Confirmation is actually the completion of Baptism. Catholics believe that in Baptism we receive actual graces and the forgiveness of Original Sin – and in the case of adults, the forgiveness of all actual sins committed – as well as receiving the Holy Spirit. Since Jesus said we
must be baptized, we believe Baptism is essential (in the ordinary way of things) and not just an ordinance of obedience. Confirmation gives us the seal of the Holy Spirit for living out our Christian affirmation with all of the graces necessary to our condition of life. See *The Catechism of the Catholic Church, *available on line at:
scborromeo.org/ccc.htm See paragraphs 1290-1317.
In practice, Confirmation in the Latin Rite – where it is usually conferred in adolescence – usually does, psychologically at least, amount to the affirmation you describe, but that is not the purpose or character of the Sacrament.
Confession? Ah. That’s the best part about being Catholic! The Scriptural warrants are: John 20:19-23:
On the evening of that day, the first day of the week, the doors being shut where the disciples were, for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood among them and said to them, “Peace be with you.”
When he had said this, he showed them his hands and his side. Then the disciples were glad when they saw the Lord. Jesus said to them again, “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, even so I send you.” And when he had said this, he breathed on them, and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.”
The group addressed here is “the 11” (as recorded in Luke). So it is
these Apostles who have the mandate from Jesus in Matthew 28:18-20:
“All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.
Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit,
teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, to the close of the age.”
The warrant for passing on the apostolic authority (which includes forgiveness of sins) through the Church comes in Acts 2:15-26, the conclusion of which is that Matthias was “enrolled among the Apostles.”
For Confession, we also look to the authority of binding and loosing with the power of the Keys of the Kingdom of Heaven and earth given to Peter in Mt. 16:18, and the same power of binding and loosing (but not the full authority of the Keys) shared by the Apostles (Mt. 18:18).
In 2nd Corinthians, Paul reports in reference to the incestuous man: “if I forgave any thing, to whom I forgave it, for your sakes forgave I it
in the person of Christ.” Here he is exercising his authority to forgive sins “
In persona Christi” – which is exactly what the Priest does in confession: ONLY God forgives sins. The Priest acts “in the person of Christ” when he pronounces the words of absolution.
Another scriptural warrant for Confession is in James 5:16: “confess your sins to one another.” In the context of the early Church that likely meant confessing openly, publicly, in the presence of the entire congregation :bigyikes: . The Church fairly early on modified that practice so that confessions did not have to be public. The writings of the Early Church Fathers indicate that the Priest was always essential to confession, even when, as in the letter of James, “confessing to one another.”
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and started asking God to forgive me as a child but can’t remember what the Catholic line was on this?
It is also true that you are not alone in this regard.
