SPLIT: Is Confession not necessary?

[PJM]

=sdtouchton;4913456]Going to confession is not important, but confessing our sins to God is very important. God has made it possible for us to come to Him directly for the forgiveness of our sins. This means we don’t need to go to confession to confess our sins before a minister or priest. We can go directly to the Lord in prayer.

“But if we confess our sins to him [God], he is faithful and just to forgive us and to cleanse us from every wrong” (1 John 1:9).

God has given us free access to Him through His Son, Jesus. We can approach Him, seeking an intimate relationship with God. This means we do not have to go to confession to meet with Him, because He has created a meeting place where He can shower us with His mercy and grace.

“So let us come boldly to the throne of our gracious God. There we will receive his mercy, and we will find grace to help us when we need it” (Hebrews 4:16).

It is important to note that the privilege of approaching God freely and directly was bought with a great price through the blood of Jesus. The privilege was not gained by any minister or priest to which we have to go to confession. It was Christ’s sacrifice of love on the cross that bridged the gap between a just, holy God and us. When we trust Jesus for our salvation, God sees us through Christ and wipes away all of our sins. It was Jesus who bought our freedom to approach God.

“For there is only one God and one Mediator who can reconcile God and people. He is the man Christ Jesus” (1 Timothy 2:5).

God desires that we live a pure life before Him. He has given us the Holy Spirit, who helps us when there is something in our lives that shouldn’t be there. We examine our motives, our attitudes, and our thoughts for sins against God and man. When we find unflattering things in our lives, we don’t have to go to confession to confess them. But it is important that we go straight to the Lord in prayer to confess our sins, making this a daily exercise.

“Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my thoughts. Point out anything in me that offends you, and lead me along the path of everlasting life” (Psalm 139:23-24).

My dear friend in Christ,

Not only is Confession, in an absolute and litteral sense necessary, it is also highly benefical to one’s mind, body, and soul.

**John ch. 20:*21Jesus said to them again, “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, even so I send you.” 22 And when he had said this, he breathed on them, and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit. *23 If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.” **

Mt. 16: 17"And Jesus answered him, "Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jona! For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father who is in heaven. 18* And I tell you, you are Peter, * and on this rock * I will build my church, and the powers of death * shall not prevail against it. 19* I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven." "

Because of the mental and physical effects of STRESS on the mind and body, Christ knew
precisely what He was instituting in the Catholic Sacrament of Known Forgiveness whereby one who hears and obeys reaps the benefits of absolutely knowing with certitude that ones sins have been forgiven.

Outside of the catholic Church, one may hope, guess, perhaps think that ones sins are forgiven, but my friend are they?

These two bible passages are clear and specific!

God’s love and peace,

 

[isaac_adjovu]

Yes confession is very important because it offers you the opportunity to renew your spirit

 

[Bruno_Schulz]

I would never dare to receive Holy Communion without having confessed at a priest before!

 

[Allymom]

HI,
I am an RCIA candidate:extrahappy: and I was wondering, so when I get into confession will I have to be in there like all day!? I mean I got a lot of confessing to do!:crying: Or do I just hit on the big ones!!!

Thanks!

 

[CentralFLJames]

HI,
I am an RCIA candidate:extrahappy: and I was wondering, so when I get into confession will I have to be in there like all day!? I mean I got a lot of confessing to do!:crying: Or do I just hit on the big ones!!!

Thanks!

First of all congratulations!

The first confession as an adult might be longer. But after that a typical confession for one who is regularly going to confession (perhaps once every month - which would be quite pious) is probably no more than 5 minutes unless you are in need of some personal spiritual counseling to help you overcome some sins or having problems that are holding back your spiritual advancement (bad environment at home or work with many temptations or spousal issues etc.)

