Archives for September 2012

Baltimore Catechism: on the manner of making a good confession

Friday, September 7, 2012 A.D. 1 Comment

Lesson 20

*224	Q.	What should we do on entering the confessional?
	A.	On entering the confessional we should kneel, make the Sign of the Cross, and say to the priest: “Bless me, Father”; then add, “I confess to Almighty God, and to you, Father, that I have sinned.”

*225	Q.	Which are the first things we should tell the priest in confession?
	A.	The first things we should tell the priest in confession are the, time of our last confession and whether we said the penance and went to Holy Communion.

*226	Q.	After telling the time of our last confession and Communion, what should we do?
	A.	After telling the time of our last confession and Communion we should confess all the mortal sins we have since committed, and all the venial sins we may wish to mention.

“We may wish.” We should tell every real sin we have never confessed. If we have no mortal sin to confess, it is well to tell some kind of mortal sin we have committed in our past life, though confessed before. We should do this because when we have only very small sins to confess there is always danger that we may not be truly sorry for them, and without sorrow there is no forgiveness. But when we add to our confession some mortal sin that we know we are sorry for, then our sorrow extends to all our sins, and makes us certain that our confession is a good one. If you should hear the sin of another person while you are waiting to make your own confession, you must keep that sin secret forever. If the person in the confessional is speaking too loud, you should move away so as not to hear; and if you cannot move, hold your hands on your ears so that you may not hear what is being said.

*227	Q.	What must we do when the confessor asks us questions?
	A.	When the confessor asks us questions, we must answer them truthfully and clearly.

*228	Q.	What should we do after telling our sins?
	A.	After telling our sins we should listen with attention to the advice which the confessor may think proper to give.

The priest in the confessional acts as judge, father, teacher, and physician. As judge he listens to your accusations against yourself, and passes sentence according to your guilt or innocence. As a father and teacher he loves you, and tries to protect you from your enemies by warning you against them, and teaching you the means to overcome them. But above all, he is a physician, who will treat your soul for its ills and restore it to spiritual health. He examines the sins you have committed, discovers their causes, and then prescribes the remedies to be used in overcoming them. When anything goes amiss with our bodily health we speedily have recourse to the physician, listen anxiously to what he has to say, and use the remedies prescribed. In the very same way we must follow the priest’s advice if we wish our souls to be cured of their maladies. Just as a person who is unwell would not go one day to one physician and the next day to another, so a penitent should not change confessors without a good reason; and if you have any choice to make let it be made in the beginning, and let it rest on worthy motives. In a short time your confessor will understand the state of your soul, as the physician who frequently examines you does the state of your body. He will know all the temptations, trials, and difficulties with which you have to contend. He will see whether you are becoming better or worse; whether you are resisting your bad habits or falling more deeply into them; also, whether the remedies given are suited to you, and whether you are using them properly. All this your confessor will know, and it will save you the trouble of always repeating, and him the trouble of always asking. Thus the better your confessor knows you and all the circumstances of your life, the more will he be able to help you; for besides the forgiveness of your sins there are many other benefits derived from the Sacrament of Penance.

But if at any time there should be danger of your making a bad confession to your own confessor – on account of some feeling of false shame – then go to any confessor you please; for it is a thousand times better to seek another confessor than run the risk of making a sacrilegious confession.

Never be so much attached to any one confessor that you would remain away from the Sacraments a long time rather than go to another in his absence.

You should not consider the person in the confessional, but the power he exercises. You should be anxious concerning only this fact: Is there a priest there who was sent by Our Lord? Is there a minister of Christ there who has power to pardon my sins? If so, I will humbly go to him, no matter who he is or what his dispositions.

*229	Q.	How should we end our confession?
	A.	We should end our confession by saying, “I also accuse myself of all the sins of my past life,” telling, if we choose, one or several of our past sins.

*230	Q.	What should we do while the priest is giving us absolution?
	A.	While the priest is giving us absolution, we should from our heart renew the Act of Contrition.

All, especially children, should know this act well before going to confession.

Filed Under: Baltimore Catechism

Elsewhere: dissident Catholics

Tuesday, September 4, 2012 A.D. Leave a Comment

What does it mean for someone to say that they are Catholic? Technically, anyone who was baptized or confirmed in the Church is Catholic and always will be. Technically.

