Why do "expert" Catholics extinguish the faith of the hopeful?

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Thank you all…you are so kind, gracious, and helpful. It has been overwhelming to figure out what to do now. I thought once you went to confession and sincerely confessed all that you remembered, and expressed genuine sorrow for those sins and those you cannot remember, and all those of your life…you were then in a state of grace, and the next confession need only include the sins from that point forward. I just was completely shocked to learn from this forum…that you must continue to confess for the rest of your life any grave unconfessed sin which comes to mind. If that were not bad enough…my memory injury makes it more overwhelming.
I do have an appointment with my priest next week. I am very grateful to you all, and to my priest who I am sure will help me in anyway I need.

May God Bless you all,
Unworthy Handmaiden
 
handmaidenByzC said:
Thank you all…you are so kind, gracious, and helpful. It has been overwhelming to figure out what to do now. I thought once you went to confession and sincerely confessed all that you remembered, and expressed genuine sorrow for those sins and those you cannot remember, and all those of your life…you were then in a state of grace,
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So far, you were completely correct, as people have said.
handmaidenByzC said:
and the next confession need only include the sins from that point forward. I just was completely shocked to learn from this forum…that you must continue to confess for the rest of your life any grave unconfessed sin which comes to mind.
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It may help if you think of it this way: You should always confess all unconfessed grave sins that you remember at the time of your confession. If you have done this in good faith, you will be in a state of grace unless you commit a new mortal sin.

If you don’t remember them you don’t have to confess them. If you remember some sin from 10 years ago for five minutes at some point, that doesn’t mean you are in a state of sin if you don’t confess it next time, unless that five minutes happens to coincide with the time you are at confession. If it is something you need to confess specifically, the Lord will bring it to mind when you are at confession. It is of course desirable to try to remember as many as you can. If you have a memory problem, that may be fewer than most people can. God only wants us to do our best, whatever that is.

I think that on the whole you are letting yourself worry too much about this. I’m really glad you are planning to talk to a priest about it, because I’m sure he will reassure you.

God bless!

–Jen
 
I meant to say…that I will post you on how our conversation goes. I am sure we will then arrange a time for confession after I have clarification…I will need time to prepare. I have been to confession regularly (every 2 to 3 weeks) since I have moved back to his church… at the scheduled time. I do not like the scheduled time…because usually I am the only one to ask for the sacrament…also, in the Byzantine Catholic church women generally do not go behind the Holy Iconastasis…so I wait until a man goes in or out, and then he notices me and goes to call Father out. All of this makes me conspicuous. That is the last thing I want…not because I am afraid people think me sinful…I AM SINFUL! But, rather, it is because I do not want to appear falsely holy (this concern can sometimes discourage me from the sacrament)
So I will be looking forward to a scheduled time…which in my rite…is not a difficult thing to ask. We do face to face confession so it is not foreign to make an appointment for confession. This is a great blessing…to have a regular confessor, especially now that I need very serious spiritual advice…upon learning the requirement to include all past unconfessed sins which come to mind. The difficult side…it is sometimes hard to talk face to face about some sins…many in fact…but I guess it will likely be more fruitful.

Thank you all so very much,
May God Bless you
 
I’m glad you have an appointment with the priest, I’m sure he will be very helpful to you. Please think of the Sacrament of Reconciliation as a font of God’s grace. If you make a good confession (one in which you are contrite and confess all the sins your remember) your sins are forgiven. However, if you later remember a mortal sin, do not be distressed, you were forgiven for your sins. You do not revert back to a state of mortal sin upon remembering this past sin. However, we are told that we should confess any mortal sin if we suddenly remember it. Why would the Church tell us to do this if the sin is forgiven? Because the Sacrament is a source of grace!! Because when you approach this sacrament in true humility and contrition then God heals your soul in ways we cannot even fathom. Try not to be worried or overwhelmed about the possibility of remembering a mortal sin. If you do remember one, think of it as a gift of the Lord and the invitation to meet Him in the Sacrament. He desires for you to receive the fullness of His mercy and love. Based on personal experience, I believe that once you start approaching the Sacrament of Reconciliation and confess to the best of your ability, He will take you by the hand and give you His peace.
 
handmaidenByzC said:
I no longer wish to attain my childhood dream. I do not feel I will find the Lord in another church…and I feel recourse only to my faulty moral compass and my heart.

