A Simple Penance Book Revised by Mgr Paul Grogan
All booklets are published thanks to the generous support of the members of the Catholic Truth Society
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CATHOLIC TRUTH SOCIETY PUBLISHERS TO THE HOLY SEE
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Contents Introduction. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .3 Scripture and Confession . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .6 Sin and reconciliation in Scripture . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 The Institution of the Sacrament of Reconciliation. . . . . 8
Confession and the Christian Life . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .10 Benefits of confession . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Contrition, confession and satisfaction . . . . . . . . . . . . . Call to continuous conversion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Preparing for confession . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Making a good confession . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The practice of regular confession . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Writings of Popes and saints. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
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How to go to Confession . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .40 The Rite of Penance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Scripture passages . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Examination of conscience . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Prayers of sorrow . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Prayers of thanksgiving . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Other prayers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
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All rights reserved. First published 2014 by The Incorporated Catholic Truth Society, 40-46 Harleyford Road London SE11 5AY Tel: 020 7640 0042 Fax: 020 7640 0046. Š 2014 The Incorporated Catholic Truth Society.
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ISBN 978 1 86082 926 0
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— Introduction—
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here is a new interest in the Sacrament of Penance. Young people long to unburden themselves to Christ and to receive his forgiveness and with suitable encouragement they are able to overcome any apprehension they may feel about disclosing their sins. More mature Catholics too are rediscovering the sacrament. Many have not been to confession for years because at some time in the past they convinced themselves that it was simply unnecessary. Now they are beginning to appreciate once more that it is only through celebrating the Sacrament of Reconciliation that they can experience what Pope Francis has described as “…that peace of soul which is so beautiful and which only Jesus can give…” (General Audience, 19th February 2014). The Pope clearly understands how people can feel conflicted about going to confession. He wrote tellingly: “God never tires of forgiving us; we are the ones who tire of seeking his mercy” (Evangelii Gaudium, 3). The purpose of this booklet is to encourage Catholics to listen to the Holy Spirit calling from within the Church: “be reconciled to God” (2 Cor 5:20). In our own time, there is a new urgency. Each of us is, as Pope Francis has written, a “missionary disciple”
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(EG, 119). We have been entrusted with the task of sharing our faith with others in what has been described as the “new evangelisation.” We can only do that effectively if our lives are characterised by joy and we can only be joyful if we know that God has taken away our sins. When we go to confession then, we are doing it for other people as well as for ourselves. To somebody on the verge of resuming the practice of confession, the different names by which the sacrament is known may be a little confusing. In truth, however, they simply convey different aspects of the event through which Christ forgives our sins. Under the title the Sacrament of Penance, our sorrow for our sins and our readiness to “do penance” in satisfaction for them is emphasised. The title the Sacrament of Confession, conveys two aspects: our readiness to acknowledge what we have done through articulating our sins and our confidence in God’s mercy which we confess through our celebration of the sacrament. The title the Sacrament of Reconciliation illuminates the fact that God reconciles us to himself, restoring that friendship which our sins have damaged so that we experience a “true ‘spiritual resurrection’” (CCC 1468). It also points to the fact that he reconciles us to the other members of the Church whom our sins have adversely affected (CCC 1423-1424).
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This sacrament is strictly necessary only for those who have committed grave (or mortal) sins, that is to say sins which have destroyed charity in their hearts and which have effectively cut them off from God’s mercy (cf 1 Jn 5:16-17). In those circumstances confession allows the penitent to recover that vital relationship with God. Those who commit lesser (or venial) sins still need confession because the sacrament allows them to draw closer to God, the source of all joy and consolation. Our tradition describes such confessions as “devotional” (CCC, Catechism of the Catholic Church 1854-1864).
