Saturday Confession, Sunday Communion

[caro5]

JMJ

A story has gone round in my family that “the Church” “used to teach” that you had to go to Confession on Saturday evening if you wanted to receive Communion on Sunday morning. This is utter nonsense, correct? Maybe a “small-t tradition?”

Another story has also gone round that “the Church” “used to teach” that unbaptized babies went to hell if they died. That one I know is nonsense.

 

[JimG]

JMJ

A story has gone round in my family that “the Church” “used to teach” that you had to go to Confession on Saturday evening if you wanted to receive Communion on Sunday morning. This is utter nonsense, correct? Maybe a "small-t tradition?"The Church never taught that. But it was a common practice when I was growing up to go to confession on Saturdays. I can recall my parents driving us to Church every Saturday afternoon for confessions. Nobody ever said it was a requirement for going to Mass on Sunday.

(I might add that the present situation is almost the exact opposite. Instead of going to confession every Saturday to confess before receiving on Sunday, we now receive every Sunday while giving little thought to the state of our souls or to sins we may have committed since our last confession.)

Another story has also gone round that “the Church” “used to teach” that unbaptized babies went to hell if they died. That one I know is nonsense.

That also was never a teaching. Theologically, the thinking went like this: Baptism is required to wipe away original sin and is necessary for entry into heaven, so unbaptized babies had no way of entering heaven.

And a baby didn’t have sufficient use of reason to desire Baptism, so there was no chance of Baptism of Desire.

But babies had committed no personal sin, so they did not deserve hell. But they were born with original sin. The answer posited to the dillema was this: Babies who die without baptism enter a state of perfect natural happiness, but without the Beatific Vision. That was Limbo. It’s still OK to accept Limbo as a theory. But the Church now prefers to say that we simply leave unbaptized babies to the grace of God.

 

[Monica4316]

JMJ

A story has gone round in my family that “the Church” “used to teach” that you had to go to Confession on Saturday evening if you wanted to receive Communion on Sunday morning. This is utter nonsense, correct? Maybe a “small-t tradition?”

well if you have mortal sin, you should go to Confession before Communion - at any time. Communion without Confession, if in a state of mortal sin, is a huge mortal sin and sacrilege in itself (which would need to be confessed…)

Another story has also gone round that “the Church” “used to teach” that unbaptized babies went to hell if they died. That one I know is nonsense.

Actually this was never Church teaching, it was a theological opinion. Another theological opinion was limbo. And another one is that they go to Heaven. Currently, we just leave them God’s mercy most people believe that they are saved through invinsible ignorance.

God bless

 

[kbharbert]

while the church may not have taught that unbaptised children went to hell…it was ‘limbo’…i remember VERY well that there were those not ‘allowed’ to be buried in consecrated ground (ie: the church cemetery)when i was a little kid. unbaptised babies, unbaptised adults, those who committed suicide…i am 50 now…swam the tiber in 06…it was this very thing that upset my poor mother dearly when she learned i was converting.

 

[Joe_Kelley]

JMJ

A story has gone round in my family that “the Church” “used to teach” that you had to go to Confession on Saturday evening if you wanted to receive Communion on Sunday morning. This is utter nonsense, correct? Maybe a “small-t tradition?”…

As JimG stated it was never Church teaching. However, it was the common belief of my parent’s time and earlier.

Some priests did real penance for that. My father was severly disabled by stroke and could barely speak for several years before he died. Every priest who brought Communion to him had to help him through a Confession.