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Friar_David_O.Carm
Guest
Correction, it is not a sin to eat meat on Fridays as along as you replace it with some other form of penance (out side of Lent). At least that is how it is in the United States.
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ATeutonicKnight
Guest
Really? I’ve heard this before, but I always forget. I’ll try to remember this. Today I gave up meat, but I forgot by lunch and ate ravioli. After I was done I realized I gave it up, so I didn’t eat any tonight.
C
curlycool89
Guest
Make sure you get the order right when saying it though. PJPII wasn’t holy because he went to confession every day. PJPII went to confession everyday because he was holy.
Telling someone to go to weekly confession from every 2 months or longer isn’t going to make them a holier person in 99.9% of situations. More likely it will just make them fed up. As I said, it’s not the confession that makes them holy. Those people who go to weekly confession go because they are compelled by the Spirit.
No amount of human prodding will do if they simply aren’t ready for such things. Most people don’t become saints overnight.
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nodito
Guest
In your original post you’re not admonishing sinners so much as you are criticizing a priest who doesn’t share your taste in books and whose approach to recommending confession is perhaps more pragmatic or pastoral than your own would be.
Priests are our spiritual fathers. They deserve the same respect as we would give to our own human fathers, and that we would require from our own children. I would not take kindly to my son pointing out that he didn’t approve of the books that I read or that I could be “more Catholic” if I wanted to be. If he’s that concerned about my holiness, he ought to be fasting and praying for me, and leading his life as an example to mine, not nitpicking when I don’t know about this or that saint or this and that holy card.
J
JReducation
Guest
Normally, I don’t answer to these kinds of threads, but this one has the potential to do a great deal of harm to those who are discerning a vocation to the diaconate, priesthood, or religious life.
Saying “Oh my God” is not a sin. It’s an exclamation. One of Teresa of Avila’s favorite exclamations when something went south was “Good God, what now?!” When she appeared before the Inquisition they charged her with having sex with many men, because she went through confessors like I go through paper towels, but they never mentioned blasphemy.
What the priest reads is none of anyone’s business. If he’s a religious, it would be the business of his religious superior. However, I warn anyone who wants to be a religious. Checking up on reading lists is not what we do. Good gravy! If he’s a diocesan priest, even the bishop has no business checking his reading list. You’re violating boundaries here, doing something to someone that you would probably object if they did it to you. You’re deciding what is and what is not appropriate for your priest to read.
Let us not forget that many deacons, priests, brothers and sisters are teachers, doctors, lawyers, social workers, scientists, artists, or craftsmen. They read a great deal outside of theology. Most are very well educated in the Humanities and Liberal Arts. They are very familiar with secular literature. The last thing that the Church needs are deacons, priests, brothers and sisters who know nothing about real life and real people. Even Carthusian monks who never leave their cells read Catcher in the Rye, A Streetcar Named Desire, the works of Williams Shakespeare, Agatha Christie, and other secular writings. The mind needs to a balanced diet. Reading the Fathers, Augustine, and Aquinas 24/7 is far from a balanced diet.
Using a reference from a secular source in a homily is not contrary to good homiletics. The purpose of good homiletics is to proclaim the Gospel in a way that it’s digestible. If you read the homilies of St. Bonaventure, they are full of allegory. The people of his time understood allegory better than theology. When he preaches to the friars, his homilies are very Aristotelian. The friars were better educated. If the priest is speaking to the average middle class congregation, it’s probably well educated and probably familiar with certain writers and works. If they can be used to proclaim the Gospel by highlighting a point, then there is nothing wrong with it. If he were quoting CS Lewis during a homily to an indigenous population in the Amazon the message might get lost.
I can’t say what you should do, because I don’t know the state of your soul. Most priests would tell people who have struggles with scruples and with addictions to confess once per month, not every week. In the case of scruples, you don’t want to promote scrupulosity. You want to get the person to trust God’s mercy. In the case of addictions, there is a point at which the act become almost impulsive or compulsive. If the confessor feels that this is the case, the person is not subjectively culpable of mortal sin, because freedom is impaired. The confessor will encourage the person to use spiritual direction or even counseling to deal with the addiction. Confession should never take the place of mental health counseling, nor should mental health counseling take the place of confession. Each has its purpose. The law of the Church is that you confess at least once per year. The ideal would be every two to four weeks. You want to make confession part of your journey of faith. Encouraging people to go to confession more frequently is a good thing.