If you are also getting a first time baptism - then that takes out everything and there is nothing to confess unless you do something really bad in the time between baptism and confession. But if you already have been baptised elsewhere or performing a conditional baptism and first confession it could very well take you a while. If you have a past sinful life just focus on the mortal sins - write then down on paper if you need to so you can have a clear conscience (but destroy it when you get out). But if no mortal sins (whew!) or only a few then focus on 1 or 2 of your more habitual venial sins as well and confess these too. Confession will forgive ALL venial sins spoken or not if you are truly remorseful for at least one of them. If its a long list then you could be in there for 10 minutes - maybe more. If its long then as a favor to others waiting in line you should call the priest and arrange a private confessional where you are not feeling rushed nor taking time from others.

God Bless,
James

 

[ralphy]

That is heresy,

"If anyone denies that sacramental confession was instituted by divine law or is necessary to salvation; or says that the manner of confessing secretly to a priest alone, which the Catholic Church has always observed from the beginning and still observes, is at variance with the institution and command of Christ and is a human contrivance, let him be anathema. " Council of Trent

“A false witness shall not be unpunished: and he that speaketh lies shall not escape.” Proverbs 19:5

Confession is essential, read this: How often ought we to go to confession

What is this devine law and where did it come from. Ralph

 

[ralphy]

First of all congratulations!

The first confession as an adult might be longer. But after that a typical confession for one who is regularly going to confession (perhaps once every month - which would be quite pious) is probably no more than 5 minutes unless you are in need of some personal spiritual counseling to help you overcome some sins or having problems that are holding back your spiritual advancement (bad environment at home or work with many temptations or spousal issues etc.)

If you are also getting a first time baptism - then that takes out everything and there is nothing to confess unless you do something really bad in the time between baptism and confession. But if you already have been baptised elsewhere or performing a conditional baptism and first confession it could very well take you a while. If you have a past sinful life just focus on the mortal sins - write then down on paper if you need to so you can have a clear conscience (but destroy it when you get out). But if no mortal sins (whew!) or only a few then focus on 1 or 2 of your more habitual venial sins as well and confess these too. Confession will forgive ALL venial sins spoken or not if you are truly remorseful for at least one of them. If its a long list then you could be in there for 10 minutes - maybe more. If its long then as a favor to others waiting in line you should call the priest and arrange a private confessional where you are not feeling rushed nor taking time from others.

God Bless,
James

When are you going to start following what God say’s in His word (the Bible) and forget about the teaching of man. You will be judged by the Word of God (the bible) not what man tells you. Don’t miss heaven by following mans teaching. Ralph

 

[ralphy]

[contined from above]
Note here that God granting us the continuance of life while in grave sin and estrangement to Him IS MERCY; this is especially so due to the magnitude of sin against so Holy and Eternal a God. If just a few hundred years ago any of us had gravely offended a royal King by stealing from him or harming his household or whatever we would be tried and immediately executed - often cruelly. Even in modern secular America if we kill somone with malice of forethought we would be executed and the mercy is in the legal system of fair trial. Likewise if we are in grave sin before God we deserve immediate death. But by God electing to not strike us dead in the act of mortal sin in that instant – that itself is a Mercy since He gives us time to repent so we are not subject to the trial for that sin. But this time is granted just so we may repent and confess and be healed and God help us if we must later face the trial when we squandered that Mercy. Thus every heart beat of life is a constant opportunity to experience God’s Mercy in granting us the time to repent. No person will ever be able to stand before God and say “But Lord! Why can’t you grant me Mercy for all these grave sins now that I am dead and facing condemnation ?” God will say: “I Mercifully gave you every moment of every day of your past life to repent while you were in grave sin so you would not have to face the severity of my Justice. But you rejected my Mercy and chose not to repent and mocked my Mercy by presuming upon it for a later time. You choose to love your sins over Me and now you must spend your eternity embracing the evil you loved and held in higher esteem than me in hell”.

In the early Church one might be given a SINGLE life time opportunity to confess grave sins - but with steep public penances (public begging for prayers outside the Church, fasting and personal acts of charity for months and even years!). The early Church would think that today’s Catholics (and especially baptised non-Catholics) were complete wimps and insincere Christians for not fasting, weeping and praying on their knees for extended periods of time for the opportunity just to go to confession! We should have more of a sense of profound gratitude that we have sacramental confession available to us.

