Should I confess missing Mass when I am sick?

[buc_fan33]

I’m not suggesting that people shouldn’t confess venial sins. Quite on the contrary, they certainly should. What I am suggesting, however, is that people confess actual sin. Missing Sunday Mass due to an illness is not a venial sin. It’s no sin at all.

Regarding the Blessed Mother, what exactly would she confess? What would the priest absolve?

 

[PetraG]

I’m not suggesting that people shouldn’t confess venial sins. Quite on the contrary, they certainly should. What I am suggesting, however, is that people confess actual sin. Missing Sunday Mass due to an illness is not a venial sin. It’s no sin at all.

Regarding the Blessed Mother, what exactly would she confess? What would the priest absolve?

I’m not saying Our Lady would have gone to confession during the early Church. I’m saying no one would approach her in that possibility any more than they’d suggest that the True Cross or the Holy Grail needed their priestly blessing to become sacramentals! You’re right: it would have been unthinkable.

The OP has had on-going issues that prevent participation at Sunday Mass with a regularity that he or she has found distressing. When this happens, it is not something for confession but it is something that warrants pastoral advice. That can be had outside the confessional on an informal basis. If the OP needs something more extensive, then making an appointment with the pastor for advice on how to proceed would be reasonable, but this doesn’t sound like a matter that would take so much time as that.

 

[edward_george1]

When this happens, it is not something for confession but it is something that warrants pastoral advice.

Which is what buc_fan33 is doing. Since he’s a priest himself.

 

[Christiaria]

We are to do our best to do an examination of conscience daily and to regularly confess all known sins. For those sins we don’t remember, we trust that God will forgive them in his mercy. Remember, it’s not so much about meditating on your sin as it is about receiving God’s mercy and striving to begin again with the help of his grace. God bless you!

 

[PetraG]

Which is what buc_fan33 is doing. Since he’s a priest himself.

I’m confused about what you’re referring to. I don’t see anywhere that he mentioned the possibility of seeking pastoral advice outside the confessional at all. He only wrote, “You should confess sins. Period. I don’t mean for this to sound crass, but confession isn’t a counseling session.” He didn’t touch on the possibility of talking to a priest in another context at all, one way or the other, whether to ask about things that were bothersome or to ask what was and was not a moral offense.
After all, to not know what things one should take actions to avoid and what things one shouldn’t worry about isn’t scrupulosity, per se. It is merely formation of conscience–to love God is to want to know better what is and is not in keeping with the Christian life. That’s part of our ongoing work of religious education. Not all the work of forming one’s conscience belongs in the confessional, though, particularly not when there are 10 people waiting to confess after you.
I mean I only took him to mean that while the Church teaches that “indeed the regular confession of our venial sins helps us form our conscience” (CCC 1458), the confessional is not the sole place where one ought to be doing this. Those who study a question and still have a point of confusion concerning their own situations can consult with their pastor or another confessor in an informal way. It is usually a pretty quick matter, but it does hold up the line on a Saturday afternoon and we don’t want any of our habits to place any avoidable obstacles in the way of anyone else confessing. I wasn’t trying to correct what he said, but merely to add to it.

 

[PetraG]

We are to do our best to do an examination of conscience daily and to regularly confess all known sins. For those sins we don’t remember, we trust that God will forgive them in his mercy. Remember, it’s not so much about meditating on your sin as it is about receiving God’s mercy and striving to begin again with the help of his grace. God bless you!

Yes. The ideal is not to keep an accurate running total of all sins one has identified by regular examination of conscience. The idea is to openly admit, denounce and announce a desire to do penance on account of one’s offenses against the love of God and neighbor, to make an act of return to the fullness of life and grace promised to the baptized by acceptance of God’s unfailing mercy. To avail oneself of the sacrament of confession is not meant to be an act of fear, but an act of hope and trust that is followed by thanksgiving and eventually an increase in the graces intended for one by God. It is actively leaving behind that which harms us and embracing that which gives us life and joy.

Sanctity, after all, is not something we do for God. It is a life God grants out of love for us. We are not sought out by God as criminals deserving incarceration, but as sons and daughters whose lives are in peril, as beloved children who have been, to some extent, failing to come to table because we foolishly preferred husks fit only for pigs.

 

[Bluebright]

Well yes it is up to you. It sounds like you do have valid reasons for missing mass, but it also sounds like you feel guilty. Do you know you can speak to priests about non sins or things you think or faults or just ask advice? I do this all the time and my priest or other priests that are visiting give me great spiritual advice which makes me feel better. Firstly ask God to send the Holy Spirit to speak for you when you go to confession and trust that you just say what needs to be said, ie what He wants you to say. So I say something like Father I’m not so sure about this… then maybe he could advise you something?

As another idea, did you know you can say prayers for spiritual communion? If you have to miss mass for either of these reasons you could try to say the mass prayers and ask Jesus for spiritual communion. Or if you are sick could you watch mass online on EWTN? You could also consider a penance or reparation like saying your rosary or giving up social media for a day etc. These are just some ideas to show God you are sorry you missed mass even though you couldn’t help it and you chose to pray anyway and thought of Him and missed Him. Sometimes faith is not about what you have to do, but what you want to do. God bless.

 

[PetraG]

You could also consider a penance or reparation like saying your rosary or giving up social media for a day etc.

Penance: It isn’t just a fine for sinners!!
Seriously, though, when we have to miss Mass ourselves for reasons we can’t help sometimes this primes us very well to pray and do penance for those who are deprived of this great gift far more regularly than we have been, not to mention those who miss out of indifference and so on. It is not a bad practice to pray, fast and make an act of mercy whenever we are deprived of the grace of fulfilling one of our beloved obligations, for they are obligations for us in the same way as we are obliged to eat, sleep and have human contact.

“Do you want your prayer to fly to God? Then make two wings for it, fasting and almsgiving.”
–St. Augustine, Expositions of the Psalms

 

[spockrates]

We are to do our best to do an examination of conscience daily and to regularly confess all known sins. For those sins we don’t remember, we trust that God will forgive them in his mercy. Remember, it’s not so much about meditating on your sin as it is about receiving God’s mercy and striving to begin again with the help of his grace. God bless you!

Yeah, yeah! But I had in mind not sins forgotten but sins unknown. Was what I thought, said or did wrong? If unsure, it doesn’t hurt to confess! Right?

 

[Christiaria]

Ah, gotcha! That’s where a good confessor can really come in handy, offering clarification on those kinds of details. It’s helpful to find a priest who doesn’t minimize real sin, but who also knows how to extend the gentleness and mercy of the Jesus in the face of our weakness and contrition.