Confession, Communion, Penance?

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Am I allowed to receive communion before I do my assigned penance? Or do I have to do my penance first?
 
Rainaldo said:
Am I allowed to receive communion before I do my assigned penance? Or do I have to do my penance first?
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It isn’t strictly required, but at the same time, you need to know yourself, and give yourself the best possible chance of completing it. The best policy is to complete it at the earliest opportunity, which for most people, is right after Confession, before leaving the Church.

Don’t put yourself in the situation of deciding to do it later on, and then forgetting all about it.
 
A good rule of thumb if you know you won’t be able to do the penance before receiving ask the priests permission to perform the penance after receiving-for example going to confession at the start of Mass and being assigned to say a certain unfamiliar prayer , like a litany that you will have to look up on line at home. You will find your confessor to be very understanding-and with his permission, you won’t have a problem and won’t feel guilty. Just remember to look up the unfamiliar prayer and be sincere in praying it. This should be your first priority upon getting home!
 
George_Stegmeir said:
A good rule of thumb if you know you won’t be able to do the penance before receiving ask the priests permission to perform the penance after receiving-for example going to confession at the start of Mass and being assigned to say a certain unfamiliar prayer , like a litany that you will have to look up on line at home. You will find your confessor to be very understanding-and with his permission, you won’t have a problem and won’t feel guilty. Just remember to look up the unfamiliar prayer and be sincere in praying it. This should be your first priority upon getting home!
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It’s always a good idea to have a prayer book in your bag or in your glove compartment for such emergencies. 😉
 
On other threads previously, posters have told of penances given them which would be impossible to complete in a day or two, certainly not as soon as they got home. For instance, someone was told to read a certain book, someone else was told to do acts of kindness to a certain number of people.

Not everyone is given the penance of saying a particular prayer.
 
My priest usually gives me an Our Father (which I do right away after I’m done with confession) as well among others things (helping/respecting others etc). I would say, yes, if it’s a prayer do it right away and sincerely.

God Bless
 
More to the point, you are in a state of grace as soon as you receive absolution from the priest. Your state of grace is not affected by whether you have done your penance yet. Penance is assigned in order to remit some temporal punishment from the effects of sin.
 
paperwight66 said:
On other threads previously, posters have told of penances given them which would be impossible to complete in a day or two, certainly not as soon as they got home. For instance, someone was told to read a certain book, someone else was told to do acts of kindness to a certain number of people.

Not everyone is given the penance of saying a particular prayer.
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That’s true. I’m not sure how common that is, though. In my case, the longest penance I ever had took a week, and it included attending daily Mass and receiving Holy Communion.
 
jmcrae said:
That’s true. I’m not sure how common that is, though. In my case, the longest penance I ever had took a week, and it included attending daily Mass and receiving Holy Communion.
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The longest one I had was to recite the Rosary whilst meditating on the Sorrowful mysteries. I couldn’t finish it in the Church, so I did it on the drive home seeing how I had two hours to kill.
 
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