everythingcatholic

The Importance of Confession

Have you often wondered why it is necessary to confess your sins to a priest? Why cannot you just confess them straight to God? This has been a source of controversy since the Reformation. Where does it say in scripture that you must confess your sins to a priest? There are plenty of references for the Catholic looking for the biblical foundation in scripture. I defer to two sources, Kenneth Baker author of, Fundamentals of Catholicism and Karl Keating, author of Catholicism and Fundamentalism.

Jesus for gives sins in scripture, Jn 8: 1-11, Lk. 7:48 and Mk 2:10. The first step to cleansing us of original sin comes from baptism. According to Kenneth Baker:

The Catholic Church requires that each and every mortal sin committed after Baptism must be revealed to a priest in a secret confession. Thus it is not sufficient to say, “I am sorry for all my sins,” or “please forgive me Father, for I am a sinner,” one must state which mortal sins have been committed and how many times they were committed…

The sacrament of reconciliation can be found under, Jn 20:22-23. So when people use the argument, …”oh I can just tell my sins to God myself”. God through his son told us to do it a certain way and he left this power with his direct apostles. Thus Jesus states, “I promise you all that you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and all that you loosed on earth shall be loosed in heaven” Mt 18:18 Those same people that argue that one can confess all sins to God personally, would state, that these powers that were given to the apostles died with them when they died. Not so. This is why we say we are an apostolic church. The priesthood has an unbroken line of succession from Peter passed down to all Bishops and priests. Along with this succession was passed all the powers. Frank Keating states the following:

The powers absolutely necessary to maintain the Church as a living, spiritual society had to be passed down, generation to generation…Christ ordered the apostles to “make disciples of all nations…Teach them to carry out everything I have commanded you. And know that I am with you always, until the end of the world. Mt 28:19-20

Christ is ordering his disciples to make new ones and thus giving them the power to pass on their powers. Many fundamentalists would argue that this power of reconciliation was simply an invention. If this is the case Keating makes a powerful argument, he basically argues that if the church invented this, why were there no protest of this in the early church documents.

If it was something foisted on the young Church by ecclesiastical or political leaders, we would expect to find records of protest. In fact, in early Christian writings we find no sign of protest concerning priestly forgiveness of sins.

Confession should be a part of your faith. It helps to maintain your soul in grace. It keeps you in communion with Christ and helps to promote a healthy spiritual existence on this Earth. It plays a vital role in keeping Evil from becoming a part of your life. Good and Evil fight for control of this Earth on a daily basis. Evil preys upon those that sin, and feed daily on those that have mortal sins on their souls. Communion is wasted if we partake of it with a mortal sin on our soul. Yet the amount of people continuing to partake in this sacrament is on the decline. In my opinion we need to educate our fellow Catholics about this Sacrament. Maintaining a clean soul should be a goal of all Catholics.

I use to find it such a pain in the you know what to go to a priest every time I committed a mortal sin. In addition some find it embarrassing to go. People say, “I hate going to my pasture or my church priest for confessions…” There are alternatives. If you are embarrassed, go to a neighboring parish to confess. The priests do not care. Go where now one knows whom you are. The important thing is to go.

Now I have changed my mind in my personal thinking about this sacrament. I think the main reason why this change came upon me was mortality. My father just passed and when it struck home that I would soon be his age, I just started to take care of business. I confess every little thing regardless of weather I think it is a sin or not. I did not want to be one of those Christians to finally get my affairs straight at the end of my life. I wanted to be an example to my son and my relatives. I wanted to finally get rid of the party hardy life style and be a responsible Catholic. My life can be compared to St. Augustine. St. Augustine was one of those Saints that changed his life style late in life. That is why he is my Saint. I can relate to him.

All Catholics should just make this a part of your regular spiritual life. It is hard to do at first. As you do it more often and get a regular confessor in your life, it gets easier. The cleansing of your soul can be very therapeutic and when combined with daily prayer very powerful. You will find that major sins and temptation will just fall away. Praying the rosary or just talking to God during the day will keep you in touch with The Lord. You will find that sin has no time or power over you once you do this.

My friends thank you for the support in our cause and keep the new people coming to our site. We are averaging over 75 visits per day to Catholic America Today. Keep viewing us and Thank you.

God Bless,

Vern Paul Hee
catholicamericatoday.net

References: Kenneth Baker, Fundamentals of Catholicism pg 292-293
Karl Keating, Catholicism and Fundamentalism, pg 182-186

Trackback URI | Comments RSS