There are, of course, those who have “left the Church,” at least in their own minds. They implicitly or explicitly deny the authority of the Church, given by Christ, to preserve and spread truth to the world. These lapsed-Catholics take contrary personal positions on this or that and find a community more agreeable with their will, if not Christ’s.

There is another group of dissident Catholics who have not left. They too disagree with Church teaching, insist it is wrong and that it must change or become “flexible.” Like the first group, these folks soundly deny the authority of our Lord’s Church from which He is inseparable. Through their positions, they are saying that Jesus is wrong. Most liberal Catholic politicians fit this definition (Peolsi, Sebelius, Biden, et al). While claiming to be “guided” by their faith, they none-the-less warmly embrace that which is anathema such as abortion, contraception, “gay marriage,” restrictions on religious freedom and so on. “[T]his people draws near with words only and honors me with their lips alone, though their hearts are far from me…” (Isaiah 29:13)

Pope Benedict XVI himself spoke on this topic in a recent Angelus address (the highlighting is mine):

Dear brothers and sisters!

In the past few Sundays we have meditated on the “Bread of Life” discourse that Jesus pronounced in the synagogue of Capernaum after feeding thousands of people with five loaves and two fishes. Today, the Gospel presents the disciples” reaction to that speech, a reaction that Christ Himself knowingly provoked. First of all, John the Evangelist – who was present along with the other Apostles – reports that “from that time many of His disciples drew back and no longer went about with Him” (John 6:66). Why? Because they did not believe the words of Jesus when He said: “I am the living bread which came down from heaven. He who eats my flesh and drinks my blood will live forever? (cf. John 6:51-54). This revelation, as I have said, remained incomprehensible to them, because they understood it in a material sense, while in these words was foretold the Paschal Mystery of Jesus, in which He would give Himself for the salvation of the world: the new presence in the Holy Eucharist.

Seeing that many of His disciples were leaving, Jesus addressed the Apostles, saying: “Will you also go away?” (John 6:67). As in other cases, it is Peter who replied on behalf of the Twelve: “Lord, to whom shall we go? – and we too can reflect: to whom shall we go? – You have the words of eternal life and we have believed and know that You are the Holy One of God” (John 6:68-69). On this passage we have a beautiful commentary of St. Augustine, who says in one of his homilies on John 6: “Do you see how Peter, by the grace of God, by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, has understood? Why did he understand? Because he believed. You have the words of eternal life. You give us eternal life by offering your risen body and your blood, your very self. And we have believed and understood. He does not say we have understood and then we believed, but we believed and then we understood. We have believed in order to be able to understand; if, in fact, we wanted to understand before believing, we would not be able either to understand or to believe. What have we believed and what have we understood? That You are the Christ, the Son of God, that is, that You are that very eternal life, and that You give in Your flesh and blood only that which You are? (Commentary on the Gospel of John, 27, 9). So Saint Augustine said in a homily to his faithful people.

Finally, Jesus knew that even among the twelve apostles there was one that did not believe: Judas. Judas could have left, as many of the disciples did; indeed, he would have left if he were honest. Instead he remained with Jesus. He did not remain because of faith, or because of love, but with the secret intention of taking vengeance on the Master. Why? Because Judas felt betrayed by Jesus, and decided that he in turn would betray Him. Judas was a Zealot, and wanted a triumphant Messiah, who would lead a revolt against the Romans. Jesus had disappointed those expectations. The problem is that Judas did not go away, and his most serious fault was falsehood, which is the mark of the devil. This is why Jesus said to the Twelve: “One of you is a devil” (John 6:70). We pray to the Virgin Mary, help us to believe in Jesus, as St. Peter did, and to always be sincere with Him and with all people.

The pope’s address is on the Vatican website, in text and audio.

In related comments, Father John Hollowell noted that “a cafeteria Catholic has taken true premises through to false conclusions while also lacking the courage to ACT on those false conclusions. Is there anything more illogical than that ‘catholics’ who hate the Church?” His very good, recent homily expounds on this:

Monsignor Ignacio Barreiro in recent comments said “Catholics who cannot bring themselves to believe the formal teachings of the Church on life and family matters – it would be more honest to leave the Church rather than betraying Her. We regret very much that the person is so inclined and we wish they would have a conversion to truly believe.”

Father Zuhlsdorf commented on this here. John Quinn also covered this here and here.

Filed Under: elsewhere