What does this have to do with the sacrament of confession?

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Sir_Knight

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As I mentioned elsewhere, my daughter is going to be making her first Reconciliation soon. I just learn that during the church ceremony lwading up to the actual confession, we are going to be asked to make the sign of the cross with our thumb over our family members foreheads saying that we forgive them?

What does this have to do with the sacrament of confession? Is it just me or would these type of actions only serve to confuse a young child making her first Reconciliation?
 
Sir_Knight said:
… my daughter is going to be making her first Reconciliation soon. I just learn that during the church ceremony leading up to the actual confession, we are going to be asked to make the sign of the cross with our thumb over our family members foreheads saying that we forgive them? What does this have to do with the sacrament of confession? Is it just me or would these type of actions only serve to confuse a young child making her first Reconciliation?
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Well, you know that for penance to be “complete” (for lack of a better word), any outstanding issues between you and anyone else have to be resolved. In other words, we must seek forgiveness of anyone we’ve wronged before we seek absolution.

I think the idea of forgiving your daughter of any wrongs she’s committed against you before she goes to Reconciliation is an excellent opportunity for you, her first instructor in the Faith, to help her to do things in the proper order. This way, perhaps she’ll remember the correct way to approach the Sacrament. Just take a few minutes and explain this, give her the opening to seek your forgiveness - then forgive her as the RE instructor advised.
 
Sir_Knight said:
As I mentioned elsewhere, my daughter is going to be making her first Reconciliation soon. I just learn that during the church ceremony lwading up to the actual confession, we are going to be asked to make the sign of the cross with our thumb over our family members foreheads saying that we forgive them?

What does this have to do with the sacrament of confession? Is it just me or would these type of actions only serve to confuse a young child making her first Reconciliation?
Click to expand...
Sounds odd, and I do agree with you that to a young child it may be confusing- she might think that both the priest and her parents gave absolution.
 
Sir_Knight said:
As I mentioned elsewhere, my daughter is going to be making her first Reconciliation soon. I just learn that during the church ceremony lwading up to the actual confession, we are going to be asked to make the sign of the cross with our thumb over our family members foreheads saying that we forgive them?

What does this have to do with the sacrament of confession? Is it just me or would these type of actions only serve to confuse a young child making her first Reconciliation?
Click to expand...
I just went through this twice in the last two years and nothing like this came up. My girls were not studying and practicing to experience mom and dad’s only too human forgiveness, they were going to receive the total and sacramental forgiveness of Christ! And I kept reminding them that the priest was representing Jesus in this situation.

It sounds like some sort of “feel good gesture” …Maybe it’s supposed to build up to the actual reconcilliation?

If you’re up in the Lehigh Valley, you’re only right up the NE extension from me, so you shouldn’t have a whole different twist on this sacrament. But I know that people are rewriting the rules from town to town these days!

Good luck. So are you in Christmas Town USA?
(that’s Bethlehem, PA to you out of towners)
 
Sir_Knight said:
As I mentioned elsewhere, my daughter is going to be making her first Reconciliation soon. I just learn that during the church ceremony lwading up to the actual confession, we are going to be asked to make the sign of the cross with our thumb over our family members foreheads saying that we forgive them?

What does this have to do with the sacrament of confession? Is it just me or would these type of actions only serve to confuse a young child making her first Reconciliation?
Click to expand...
it has to do with DREs assuming the authority to make up their own quasi-liturgical rites. It denotes a fundamental ignorance of the rich liturgical wealth of the Church. There is a liturgy of a communal reconciliation service to precede individual confessions, and it is very appropriate for first confession. It is abounding, like all true liturgy, in signs, symbols and actions that teach and are efficacious. The gesture you describe is not one of them. These people being deficient in their understanding and appreciation of what the Rite actually does contain, feel compelled to lie awake nights dreaming up their own ritual actions.

that gesture is a beautiful one, and is used in another context, the Rite of Acceptance, the Rite of Baptism of Infants being examples but there it does not signify forgiveness, it signifies what it denotes, the sign of the cross, the acceptance of the Cross.

to be perfectly fair to this DRE, she is acting as she has been trained, in perfectly good faith, and sincerely believes she is offering the children and families a rich beneficial experience. Don’t shoot her, shoot the people who trained her and who write the professional journals, textbooks and parent materials she uses. (shoot being used metaphorically, not literall of course).
 
Could it be just to make it a custom for you to bless your child? My mom does it every time I leave her place or someone else’s place if she’s there. It makes me feel good when she does it.

Maybe it’s something new? (I doubt it though) But I don’t think it has anything to do w/the reonciliation itself. I really do wonder why they did this…
 
puzzleannie said:
it has to do with DREs assuming the authority to make up their own quasi-liturgical rites. It denotes a fundamental ignorance of the rich liturgical wealth of the Church.
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If this were a poll, I’d vote this one.

We just went through the Sacrament with our eldest. We had nothing this.

The battle we faced though is that our DRE doesn’t believe that children in the 2nd grade are really capable of committing sin (let alone a mortal sin). She lets everyone know that this Sacrament is optional.

We had the service before hand. Out of 90 families, 60-some showed up and 40-some children received the Sacrament. Less than 50% of the 2nd graders received the Sacrament. 😦

The DRE was upset though because she “thought she made it perfectly clear that the Sacrament was optional but the service wasn’t” :rolleyes: If the whole situation wasn’t sad, that’d be funny.
 
Dandelion_Wine said:
The battle we faced though is that our DRE doesn’t believe that children in the 2nd grade are really capable of committing sin
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Wow, those kids must all be little angels. Is there nothing they could do to change her mind?
 
Sir_Knight said:
As I mentioned elsewhere, my daughter is going to be making her first Reconciliation soon. I just learn that during the church ceremony lwading up to the actual confession, we are going to be asked to make the sign of the cross with our thumb over our family members foreheads saying that we forgive them?

What does this have to do with the sacrament of confession? Is it just me or would these type of actions only serve to confuse a young child making her first Reconciliation?
Click to expand...
It seems as though the Catechist is trying to make a symbolic connection between the Rite of Acceptance in Baptism and First Confession.

There is, in fact, a connection, since in Confession, we are (metaphorically) washing our Baptismal garments, making them white again.

However, since little children have no memory of their Rite of Acceptance in Baptism, and since there isn’t any actual need for it, it seems to me that it would be a very confusing thing to include in this ceremony.

I don’t know why people can’t just use the materials provided by the Church in the way of Services of Reconciliation for Children, without having to get creative with them. It would be a lot less work, and a lot less confusing for everyone involved.

A better way to symbolize the connection would be for the parents to light the child’s Baptismal candle, and tell the child stories about the day of his or her Baptism, after they get home from the child’s First Confession, as part of the at-home celebration that marks this important step in the child’s journey of faith.
 
Sir_Knight said:
As I mentioned elsewhere, my daughter is going to be making her first Reconciliation soon. I just learn that during the church ceremony lwading up to the actual confession, we are going to be asked to make the sign of the cross with our thumb over our family members foreheads saying that we forgive them?

What does this have to do with the sacrament of confession? Is it just me or would these type of actions only serve to confuse a young child making her first Reconciliation?
Click to expand...
Someone’s idea of something new, that is all. This is NOT part of the Rite of Reconciliation.
 
Dandelion_Wine said:
If
The battle we faced though is that our DRE doesn’t believe that children in the 2nd grade are really capable of committing sin (let alone a mortal sin).
. . . If the whole situation wasn’t sad, that’d be funny.
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obviously not someone who has ever raised a 2nd grader
 
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