I don’t know what you do when you go to mass. I attend Sunday mass at a local parish, because I teach CCD there. There are about 800 people in the church. I have no idea what they’re doing. I’ve learned to discipline myself to enter into my inner space where there is silence. Those who are reading these threads as they discern a religious or priestly vocation, you must focus on inner silence, not on the world around you at church or on the subway. St. Benedict said it best, “Focus on the conversion of manners.” He means, your manners, the way that you do things, not the way that others do things. St. Augustine recalled this years later. He would tell his monks to pay more attention to their faults than to those of others.
Fraternally,
Br. JR, OSF
Saying “Oh my God” is not a sin. It’s an exclamation. One of Teresa of Avila’s favorite exclamations when something went south was “Good God, what now?!” When she appeared before the Inquisition they charged her with having sex with many men, because she went through confessors like I go through paper towels, but they never mentioned blasphemy.
What the priest reads is none of anyone’s business. If he’s a religious, it would be the business of his religious superior. However, I warn anyone who wants to be a religious. Checking up on reading lists is not what we do. Good gravy! If he’s a diocesan priest, even the bishop has no business checking his reading list. You’re violating boundaries here, doing something to someone that you would probably object if they did it to you. You’re deciding what is and what is not appropriate for your priest to read.
Let us not forget that many deacons, priests, brothers and sisters are teachers, doctors, lawyers, social workers, scientists, artists, or craftsmen. They read a great deal outside of theology. Most are very well educated in the Humanities and Liberal Arts. They are very familiar with secular literature. The last thing that the Church needs are deacons, priests, brothers and sisters who know nothing about real life and real people. Even Carthusian monks who never leave their cells read Catcher in the Rye, A Streetcar Named Desire, the works of Williams Shakespeare, Agatha Christie, and other secular writings. The mind needs to a balanced diet. Reading the Fathers, Augustine, and Aquinas 24/7 is far from a balanced diet.
Using a reference from a secular source in a homily is not contrary to good homiletics. The purpose of good homiletics is to proclaim the Gospel in a way that it’s digestible. If you read the homilies of St. Bonaventure, they are full of allegory. The people of his time understood allegory better than theology. When he preaches to the friars, his homilies are very Aristotelian. The friars were better educated. If the priest is speaking to the average middle class congregation, it’s probably well educated and probably familiar with certain writers and works. If they can be used to proclaim the Gospel by highlighting a point, then there is nothing wrong with it. If he were quoting CS Lewis during a homily to an indigenous population in the Amazon the message might get lost.
I can’t say what you should do, because I don’t know the state of your soul. Most priests would tell people who have struggles with scruples and with addictions to confess once per month, not every week. In the case of scruples, you don’t want to promote scrupulosity. You want to get the person to trust God’s mercy. In the case of addictions, there is a point at which the act become almost impulsive or compulsive. If the confessor feels that this is the case, the person is not subjectively culpable of mortal sin, because freedom is impaired. The confessor will encourage the person to use spiritual direction or even counseling to deal with the addiction. Confession should never take the place of mental health counseling, nor should mental health counseling take the place of confession. Each has its purpose. The law of the Church is that you confess at least once per year. The ideal would be every two to four weeks. You want to make confession part of your journey of faith. Encouraging people to go to confession more frequently is a good thing.
I don’t know what you do when you go to mass. I attend Sunday mass at a local parish, because I teach CCD there. There are about 800 people in the church. I have no idea what they’re doing. I’ve learned to discipline myself to enter into my inner space where there is silence. Those who are reading these threads as they discern a religious or priestly vocation, you must focus on inner silence, not on the world around you at church or on the subway. St. Benedict said it best, “Focus on the conversion of manners.” He means, your manners, the way that you do things, not the way that others do things. St. Augustine recalled this years later. He would tell his monks to pay more attention to their faults than to those of others.
Fraternally,
Br. JR, OSF
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MonjaFutura
Guest
I must admit I do say “Oh Lord” whenever someone is using extremely profane language or something like that or if I need His Help in something. I think it depends how it is said. If someone is saying it in a way that acknowledges God and calls upon Him in a prayerful manner, I don’t think it is bad. Almost everyone says it, so that can’t be helped much. The Lord once said not to attack priests (not to be “holier than thou” but He did and many people don’t know that). I personally don’t go to confession every week because I can’t. The biggest thing to remember is that on the last day, the Lord will judge us, not others. And He’s not going to judge us on how well we fit to the standard we hold others to, He’s going to judge us to His Standards. Even if you believe that people should do something, you should first honestly examine yourself and how you conduct yourself. But I must say that, as long as it isn’t scrupulosity, going to confession more often is a good idea.
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