Posted on 11/19/2005 12:52:27 PM PST by Antioch
A Catholic friend of mine recently went to confession at her parish church for the first time in years. She had personal reasons for wanting to seek absolution, but there was this, too: She said she'd long felt a little sorry for the priests sitting alone in their confessional boxes, waiting for sinners to arrive.
A generation ago, you'd see a lot of us lined up inside Catholic churches on Saturday afternoons, waiting to take our turn in one of the confessionals. We'd recite the familiar phrases ("Bless me Father, for I have sinned"), list our transgressions and the number of times we'd committed them, maybe endure a priestly lecture, and emerge to recite a few Hail Marys as an act of penance. In some parishes, the machinery of forgiveness was so well-oiled you could see the line move. Confession was essential to Catholic faith and a badge of Catholic identity. It also carried with it the promise of personal renewal. Yet in most parishes, the lines for the confessionals have pretty much disappeared. Confession—or the sacrament of reconciliation, as it's officially known—has become the one sacrament casual Catholics feel free to skip. We'll get married in church, we'll be buried from church, and we'll take Communion at Mass. But regularly confessing one's sins to God and the parish priest seems to be a part of fewer and fewer Catholic lives. Where have all the sinners gone?
(Excerpt) Read more at slate.com ...
Well said Rosary. It is the belittling of the graveness of sin, which begets the irreverence of confession as a sacrament. The Slate article identifies the phenomenon well, but it is descriptive, illustrating it on a psychological or sociological plane. Only the Holy Spirit can give us a supernatural perception and understanding of the sacraments. Our communion with this saint, the Cure of Ars, on the bare confessional, illuminates the true nature of what is happening.
John Vianney accomplished dramatic results rarely seen in history. He drew thousands of penitents to line up, sometimes three days in advance, to experience what many recalled as his ability to see into the deepest recesses of the soul. He was holy in his simplicity: He praised the beauty of prayer: “The soul should move toward prayer the way a fish should move toward water; they are both a purely natural state.” He advised on the love of the cross: “My children, it is in loving the cross that we find true peace, not running from it.” And he encouraged a love of the Eucharist: “There is no better way to experience the good God than to find him in the perfect sacrifice of the Mass.” Of confession, he saw it for what it was, INTEGRAL to true conversion and one of the most powerful roads to reconciliation with God.
Could I imagine a mid-town parish in an affluent neighborhood of my city suddenly drawing "thousands of penitents to line up, sometimes three days in advance?" Not if I listened to the Catholic commentators or sociologists. But God foresaw a time such as ours and used St. John Vianney and others to promise us that the power of this sacrament to save has never left us.
Amen. Catholics proclaim the same.
But exactly how is it that you know the Bible is the inspired word of God?
God have mercy on those priests who are knowingly serving to a communicant whom they know to be in a state of mortal sin. In such cases, it's his obligation to privately meet with the communicant and engage in pastoral correction, making clear the norms for reception of Communion.
More in line with your examples, however, priests have to know that the odds are good that there are a lot of sacrilegious communions being served. But they're not mind readers, so they can't be blamed if the communicant willingly violates the sacrament.
In that environment, though, the bishops and the priests do have a duty to firmly, charitably and repeatedly instruct their parishioners as to the Church teachings on reception of Communion.
(Links for any lurkers whose interest may have been piqued by this thread. Learn for yourself what the Church teaches, not what Her enemies claim She teaches: CATECHISM OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH
EWTN: The Teachings of the Catholic Church )
"Limbo is the only sensible explanation of the fate of children departing without baptism."
Your response basically echos the teaching I received regarding Limbo. I don't recall being told "but it is the common belief" and I doubt if that was included in discussing Limbo.
I have moved past a time when fear of God was emphasized over a God who loves everyone of us, and yes, God wants us live according to his commandments.
Considering unbaptized children, I just can't fathom a loving Father refusing them an eternity with Him. Regardless of anything which disputes that, the will of the Almighty takes precedence.
