Posted on 10/25/2013 6:15:15 AM PDT by marshmallow
Confessing our sins is not like going to see a psychiatrist, Pope Francis has said.
The Pope spoke about the Sacrament of Reconciliation in his homily at the Santa Marta guesthouse this morning.
He said the only way of reaching God’s love is to go to him with the same honesty, transparency and simplicity that children have, accepting the “grace of shame” that lets us feel God’s forgiveness.
The Pope warned about the difficulty of life as “every time we want to do good, evil is next to us”. “This is the struggle of Christians. This is our struggle everyday. And we do not always have the courage to speak as Paul speaks of this struggle. We always seek a way of justification: ‘But yes, we are all sinners’”, the Pope said.
(Excerpt) Read more at catholicherald.co.uk ...
That’s the party line for sure. And I’ve been learning that it’s not even accurate. Even if it were, why would the Church after hundreds of years choose to do this? How is this not saying that the Church was WRONG for all of those years?
Actually, it is my understanding that Mass in the Early Church was held facing east (both the people and the priest).
In the early years, the first Christians were Jewish converts. In Jewish synagogues, the language used was not the vernacular, but the dead language, Hebrew.
Indulgences?
No money involved; no system to buy into.....just say your prayers.
Where do you get these false statements?
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"I see it with women the most. If there are more than 3 in front of me I know there's a good chance the priest is going to have to hear my confession after mass. The men usually are more interested in telling them in as few words as possible than going on a long tangent."
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I know what you mean too.
(And in our parish, it always seems to be the sweetest, most saintly, angelic women who take the longest in there! I know it is wrong to do, and I should really be minding my own business, and carefully re-examining my own conscience, and re-reviewing my own sins, but to while away the time, I sometimes start thinking, "Holy-moly, exactly what kinds of sins does a sweet old lady like that commit, and how many sins can such a dear old woman squeeze into just one week?!? And where in the world does she get the energy to sin so much?!?") (That's for the ones who go to confession every week.)
(Mea culpa! Mea culpa! Mea maxima culpa!) :-)
(Matthew Kelly also explains why it was a good idea that Jesus in His infinite, Divine Wisdom, deliberately set this Sacrament up the way He did (to go through other humans), not just trying to do it solely as a "me-and-Jesus" kind of thing, as many non-Catholics seek to do exclusively for their confessions.)
One of my sons made that very observation about an 85-year-old lady in the wheelchair, who was taking longer in Confession than James thought reasonable.
Now Hebrew is the living language of the present nation of Israel.
And your point?
In the churches still standing and not replaced by aircraft hangars, the altar and the crucifix face the east wall. The priest, replaced by the assembly presider, prayed to Jesus Christ, God and the Holy Trinity and not to the congregants.
Great point.
Our overactive, highly trained minds are unfortunately operating at cross purposes.
I do believe we are on the same side.
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