After Confession

Now wasn't that refreshing?  Congratulations!  It's time to celebrate.

Our favorite celebration spot is anywhere that serves ICE CREAM!  We even go in the winter, although our tenacious one had to have her coat off for this shot.

May you have a Blessed Easter closely united with Christ.

On Confession Part 4

Seeking out a priest to administer the Sacrament.

When choosing a priest for your Confession, especially if it has been a while, the very best advice I can give is to pray.

I was at a Lenten Symposium this weekend and I took advantage of the opportunity to go to Confession.  As I sat in front of the Blessed Sacrament examining my conscience (with the Divine aid of the Holy Spirit...remember I said ask Him and He'll tell you?  I needed a paper and pen), I also prayed for the best priest for me at that moment.  There were four priests available to hear confessions and quite a crowd waiting.   Since I didn't recognize any of the names,  I knew God would have to choose for me.

Earlier in the Symposium, a very holy, young priest was talking about that fact that "on occasion" God gives him the ability to read a person's soul and thus help them to make a much more honest confession.  I thought that would be awesome in that I would know for sure that my confession was complete.

Well, the priest God lead me to appeared able to do that.  I made my confession without mention of my husband or children.   During his advice portion he said to me, "with your husband and your children you have a very full plate.  Make sure to take alone time and pray everyday so that you can be a good wife and mother because you are so busy."  WOW!!

God uses the priest to get His message to us. Do not be afraid.

So, pray.  It may be a priest you already know that you really like.  It may be that you're driving down the road and passing a church and the Holy Spirit says, "turn in here and go to Confession." Or,  you  may be at a conference and be blessed as I was today.

Just do it!

Next up: After Confession

To be continued.

On Confession Part 3

Now that I've discussed why we need Sacramental Confession,  I need to talk about how to prepare for it.

The first part of preparation is knowledge of and sorrow for your sins and contrition. There are two types of contrition and I am going to let the Catechism speak here:

CCC 1452 When it arises from a love by which God is loved above all else, contrition is called "perfect" (contrition of charity). Such contrition remits venial sins; it also obtains forgiveness of mortal sins if it includes the firm resolution to have recourse to sacramental confession as soon as possible.

CCC 1453 The contrition called "imperfect" (or "attrition") is also a gift of God, a prompting of the Holy Spirit. It is born of the consideration of sin's ugliness or the fear of eternal damnation and the other penalties threatening the sinner (contrition of fear). Such a stirring of conscience can initiate an interior process which, under the prompting of grace, will be brought to completion by sacramental absolution. By itself however, imperfect contrition cannot obtain the forgiveness of grave sins, but it disposes one to obtain forgiveness in the sacrament of Penance.

In order to know your sins you must have knowledge of what God expects of us.  God has given us a blueprint to follow in the Ten Commandments.  Knowing the Commandments is a good way start to living them.  For a list of the Ten Commandments and how to memorize them with relative ease see my post, "Quick, What's the Sixth Commandment?"  (7/26/11)

There are many, many ways to examine your conscience.  Since you can Google search that information I won't list it here.

Find an examination that you like and go through it slowly and carefully.  Get out a piece of paper and write down what you come up with.

Once you've examined your conscience and are contrite you are ready to seek out a priest.

To be continued. . .

On Confession. Part 2

One of the talks I heard was given by  Fr. John Riccardo and I've heard him explain this more than once.  He always says this:  We confess our sins to any number of people everyday.  We tell a friend, a sibling, a co-worker, a spouse; "you won't believe what I did!"

We have a natural tendency to want to get it off our chest; to put it out there and see what someone has to say about it. We're confounded as to why we would do such a thing or how we could continue to be so weak in a particular area.  For example, yelling at the kids, being grumpy with your spouse,  telling a lie to save face, taking something that does not belong to us. The list could go on and on.

We are sinners.  A fallen people striving to do better.

So Jesus gave us the gift of Confession.  Some will say, "Why do I have to go to a priest?  Can't I just tell God my sins and be forgiven?"  The answer is "yes".  But there is so much more to it than just telling God.  He already knows.

Confession gives us some great gifts. Two of them are humility and grace.

How easy it is to say to God, in your head,  I did _________________.  (Fill in the blank).

How HARD it is to confess out loud,  "I did ___________________. " Though we may say it to a trusted friend, we tend to justify our behavior with an added "but" or "because".  How HUMBLING it is to walk into a confessional and lay all the blame on ourselves without excuses and admit that we have messed up.

But with that humility the floodgates of grace open and pour out on us.

With this grace we can move forward and try harder to sin no more.  This grace gives us peace.  It increases our hope.  It make us stronger.  What a gift!

To be continued . . .