Bottom Line: Confess your grave sins to God in the confessional! It is God’s gift of Mercy to us. But if you can’t get to a priest right away or are a Protestant - pray to God directly for the grace to make a perfect act of contrition then make an act of PERFECT contrition with real conviction of repentance and hope it was good enough and then (Catholics) go to confession to make sure (and non-Catholics convert to Catholicism while you have the time).

James

God is the only one who can forgive sin. Get away from this teaching of man befor you end up in hell. Jesus said “nobody comes to the Father but by Me”. Follow His word and nothing else, think about this statement please. Ralph

 

[Jerry_Marino]

What is penance?
Confession is necessary but as you know to who you confess your sins is of importance. If I sin against you and confess it to you, then you have the choice of forgiving or not. My conscience would be clear of that sin cause I tried to reconcile my trespass against you. Now the ball is your court, what will you do with it?

 

[kirk921]

I agree Madelena if somone has been in mortal sin they should not take Holy Communion without going to confession first that is the teaching of the Roman Catholic Church they can still attend Mass but they shoud not recieve Holy Communion under those circumstances. Being honest I have been in Mass before and did not take Communion because I did not feel right about something and did not recieve untill I had been to penence some people I thought gave me funny looks if you know what I mean. I was doing what I thought was right before I became a Catholic I attended a Greek Orthodox Church a few times a fine church the 10 times or so that I attended that church I would say close to half of the congrgation did not recieve Communion and I ask a member why some were not taking Communion and they were long time members the person told me they were probably not ready so I would think that would mean they needed to go into confession and the people in that church did not seem to think it that big a deal if some were not ready to recieve Communion which they would be doing the right thing the Orthodox teach the same thing. In the Catholic Church where I am a Baptized member it seems every member takes Communion every time which is great if everyone never sins but that is highly unlikley as far as I am concerened it is a persons own business I mean I do not just always look to see who is or who isn’t that is their personal business I just pray that people including myself make the right chioces in those kind’s of matters.

Kirk

 

[TommyWommy]

God is the only one who can forgive sin. Get away from this teaching of man befor you end up in hell. Jesus said “nobody comes to the Father but by Me”. Follow His word and nothing else, think about this statement please. Ralph

Ralph,

Show us, please, something that says that ALL of God’s Word is written down in the Bible. You can find plenty of threads on here effectively debunking that notion. I’m not trying to start a new thread here, but think about this statement, please.

 

[CentralFLJames]

When are you going to start following what God say’s in His word (the Bible) and forget about the teaching of man. You will be judged by the Word of God (the bible) not what man tells you. Don’t miss heaven by following mans teaching. Ralph

The Bible is Catholic Ralphy and it tells us to obey Jesus’ appointed authorities which is the Catholic Church. You are the one following the teachings of men if you believe that your bible is going to save you from your unrepented and confessed sins.

What sin is so great that Jesus’ death did not atone for? The one grave one that you did not repent of and confess. Assuming upon God’s Mercy that you are saved by mere works of the tounge in professing a shallow “I believe” is as damnable an offense to God as it is to good sense. Wake up and learn the truth while you still have God’s Mercy of life to repent.

James

 

[CentralFLJames]

God is the only one who can forgive sin. Get away from this teaching of man befor you end up in hell. Jesus said “nobody comes to the Father but by Me”. Follow His word and nothing else, think about this statement please. Ralph

You do not speak for God ralphy and I suggest that you learn to read your bible with comprehension before you attempt to teach it since you don’t know what you are talking about and will be held accountable for picking and choosing which words of God you would permit others to hear. We live by EVERY word that comes from the mouth of the Lord - not just the ones that support your human traditions and neo-Christian teachings of heretics. The Word of God subsists entirely in Christ Jesus as the Living Word of God and unless you eat of His Body and Drink of His Blood worthily (not in sin) then you have no life in you and can gain no merit or justification before God no matter how hard you flap your lips as a work of professed faith. You sir profess a works based theology to imagine you could possibly gain heaven by mere works of the lips and fly and flap them to rise to heaven under the weight of sin.

