I Want To Repent and be baptized

[RobinLaf]

Wow, so many replies. Thank you so much. It’s not like I have a huge sin and want to be forgiven. I just feel like when baptized we must understand what we are doing and being submerged like Jesus was would make me feel like all of my sins are washed away. I will be reading all of the replies and will go to the links everyone has provided. I really appreciate all of your help.

Robin

 

[LilyM]

Wow, so many replies. Thank you so much. It’s not like I have a huge sin and want to be forgiven. I just feel like when baptized we must understand what we are doing and being submerged like Jesus was would make me feel like all of my sins are washed away. I will be reading all of the replies and will go to the links everyone has provided. I really appreciate all of your help.

Robin

You were submerged and all original sin (and any personal sin a person may have) IS washed away when that happens.

The problem is, for people who are baptised as adults as well, is that we do sin again even after baptism. St Peter says that even the just man sins seven times a day, and he does not exclude those baptised as adults from this.

Yet we know we are not to receive baptism multiple times. Baptism is the cure for original sin, not for all personal sin, otherwise the baptised adult at least would never sin again.

Confession and the Eucharist, along with prayer and penance, are the cures for personal sin. Put your trust in them.

 

[Elizium23]

Wow, so many replies. Thank you so much. It’s not like I have a huge sin and want to be forgiven. I just feel like when baptized we must understand what we are doing and being submerged like Jesus was would make me feel like all of my sins are washed away.

You were baptized as an infant, and now you are a Catholic adult, and you have no “huge sins” that you want forgiven? There is something wrong with you, then. Everyone sins. Most of us sin mortally at some point. The sacrament you are looking for is Penance. I suggest you try it, because it indeed washes away all your sins.

 

[mlz]

You can renew the baptismal vows which your parents would have offered for you when you were an infant, and incapable of making them yourself – and so spiritually renew and reenter into the graces of your baptism – which has always been with you and helped you, since you were an infant.

Be full of gratitude for your baptism!

Baptism is what make one a Christian, what allows you to go to Confession, and partake of all the Holy Sacraments. I think of desire to be baptised again as an adult as perhaps truly a desire to fully realize the graces given in the past – to make a good confession and act of contrition, perhaps feeling the weight of sin, venial or worse mortal, and so spiritually fulfill the more the baptism one has already received and partake of sanctifying grace.

You cannot be baptized again, but you can draw on the graces, perhaps long neglected anew.

‘Every Christian has renounced the world and its pomps at baptism. This vow does not oblige you to live like a hermit, but it certainly obliges you to something. It is not an empty promise.’

St. Claude de la Colombiere

'Before holy baptism, grace encourages the soul towards good from the outside, while Satan lurks in its depths, trying to block all the intellect’s ways of approach to the divine. But from the moment that we are reborn through baptism, the demon is outside, grace is within.

Thus, whereas before baptism error ruled the soul, after baptism truth rules it.

Nevertheless, even after baptism Satan still acts on the soul, often, indeed, to a greater degree than before. This is not because he is present in the soul together with grace; on the contrary, it is because he uses the body’s humors to befog the intellect with the delight of mindless pleasures. God allows him to do this, so that a man, after passing through a trial of storm and fire, may come in the end to the full enjoyment of divine blessings. For it is written: “We went through fire and water, and Thou hast brought us out into a place where the soul is refreshed” (Ps. 66.12).’

St. Diadochos of Photiki

‘What were you before Baptism but the unhappy slave of Satan, and subject like him to eternal punishment? But by Baptism you have been delivered from this unhappy subjection, through the divine alliance which you have contracted with Jesus Christ, which procures you the enjoyment of eternal happiness, if you observe all its conditions.’

St. Jean Eudes

‘Repentance is the renewal of baptism. Repentance is a contract with God for a second life. A penitent is a buyer of humility. Repentance is constant distrust of bodily comfort. Repentance is self-condemning reflection, and carefree self-care. Repentance is the daughter of hope and the renunciation of despair. A penitent is an undisgraced convict. Repentance is reconciliation with the Lord by the practice of good deeds contrary to the sins. Repentance is purification of conscience. Repentance is the voluntary endurance of all afflictions. A penitent is the inflicter of his own punishments. Repentance is a mighty persecution of the stomach, and a striking of the soul into vigorous awareness.’

St. John Climacus

‘We who have received baptism offer good works, not by way of repayment, but to preserve the purity given to us.’

St. Mark the Ascetic

'Baptism is the sacrament of Christ’s death and Passion, according as a man is born anew in Christ in virtue of His Passion; but the Eucharist is the sacrament of Christ’s Passion according as a man is made perfect in union with Christ Who suffered.

Hence, as Baptism is called the sacrament of Faith, which is the foundation of the spiritual life, so the Eucharist is termed the sacrament of Charity, which is “the bond of perfection” (Colossians 3:14).’

St. Thomas Aquinas

Excellent (above)! This tells all- trust in His power in baptism- not your own.
My love and His for you!!!
mlz

 

[Cider]

Wow, so many replies. Thank you so much. It’s not like I have a huge sin and want to be forgiven. I just feel like when baptized we must understand what we are doing and being submerged like Jesus was would make me feel like all of my sins are washed away. I will be reading all of the replies and will go to the links everyone has provided. I really appreciate all of your help.

Robin

Go to confession, you are already baptized.

 

[RobinLaf]

You were baptized as an infant, and now you are a Catholic adult, and you have no “huge sins” that you want forgiven? There is something wrong with you, then. Everyone sins. Most of us sin mortally at some point. The sacrament you are looking for is Penance. I suggest you try it, because it indeed washes away all your sins.

