When did confession start to become regular?

[TK421]

Wouldn’t confession have more of an impact if it were practiced less frequently?

An individual might (or might not) choose to place greater seriousness or importance on the event, but objectively, since Confession is a sacrament, the graces still come to a person whether they do it once a year or once a month or more frequently than that. It’s like the Eucharist: receiving only once a year doesn’t make the Host “more Jesus-y” when a person receives, because Jesus is already 100% present each time the priest confects the Eucharist.

Besides, the spiritual life parallels building fitness for the body or building wisdom for the mind. You gain deeper footing and deeper appreciation through use and action and experience, and that includes participation in the sacramental life.

Peace.

 

[Trilor]

I think it started with the Desert Fathers. They had a practice of having an Abba that the individual monk would reveal his struggles to and the Abba would then give what advice he could. Irish monasticism picked up this practice from them.

 

[giuseppe96]

So I guess that one didn’t receive the Eucharist more than a few times a year?

 

[Rob2]

Unless I’m wrong confession in the early church was a rarer event, like it was done once and typically the penances were very, very long: maybe 6 months to a year. When did confession start being offered regularly and when did the penance start to change and why?

This teaching from the Catechism of the Catholic Church may help you a little @SacredHeartBassist : - - - - - -

" Over the centuries the concrete form in which the Church has exercised this power received from the Lord has varied considerably. During the first centuries the reconciliation of Christians who had committed particularly grave sins after their Baptism (for example, idolatry, murder, or adultery) was tied to a very rigorous discipline, according to which penitents had to do public penance for their sins, often for years, before receiving reconciliation. To this “order of penitents” (which concerned only certain grave sins), one was only rarely admitted and in certain regions only once in a lifetime. During the seventh century Irish missionaries, inspired by the Eastern monastic tradition, took to continental Europe the “private” practice of penance, which does not require public and prolonged completion of penitential works before reconciliation with the Church. From that time on, the sacrament has been performed in secret between penitent and priest. This new practice envisioned the possibility of repetition and so opened the way to a regular frequenting of this sacrament. It allowed the forgiveness of grave sins and venial sins to be integrated into one sacramental celebration. In its main lines this is the form of penance that the Church has practiced down to our day."

 

[Gorgias]

Every venial sin you commit will weaken your relationship with God and the state of your soul, and perfect contrition is not sufficient to restore that completely.

On the other hand, what is sufficient to restore a relationship with God that has been damaged through venial sin is prayer, reception of the Eucharist, or participation at Mass. Not only is perfect contrition not required for the forgiveness of venial sin, neither is sacramental confession (although it’s a darn good idea!).

So I guess that one didn’t receive the Eucharist more than a few times a year?

Actually, that was a still later development, as well!

As the notion of transubstantiation became more widely recognized – that is, as folks started to recognize precisely how it is that the Eucharist is the Body and Blood of Christ – a hypersensitivity with respect to the Eucharist started to emerge. At that point – due more to a greater ‘fear’ of the Eucharist, rather than a greater recognition of the need for sacramental absolution – the frequency of reception of the Eucharist decreased.

 

[Mary888]

I saw an interview once with two priests who were discussing this matter. They said that historical resources say in the beginning the Eucharist was being given without confession. Later on the Church observed that many people who were receiving it had various sins of different degrees. At some point it was decided that, for the spiritual safety of the people, the Eucharist cannot be received just by anyone Christian no matter how many sins that person did so the confession before receiving it became a rule. This was around 4th century when the Church began to be coagulated after the persecutions against Christians ended.

 

[Ignatius64869]

Correct. Most only received it once a year (if at all). The Eucharist came to be seen as something reserved for the clergy. It became such an issue that the Church made it mandatory to receive the Eucharist once a year, so generally people would make their yearly confession, receive the Eucharist, and consider themselves good until next year. It was during this time that many devotions and Eucharistic adoration became popular because, in a very real sense, the devotions replaced the reception of the Eucharist in the minds of many lay people.

However, it is also important to note that the connection between the Eucharist and Confession was not officially affirmed until Lateran IV. Laity in the ancient Church would not have necessarily seen the connection between sin and not receiving the Eucharist.