God is the only one who can forgive sin but God has given His Divine Permission to His Chosen apostolic representatives to speak In Persona Christi (that is with the authority of Jesus’ Name) to loose or hold bound all sin.

*John 20:21-23
So Jesus said to them again, “Peace be with you; as the Father has sent Me, I also send you.” 22 And when He had said this, He breathed on them and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit. 23 “If you forgive the sins of any, their sins have been forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they have been retained.” *

Catholic Priests are direct apostolic successors of the apostles through hand selection by their predecessors. They have been given this same divine authority to forgive sins in Christ’s name by the physical “laying on of hands”. Therefor a Catholic Priest has the divine authority and anointing to speak for Christ to forgive men their sins (or to deny it to those who openly presume upon God’s Mercy and do not sincerely repent). If you do not repent & confess your grave post-baptismal sins then you are still in your sins and you will not gain eternal life unless you do so before you die. Take heed.

James

 

[CentralFLJames]

What is penance?
Confession is necessary but as you know to who you confess your sins is of importance. If I sin against you and confess it to you, then you have the choice of forgiving or not. My conscience would be clear of that sin cause I tried to reconcile my trespass against you. Now the ball is your court, what will you do with it?

Penance has simultaneously two meanings to Catholics and you discern which is which based on the context of the discussion.

In the first sense “Penance” means the Sacrament of Penance that is also called the Sacrament of Repentance or The Sacrament of Reconciliation. This is the actual way a Catholic can confess their sins in private to an apostolically ordained priest who has the power to “loose and bind” sins and forgive us our sins. The presumption is the person requesting forgivness has already formed the proper interior contrition and sincere sorrow to be forgiven and is truly “repentant” for his errors.

In the second sense “Penance” means “doing a personal penance” (which takes God’s repentant grace) to develop the proper interior contrition and sorrow so we can properly repent of our sins before going to confession. This can be either self imposed as a discipline or assigned by the priest during confession. It can be any combination of deep prayer, meditation/contemplation, fasting, retorative works of charity, self-denial and alms giving. In the case of personal penance it can help us focus on the gravity of our error and to project how that offended God and added to the suffering and passion of Jesus on the Cross and how it hurt our relationship with God, ourselves and our fellow man and creation itself. It it what good Catholics do to prepare for confession. It is also the post sacramental confessional acts of grace and expressions of gratitude and love to God for forgiving us of our sins. Or it is the restorative acts a priest assigns us in confession.

When one sins against God or neighbor there is an eternal offense to God since he is eternal and so holy. Catholics believe that when one is forgiven of the sins that eternal offense is mitigated but there remains earthly (temporal) consequences for those forgiven sins that must be remitted as best we can. For example if we stole money we must return it to make restitution for justice sake. If we harmed somone we need to apologize to them if possible and do what we can to restore their condition to equal or better than it was. The problem is we often can NOT repair the damage (how does one restore someone’s reputation damaged by slander for example?). So Catholics will pray and fast to help offset the temporal debts that still might remain even after forgivness of sins. We trust that God will hear our prayers and grant the graces to those who we have harmed to offset our debts in some way known only to him. This also relates to purgatory since if we do not adequately restore our temporal debts in this life then we must suffer for them in purgatory (assuming we did not die in mortal sin and go to hell). In purgatory God refines and perfects those souls who were judged worthy of heaven but due to Justice still had not atoned for the harm we caused others or even ourselves. It is also a place one goes where God removes all tendencies or desires to repeat past forgiven sins since we always in life retain a memory and appetite for past sins - even when forgiven. In heaven not even the slightest urge to sin can be permitted since heaven knows not the least of any sin or taint of desire for it.

I hope this helps.

James

 

[Allymom]

First of all congratulations!

