows on the disciples and their descendants who are the bishops who committed to the priests the power of: "forgiveness of the sins of the repentant confessors intending the loyalty who lost by the sin what they got from the goodness because of God and his grace in the baptism", and each believer has to confess his sins to the priest in order to get the forgiveness. The power of deliverance and holding which by its power "whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loosen on earth will be loosed in heaven", (Matthew 18:18) overpass the power of humanity because no one "can forgive sins but God alone". (Mark 2:7). And the disciples and their descendants couldn't have it without the one who "has authority on earth to forgive sins..." (Mark 2:10). Because the priest cannot forgive the sins except in the name of God and his power, so the christian who confesses to him doesn't confess to a human; he might be a sinner and he is not allowed to ascend the secret thoughts of the conscious but he confesses to God through his representative and to him open his heart and entreat forgiveness. Condition of his Acceptance The supports of the sacrament of repentance are deliverance of the priest and the acts of the repentant that are three: 1. The first one is the contrition which requires that the repentant feels heartily sorry from a disobedience he committed intending not to do it again in the future. 2. The second one is the tongue's confession which requires that the confessor has to avow to the priest a total confession in every preserved sin. 3. The third one is the atonement of the offense according to the priest's belief and supported especially by prayer, fasting and the truth.
So, the christian sinner has to examine his conscience:
And obviously, the real repentance including all the sins is important to get the pardon because God does not forgive whose heart is still far from him and attached to the sin. Testimony of the Repentance After becoming mature, every believer, man or woman, has to confess to a confirmed priest, even if he was the server of the mission or not, will all his sins, at least once a year, during the forty days of Lent. And he has to pay back the expiation he owed as much as he can and to take with respect the Eucharist at least during Easter... or he will be forbidden to go into the church during his life, and will be denied the christian burial when he is deceased. (The Lebanese Council: Sacrament of Repentance) This is a testimony, that every christian if he failed in the deadly sin, has to move in his heart the feeling of regret and to hasten to accept the forgiveness, in order not to be forbidden God's love and deserve his works, and not risk himself to die in the sin.
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