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 ...
To be precise about it, the name of the Sacrament is PENANCE. Flip over your Baptismal Certificate.
It's about being penitent for ones' sins. Contrition is not just an act. The more you do it, the more it becomes meaningful.
Yep -- I went last evening. There had to have been 15 in line ahead of me, several in the pews, doing their penance, and at least a dozen who came in after me. (Then again, I'm located in a fairly conservative parish.)
It fell off long before that. My guess - from a post Vat II brat perspective - is that in a world that has no shame, where love the sinner and hate the sin has become the culture more than instructing on what sin is, people don't quite understand that they are sinning.
And honestly, I go to Confession often and I don't remember the last time I didn't have to wait in line. I think it really depends on where you are. The people who flock to parishes with AmChurch type priests aren't likely to take advantage of confessing sins.
If they need a chance to feel fulfilled, superior and secure in their religions decisions and in themselves by belittling others' religion, let it be me, rather than someone who might take it personally and seriously.
(Darn. Now I suppose I've got to add a few more venials to next weeks' list.)
Not totally, but a good chunk. There are places out there where applause is discouraged and where solemnity is practiced. You have to look for it, but it's there.
A few months ago I took my young daughter to an older Church and after mass I showed her the confessionals - it looked weird to her - I opened the door and showed her how we used to go to confession - She looked shocked about it.
It does...at our Catholic Church (every year) at Easter we have new Catholics baptised (or if they've already been baptised in a Christian Church - they recieve all their sacraments (usually about 10 in total) and I'd say almost 70% were from Protestant Churches - we've had some Jewish converts and the others usually weren't raised with any religion.
You can believe that the moon is made out of cheese if you want, too. Your belief doesn't change the fact that it isn't or that Marajade is indeed ignorant.
The BIBLE and early christian tradition teach that one must publicly testify their sins to fellow believers, NOT to some guy who Rome designates as a cleric,
Unfortunately for you and all the other self proclaimed "Bible experts" here, Christ, St. Matthew, St. John and St. Paul, disagree with you.
"And I say to thee: That thou art Peter; and upon this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. And I will give to thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven. And whatsoever thou shalt bind upon earth, it shall be bound also in heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt loose upon earth, it shall be loosed also in heaven." Matthew 16:18-19
"Amen I say to you, whatsoever you shall bind upon earth, shall be bound also in heaven; and whatsoever you shall loose upon earth, shall be loosed also in heaven." Matthew 18:18
"When he had said this, he breathed on them; and he said to them: Receive ye the Holy Ghost. Whose sins you shall forgive, they are forgiven them; and whose sins you shall retain, they are retained." John 20:22-23
"But all things are of God, who hath reconciled us to himself by Christ; and hath given to us the ministry of reconciliation. For God indeed was in Christ, reconciling the world to himself, not imputing to them their sins; and he hath placed in us the word of reconciliation. For Christ therefore we are ambassadors, God as it were exhorting by us. For Christ, we beseech you, be reconciled to God. Him, who knew no sin, he hath made sin for us, that we might be made the justice of God in him." 2 Corinthians 5:18-21
The following also disagree with you.
"Let us not listen to those who deny that the Church of God has power to forgive all sins" St. Augustine
rebuking the Novatianists who "professed to show reverence for the Lord by reserving to Him alone the power of forgiving sins. Greater wrong could not be done than what they do in seeking to rescind His commands and fling back the office He bestowed. . . . The Church obeys Him in both respects, by binding sin and by loosing it; for the Lord willed that for both the power should be equal" St. Ambrose
"It seemed impossible that sins should be forgiven through penance; Christ granted this (power) to the Apostles and from the Apostles it has been transmitted to the office of priests" St. Ambrose
"God makes no distinction; He promised mercy to all and to His priests He granted the authority to pardon without any exception" St. Ambrose
"This (forgiving sins), you say, only God can do. Quite true: but what He does through His priests is the doing of His own power" St. Pacien
"Men filled with the spirit of God (i.e. priests) forgive sins in two ways, either by admitting to baptism those who are worthy or by pardoning the penitent children of the Church" St. Cyril of Alexandria
the priest's power of forgiving sins "penetrates to the soul and reaches up to heaven". Wherefore, he concludes, "it were manifest folly to condemn so great a power without which we can neither obtain heaven nor come to the fulfillment of the promises. . . . Not only when they (the priests) regenerate us (baptism), but also after our new birth, they can forgive us our sins" St. John Chrysostom
"As the man whom the priest baptizes is enlightened by the grace of the Holy Ghost, so does he who in penance confesses his sins, receive through the priest forgiveness in virtue of the grace of Christ" St. Athanasius
It was such intolerance and blind faithfulness to practices not mentioned in the scriptures or practiced by the Church pre-Nicea that drove me away from the RC Church.