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—Scripture and Confession—
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eople who are beginning to think about resuming the practice of confession often want to know more about two issues in particular: firstly, what exactly is sin? Secondly, why is it necessary to confess to a priest rather than simply addressing oneself to God? Both questions can be answered very easily if we reflect a little on Scripture. Sin and reconciliation in Scripture he Bible recounts the big narrative of how God has rescued us from sin and death. We can understand our own lives by examining our personal stories against this backdrop. We discover what sin is through reflecting on the disobedience of Adam and Eve in the Book of Genesis (Gn 3:1-24). It is “before all else an offence against God, a rupture of communion with him” (CCC 1440). This story helps us to make sense of our own situation. We are conscious that we are in communion with God because we have been baptised. In our baptism we were inserted into the paschal mystery of Jesus’s death and resurrection and as a result we have inherited eternal life. At the same time, we are conscious of an on-going tendency within ourselves to turn away from
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God once more and to do things which are contrary to his will; in other words we recognise a proneness to sin. As we read more stories in the Old Testament, we recognise in individuals and in the Israelites as a whole traits of rebelliousness which exist also within our own hearts. The story of Cain and Abel (Gn 4:1-16) speaks to us of our own jealousies. The Israelites worshipped the golden calf (Ex 32:1-35): we too are tempted, practically speaking, to apostatise in the vain hope of escaping from the responsibilities incumbent upon those who stand before the living God. When the faithless Israelites are led into exile by the conquering Babylonians and their temple is destroyed (2 K 24:1-21) we are reminded of how sin separates us from God. Moreover we see in the oft-quoted phrase “hardness of heart” (e.g. Ps 95:8) something which reflects our own obduracy and hence Jeremiah’s prophecy that the Lord God would give his people “new hearts” (e.g. Jr 24:7) is something which resonates with our deepest hopes. When we review our life story in the context of the Old Testament in this way, we become newly aware of our need of Christ. The name “Jesus” means “God who saves” and the angel explains to Joseph that this is to be the child’s name “for he will save his people from their sins” (Mt 1:21). Jesus shows a sign of his authority to
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forgive sins early when he tells the paralysed man, “Your sins are forgiven” before instructing him, “Rise, take up your bed and go home” (Mt 9:5-6), something which he promptly does. Jesus gives the man a deeper freedom than that of merely restoring him to physical health: he reconciles him to God. The Institution of the Sacrament of Reconciliation esus shared his power to heal people and to forgive sins with his apostles (Mt 10:1). Then when Peter proclaimed his faith that Jesus is the Messiah, Jesus shared with him “the keys of the kingdom of heaven”, allowing Peter, through his ministry, to reopen the gates to Paradise which had been closed behind Adam and Eve following their expulsion from it (Gn 3:24). He says “…whatever you bind on earth shall be considered bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be considered loosed in heaven” (Mt 16:19). A little later he extends this power of “binding and loosing” to the “disciples” (Mt 18:18). These two passages in Matthew point to the passage in John when the Risen Jesus, on the day of his resurrection, appears to the disciples: “Jesus said to them again, ‘Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so am I sending you.’ Then he breathed on them and said: ‘Receive the Holy Spirit. For
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those whose sins you forgive, they are forgiven; for those whose sins you retain, they are retained.’” This passage helps us to see how it is Christ’s desire that we should be reconciled to him precisely by the ministers of his Church through the power of the Holy Spirit. Through the Sacrament of Reconciliation, which Christ himself instituted (CCC 1446), we are able to recover that full communion with God which we received in baptism and experience the new life of his resurrection. The confessor does not stand between us and Christ; rather the confessor acts “in the person of Christ” (CCC 1441; 1548). It follows that “reconciliation with the Church is inseparable from reconciliation with God” (CCC 1445). While God’s forgiveness is clearly not tied to the Sacrament of Reconciliation - for example, the Catechism describes the “many forms of penance in Christian life” (CCC 1434-1439) - the sacrament is, as St Pope John Paul wrote, “the ordinary way of obtaining forgiveness and remission of serious sins committed after baptism.” He continued: “it would be foolish as well as presumptuous…to claim to receive forgiveness while doing without the sacrament which was instituted by Christ precisely for forgiveness” (Reconciliatio et Paenitentia, 31).
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