I hasten to say that we cannot always assume we know the mind of God.
could be that many Roman Catholics haved learned that they don't need to go through a priest to ask God for forgiveness.
Could be that many Roman Catholics haved learned that they don't need to go through a priest to ask God for forgiveness.
It is per parish it seems. There's a parish in the trendy part of my city, Our Lady of Lourdes. Its a beautiful, vaulted 19th century church, but it's under Jesuit occupation and full of heterodox, modernist priests. They have a "mission statement," social justice initiatives, an AIDS Hospice, and Dignity Masses on Wednesdays. Visiting it once, I noticed the sparse attendance but with 99% of people taking communion, (and you can bet 100% of Dignity people take it). Confession is nearly ignored, not even mentioned in their website or bulletin, and only by appointment
I contrast Lourdes with my parish in the poor, uncool part of the city. We don't have the gilded columns, stonework and filigrees, but we have our priests who are orthodox and reverent. The Mass is attended to capacity. If I get there early for the evening spoken mass, I invariably see, in the silence, 20 or 30 (often young) people, kneeling and praying. During communion, usually about 2/3rds go to the rail with 1/3 staying behind on their kneelers. Confession periods are also generously provided for, and its importance is central to their RCIA instruction.
There seems to be an inverse relationship of communion to confession which one can see in a given parish. When everyone takes the former, there's no perceived need for the latter.
I love that graphic!
:-))
More like sin and shame aren't taught in a lot of places. My parish does teach it and there are always lines for Confession. On Good Friday, they had to add hours after the service because the lines were so long. With five confessionals going.
Very good post. May God bless you.
One of Christ's chosen 12 betrayed him. The one He chose to lead the Church in Her infancy ran from the Passion and Crucifixion denying knowing Him three times.
We do not know why people are chosen in the way they are. It is not an easy thing to find out that a priest you trust with your deepest thoughts and darkest actions does unspeakable things, but there aren't nearly as many as has been intimated. In everything that broke in my archdiocese, there was exactly one true pedophile (he's been laicized and is in prison). The rest were more after teenage boys - as was the vast majority of those who are no longer serving us in that capacity.
All of that has nothing to do with the Sacrament of Penance. It's amazing how liberating it is to say it out loud and to hear a priest say "I absolve you of your sins." It's part of keeping watch and being ready, just like the Gospel reading of the 10 virgins a few weeks back. This opportunity is always there and people are fools in they don't take advantage of it.
Only if there were World Series tickets involved.
I suspect, Catholic are using RONCO's new "Home Confessionals". Why go out when you can confess your sins at home.(TM)
My parish does have marble and mosiac tile. It's really a tourist attration. It's amazing how much more reverent the young people are who regularly go to Mass there. The tourist kind of look at us like we are part of the ambiance, I guess. The older people in the parish just don't get it.
[Why have Catholics stopped lining up at the confessional?]
Perhaps Catholics do not believe the bible anymore starting with "In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth".
And why are so many of them liberal democrats?
There is something to this. I see it among some friends. What's really sad is it exists among so many cradle Catholics now too.
I think we see all over the place, younger people flocking to where the services are orthodox and the priests actually believe what the Vatican teaches.
My parish seems to be growing in the number of young families with lots of kids. Our priest added two evening masses to his mass schedule, more time to his confession hours, and we're building a new, larger, and more reverently designed church, where we will no longer have to kneel on the floor and sit in movable chairs. With luck on the weather, we'll be in it by Easter.
Isn't this thought reflective of one of the ancient heresies? The efficacy of God's grace is dependent on the holiness of the minister.
An analogous thought would be that people who anwered an altar call by Jimmy Swaggert didn't really establish a personal relationship with Jesus because Jimmy was engaged in kinky weirdness the night before.
Oddly enough, the ones I kow who are democrat are largely socially conservative and are slowly waking up and seeing reality. In most cases, being democrat was more of a tradition than anything else.
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