I know I’m not perfect. I know I sin. I just didn’t want you all to think that I may be a murder or tramp or something like that. LOL!

 

[Cathoholic]

Hello RobinLaf.

You said:

Hi there. I’m new to this forum. I was born & raised Catholic

You also said:

I know I’m not perfect. I know I sin. I just didn’t want you all to think that I may be a murder or tramp or something like that. LOL!

Actually, I never once thought that.

But I would still make an appointment with a good Catholic Priest, and just confess your sins from whenever your last good Confession was. It is so liberating. I used to try to go every week and I always felt so good afterwards.

Despite me formerly going to weekly Confession, I am not perfect. I know I sin. I just don’t want you to think that I may be a murderer or tramp or something like that either.

But I DO love “the Confessional”. I can’t go as much as I’d like to any more (I won’t get into WHY here).

You said in your thread title: “I want to repent and . . .”

Confession is part of our “repentance” because it is what we were told by our Lord to do.

1st JOHN 1:7, 9 7 but if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin. . . . 9 If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just, and will forgive our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

Confess your sins (no matter how small) to “one another”.

WHO is the context of the “one another” we should confess our sins to?

The Presbyteros or Presbyteroi. The “Elders”. The Priests. And don’t forget the Sacrament of the anointing of the sick in the future when you get sick. Anointing of the sick and Confession should go hand in hand for the sick individual (if he/she is conscious and able to Confess. If he/she is unconscious, then just anointing for those Baptized and Confirmed).

JAMES 5:14-16 14 Is any among you sick? Let him call for the elders of the church, and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord; 15 and the prayer of faith will save the sick man, and the Lord will raise him up; and if he has committed sins, he will be forgiven. 16 Therefore confess your sins to one another, and pray for one another, that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous man has great power in its effects.

The “righteous man” in one sense is the priest, but in an infinitely deeper sense, the “righteous man” is Jesus Christ who Himself really hears the confession through the Priest. The Church calls this phenomenon: “in the person of Christ.”

The Bible calls it “in the person of Christ” too . . .

. . . . . but you may have to do a little homework to see it as translators seem to dance around this issue sometimes. But not the Catholic DRV translation.

In the next post I will put a segment from our local men’s group Bible study concerning frogiveness of sins in the person of Christ.

 

[Cathoholic]

RobinLaf,

This is continued from the last post (concerning your desire to “repent”):

In Persona Christi

The Church teaches that ultimately Jesus is the ONLY Priest and we merely have a differing share in HIS Priesthood.

There is the “priesthood of all the faithful” which all Baptized Christians are part of.

Then there is varying degrees of the ministerial Priesthood (i.e. the Bishops and ministerial Priests and to a lesser [non-sacredotal] extent, the deacons share in).

One of the main concepts of this ministry for the Bishops and ministerial Priests is that they serve in a way that Jesus in them and through them acts in a special and personal way to forgive sins and confect the Eucharist!

Deacons and Laity do not share in this aspect of Christ’s Priesthood. This serving in the person of Christ is called “in persona Christi”. They act in the name of Jesus as do we, but they act in the PERSON of Jesus too (and we do not in this manner) in this special “sacerdotal” way (and we don’t).

CCC 1548 In the ecclesial service of the ordained minister, it is Christ himself who is present to his Church as Head of his Body, Shepherd of his flock, high priest of the redemptive sacrifice, Teacher of Truth. This is what the Church means by saying that the priest, by virtue of the sacrament of Holy Orders, acts in persona Christi Capitis:

It is the same priest, Christ Jesus, whose sacred person his minister truly represents. Now the minister, by reason of the sacerdotal consecration which he has received, is truly made like to the high priest and possesses the authority to act in the power and place of the person of Christ himself (virtute ac persona ipsius Christi).

Christ is the source of all priesthood: the priest of the old law was a figure of Christ, and the priest of the new law acts in the person of Christ.​

Let’s look at St. Paul matter-of-factly employ this concept of acting in the person of Christ in the context of forgiving sins, without any felt need to defend it.

2nd CORINTHIANS 2:5-11 5 But if any one has caused pain, he has caused it not to me, but in some measure–not to put it too severely-- to you all. 6 For such a one this punishment by the majority is enough; 7 so you should rather turn to forgive and comfort him, or he may be overwhelmed by excessive sorrow. 8 So I beg you to reaffirm your love for him. 9 For this is why I wrote, that I might test you and know whether you are obedient in everything. 10 Any one whom you forgive, I also forgive. What I have forgiven, if I have forgiven anything, has been for your sake in the presence (Greek word “prospon”) of Christ, 11 to keep Satan from gaining the advantage over us; for we are not ignorant of his designs.

2nd CORINTHIANS 2:10 (DRV Catholic Bible translation) And to whom you have forgiven any thing, I also: for, what I forgave, if I have forgiven any thing, it was for your sakes in the person of Christ, 11 that we may not be circumvented by Satan: for we are not ignorant of his devices.

(Parenthetical addition and bold and underline to CCC and Scripture mine)

Hopefully this was helpful to you in your desire to repent.

Godspeed RobinLaf.

Cathoholic

 

[RobinLaf]

I love all of these replies it has helped me and made me feel better. And thank you Cathoholic. I truly appreciate everything said.

 

[Shin]

Excellent (above)! This tells all- trust in His power in baptism- not your own.
My love and His for you!!!
mlz

Deo gratias et Mariae semper Virgini.