Quid est veritas? You left of your own free will. Reject the truth if you wish but don't try and use the Church and your ignorance of Scripture and history as scapegoats for your decision.
Many of us still go to Confession that way. Our confessionals have a screen and curtains to maintain anonymity.
If contrition isn't a reality, if you are just going through the motions, you certainly aren't getting the benefit.
There's an act of contrition that I occasioanlly meditate with:
O Lord Jesus, lover of our souls, who, for the great love with which You loved us, willed not the death of a sinner, but rather that he should be converted and live, I grieve from the bottom of my heart that I offended You, my most loving Master and Redeemer, to whom all sin is infinitely displeasing, who so loved that You shed Your blood for me, and endured the bitter torments of a most cruel death. O my God, my infinite Goodness, would that I never offended You. Pardon me, O Lord Jesus, as I most humbly implore Your mercy. Have pity on a sinner for whom Your blood pleads before the face of the Father.
O merciful and forgiving Lord, for the love of Your, I forgive all who have ever offended me. I firmly resolve to forsake and flee from all sins, and to avoid the occasions of them, to confess, in bitterness of spirit, all those sins which I committed against Your divine goodness, and to Love You, O my God, for Your own sake, above all things and for ever. Grant me grace so to do, most gracious Lord Jesus.
__
For me, this helps bring to me back to the Passion, that my sins have consequences, that they too, were part of the weight Jesus bore at Calvary, that God loves us so much he was willing do to something about it instead of just throw me, deservingly, into the outer darkness.
In sorrow at my failure, I come to him, and say, Lord, have mercy. In thanksgiving for his mercy, I celebrate. Because of his love, I choose to make his love the model for mine, although I can only try to reach such a lofty goal, and because of what my sin does, and because of the great price he paid to save me from it, I strive hard with his help to avoid the near occasion of sin, and pray that with his help I may go and if not sin no more, try to.
Ugh, the applause at the end of Mass is very common in a lot of parishes I've been to in here in Phoenix. Makes me cringe--along with the hand-holding during the Our Father and, to a lesser extent, the open-palmed "... and also with you" etc. hand gestures.
A timely article that relates to this subject:
As do ours. In our parish we are blessed with two priests who work the sacrament of penance into their homilies nearly every week.
One of them who spent a lot of time in Calcutta (and returns there annually) told me that Mother Teresa's nuns go to confession once a week!
Don't forget, it is not only sins of commission that need absolution!
Or perhaps it was your own historical ignorance on this point ...
Origen, teaching at Caesarea towards the middle of the third century, here indicates that those persons who submit to the Penance of the Church make their confession to a "priest of the Lord," who indicates the penance or penalty. This penance then takes the severe form of the early exomologesis. S. Cyprian will be found similarly to speak of confessions made to the priest. And these passages point to a procedure which was probably normal. The confession of the penitent does not appear to be made in open congregation but to the priest, who hears it and indicates the measure of the penance. (Oskar Watkins, A History of Penance, Vol. 1 (London: Longmans, 1920), 137)
Q. 632. Where will persons go who -- such as infants -- have not committed actual sin and who, through no fault of theirs, die without baptism?A. Persons, such as infants, who have not committed actual sin and who, through no fault of theirs, die without baptism, cannot enter heaven; but it is the common belief they will go to some place similar to Limbo, where they will be free from suffering, though deprived of the happiness of heaven.
From the Baltimore Catechism No. 3. This was the standard pre-conciliar text for religious education.
Limbo is the only sensible explanation of the fate of children departing without baptism. "Unless a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God."
We have something like 26 people in our RCIA program this year. A lot. I'm not sure the mix. Some will no doubt be coming out of various other churches, but some are probably unchurched as well.
But on the other hand, God is certainly able to care for the children who die like this, and the truth is, we don't know exactly. We speculate, based on what the teachings of the church are, but God will do what God wants to do. So we leave their fate in the merciful hands of the one who said, "Let the children come to me," and, "That it was better to tie a millstone around your neck and cast yourself into the sea than harm one of these."
I do not believe it's a misplaced trust.
I guess you like to ignore the parts you don't like. I won't get into a theological discussion with you but I will pray for you.
It can also be useful calling one's pastor. Mine, for instance, will really and truly always make time to hear confessions for those in need. If you have a weird schedule, perhaps your pastor will set up a standing appointment with you.
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