The first confession as an adult might be longer. But after that a typical confession for one who is regularly going to confession (perhaps once every month - which would be quite pious) is probably no more than 5 minutes unless you are in need of some personal spiritual counseling to help you overcome some sins or having problems that are holding back your spiritual advancement (bad environment at home or work with many temptations or spousal issues etc.)

If you are also getting a first time baptism - then that takes out everything and there is nothing to confess unless you do something really bad in the time between baptism and confession. But if you already have been baptised elsewhere or performing a conditional baptism and first confession it could very well take you a while. If you have a past sinful life just focus on the mortal sins - write then down on paper if you need to so you can have a clear conscience (but destroy it when you get out). But if no mortal sins (whew!) or only a few then focus on 1 or 2 of your more habitual venial sins as well and confess these too. Confession will forgive ALL venial sins spoken or not if you are truly remorseful for at least one of them. If its a long list then you could be in there for 10 minutes - maybe more. If its long then as a favor to others waiting in line you should call the priest and arrange a private confessional where you are not feeling rushed nor taking time from others.

God Bless,
James

Thanks James! I have been baptized as a child so no, there will not be a baptism. I have had a lifetime of confessing my sins to my heavenly Father and that I shall continue. I look forward to the first chance I get to go to confession. Many Protestants don’t want to admit this but we confess to our brother/sisters in Christ, pastors, counselors… I am not really sure why people are so offended by the thought of going to a priest!
Be blessed!

 

[Yoeman65]

Just remember this: God IS all powerful and capable of forgiving sins in any way He deems necessary or right. The church has been given the power to bind and loose as an ordinary means of forgivenenss of sins but not the only means. Forgivenenss requires contrition. Contrition is a 180 degree turning away from SIN. An example: Asking for forgiveness for co-habiting with someone (sexually) while knowing you are NOT going to go back to a chaiste life is adding the sin of presumption. The person asking for forgiveness might not even know they are doing this and would probably still be in mortal danger.

Penance is food for the soul, along with the eucharist. We in the US would never think of missing eating for a week but think nothing of not feeding our souls for months on end with the gift Jesus gove to his bride the Church.

Please reconsider Penance. It is conscience building at its finest.

 

[ralphy]

Ralph,

Show us, please, something that says that ALL of God’s Word is written down in the Bible. You can find plenty of threads on here effectively debunking that notion. I’m not trying to start a new thread here, but think about this statement, please./QUOTE) If you did not get it from the Bible, then where did you get it from. I realize that everything God said is not in the Bible, but you show me where anything He said is recorded,( that is written.) Ralph

 

[ralphy]

Thanks James! I have been baptized as a child so no, there will not be a baptism. I have had a lifetime of confessing my sins to my heavenly Father and that I shall continue. I look forward to the first chance I get to go to confession. Many Protestants don’t want to admit this but we confess to our brother/sisters in Christ, pastors, counselors… I am not really sure why people are so offended by the thought of going to a priest!
Be blessed!

I go to the one who can forgive sin, God through Christ, I do not need anyone else between. There are no priests in the new testament, only in the Anglican and Roman Catholic church. We do not need priests,as we can now go directly to the throne of grace, through the Blood of Christ to God. The priests ended in the old testament. Ralph

 

[firstmode]

My understanding is like it or not, once you are baptized Catholic, you are Catholic. So what would these people call themselves if not Catholic? I know many Catholics who believe in God, but don’t follow the teachings. They still are Catholic since they have not joined another religion, and still recognize themselves as baptized Catholic. What would you call the Christmas and Easter Catholics?

I was baptized as an infant in the Catholic church. What does that make me?

 

[CentralFLJames]

I was baptized as an infant in the Catholic church. What does that make me?

You are Catholic just like all who are baptised and should return to the Church.
Once a Catholic always a Catholic. The expectations are much higher for us and we are in fact held to a higher accountability. When did you abandon your Catholic faith? Or did your
parents not follow up with their obligations to raise you as a Catholic and get you into the Catechism programs and confirmed by an apostolic bishop?

You should very seriously try to get back to The Church since it is YOUR family.
Consider this an invitation to come back - we miss you and have been expecting you.

James