Thank you Mike,
I do (thank God) go to confession but not sure what you mean my the penance thing,the priests just say to pray a hail Mary or an Our Father, I don’t see much of the big deal with that
You’re very welcome.
Often a priest gives a penance that more closely relates to the sin. For instance, if you are struggling with patience in dealing with others shortcomings or dealing with things in this life that you can’t control, your penance will be to recite the Prayer of St. Francis or the Serenity Prayer. Or to read a specific chapter of the gospel that relates to whatever you are struggling with.
If your penance is consistently Hail Mary/Lord’s Prayer, that would be a shame. If it is a large parish community and many people are seeking reconciliation at one time, there could be added pressure for him to assign penance quickly and keep things moving. Most parishes will request that if you have a detailed confession that is going to take longer than the standard 10-15 minutes, that you schedule a one-on-one session. Still, it should be fairly effortless for a priest to come up with something more meaningful to your particular situation than the standard Lord’s Prayer/Hail Mary. You may want to consider looking outside of your parish for reconciliation or scheduling a private session with your parish priest to discuss the issues in more detail during a time when multiple confessions aren’t being heard.
I will also try to remember Christs death,but I wonder ,many people have died or been crucified or put to death on Earth,what is the significance of Christs death,how does it help us that he Bled for us and died for us?
Is it the Holy Communion or Confessions that save us?
But he even gave the Holy Communion to the Apostles even while he was still alive,so what was the point of His death or Crucifixion?
Wow, these are huge questions my friend. And difficult ones to answer in this medium. The answers to these questions are what comprise the core of Catholic belief and to answer them completely would require more than I could fit into one post.
What I can do is point you to the Catechism of the Catholic Church.
I highly recommend diving into the CCC yourself, in your spare time, and familiarizing yourself with the core Catholic beliefs:
**II. CHRIST’S REDEMPTIVE DEATH IN GOD’S PLAN OF SALVATION
“Jesus handed over according to the definite plan of God”**
599 Jesus’ violent death was not the result of chance in an unfortunate coincidence of circumstances, but is part of the mystery of God’s plan, as St. Peter explains to the Jews of Jerusalem in his first sermon on Pentecost: "This Jesus [was] delivered up according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God."393 This Biblical language does not mean that those who handed him over were merely passive players in a scenario written in advance by God.394
600 To God, all moments of time are present in their immediacy. When therefore he establishes his eternal plan of “predestination”, he includes in it each person’s free response to his grace: "In this city, in fact, both Herod and Pontius Pilate, with the Gentiles and the peoples of Israel, gathered together against your holy servant Jesus, whom you anointed, to do whatever your hand and your plan had predestined to take place."395 For the sake of accomplishing his plan of salvation, God permitted the acts that flowed from their blindness.396
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“He died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures”**
601 The Scriptures had foretold this divine plan of salvation through the putting to death of “the righteous one, my Servant” as a mystery of universal redemption, that is, as the ransom that would free men from the slavery of sin.397 Citing a confession of faith that he himself had “received”, St. Paul professes that "Christ died for our sins in accordance with the scriptures."398 In particular Jesus’ redemptive death fulfills Isaiah’s prophecy of the suffering Servant.399 Indeed Jesus himself explained the meaning of his life and death in the light of God’s suffering Servant.400 After his Resurrection he gave this interpretation of the Scriptures to the disciples at Emmaus, and then to the apostles.401
"For our sake God made him to be sin"
602 Consequently, St. Peter can formulate the apostolic faith in the divine plan of salvation in this way: "You were ransomed from the futile ways inherited from your fathers. . . with the precious blood of Christ, like that of a lamb without blemish or spot. He was destined before the foundation of the world but was made manifest at the end of the times for your sake."402 Man’s sins, following on original sin, are punishable by death.403 By sending his own Son in the form of a slave, in the form of a fallen humanity, on account of sin, God "made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God."404
603 Jesus did not experience reprobation as if he himself had sinned.405 But in the redeeming love that always united him to the Father, he assumed us in the state of our waywardness of sin, to the point that he could say in our name from the cross: "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?"406 Having thus established him in solidarity with us sinners, God “did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all”, so that we might be “reconciled to God by the death of his Son”.407
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