God Bless You, and thank you for any help
Unworthy, sad, exasperated, excommunicated handmaiden
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This is the New Law, the New Covenant prophesied in Jer 31 and elsewhere in the OT and quoted in the NT in Hebrews 8 and 10:

**33 “This is the covenant I will make with the people of Israel
after that time,” declares the LORD.
“I will put my law in their minds
and write it on their hearts.
I will be their God,
and they will be my people.
34 No longer will they teach their neighbor,
or say to one another, ‘Know the LORD,’
because they will all know me,
from the least of them to the greatest,”
declares the LORD.
“For I will forgive their wickedness
and will remember their sins no more.” **

God promises to make us holy, to write His laws on our hearts and in our minds, which is another way of saying He’ll help us fulfill the greatest commandments, to love Him with our whole heart, soul, mind, and strength and our neighbor as ourselves. Because this is what our holiness, our justice, consists of. And everything the Church is given to do, such as to administer the Sacrament of Reconciliation, is simply devoted towards this end, an end which may need to be finally attained in purgatory, if need be.

In any case, God already knows your heart, your sins, your sincerity or level of contriteness. He doesn’t expect us to have perfect memories or to become scrupulous.
 
handmaidenByzC said:
I meant to say…that I will post you on how our conversation goes. I am sure we will then arrange a time for confession after I have clarification…I will need time to prepare. I have been to confession regularly (every 2 to 3 weeks) since I have moved back to his church… at the scheduled time. I do not like the scheduled time…because usually I am the only one to ask for the sacrament…also, in the Byzantine Catholic church women generally do not go behind the Holy Iconastasis…so I wait until a man goes in or out, and then he notices me and goes to call Father out. All of this makes me conspicuous. That is the last thing I want…not because I am afraid people think me sinful…I AM SINFUL! But, rather, it is because I do not want to appear falsely holy (this concern can sometimes discourage me from the sacrament)
So I will be looking forward to a scheduled time…which in my rite…is not a difficult thing to ask. We do face to face confession so it is not foreign to make an appointment for confession. This is a great blessing…to have a regular confessor, especially now that I need very serious spiritual advice…upon learning the requirement to include all past unconfessed sins which come to mind. The difficult side…it is sometimes hard to talk face to face about some sins…many in fact…but I guess it will likely be more fruitful.

Thank you all so very much,
May God Bless you
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Confess a forgotten unconfessed sin if:
(1) you know for a fact it was a serious sin and
(2) you know for a fact that you have not already confessed it.
 
handmaidenByzC said:
I was born into the Byzantine Catholic Church, and my first confession and Holy Communion (at age 5) were the happiest moment in my life. My life has been complicated by many things. The summary is that my parents divorced a few months later…my only access to religion and learning was the baptist church…
V
V
V
You get the picture.

After JPII came along, disappointing liberal hopefuls, and doctrine was mentioned on TV…followed by the internet, and book stores…I began to learn

I spent a lot of time in confession and at liturgy.

Then, while trying to further progress in the faith…this is my experience:

Finally, after having attained the age, consistent access and use of all the prescribed Church sacraments, reading materials (which BTW, I have found my orthodox books to be argumentative, and elitist)…

I no longer wish to attain my childhood dream. I do not feel I will find the Lord in another church…and I feel recourse only to my faulty moral compass and my heart.

God Bless You, and thank you for any help
Unworthy, sad, exasperated, excommunicated handmaiden
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Thank you very much for your beautiful post.

My first advice would be to trust that God loves you and that He established His Church precisely because He loves you.

As to expert advice, I don’t think there is any sin that a priest cannot absolve if one is truly repentant.

The goal of salvation is our transformation into the image of Christ and that is what the Church is here for, for our transformation. All the sacraments are there for that - for theosis.

I would suggest meditating on the parable of the Prodigal Son.

God does indeed require us to confess our sins but He is not an ogre that requires that we remember everything.

We were all created for truth and all sins are rooted in lies. Because we cannot accept our failings we tend to rationalize our sins away and over time we come to think that those sins are not sins at all. Somehow the goal post has shifted.This is probably the reason that we forget our sins. But a good examen every night will help show us where we have fallen short of God’s will and the more we become attuned to His voice, the better we get at it.

When I go to confession I always pray to our Lord to reveal my sins to me. To show me where I rationalize and where I have rationalized. There is absolutely no need to make excuses for our failings because when we do, then we mask its ugliness. Also, God has already made the excuse for us on the cross : Forgive them Father for they know not what they do.

But because God is a gentle God, he will treat you gently and not make you face too much all at once. If you ask God to reveal your sins to you, trust the He will and that when you come to see the extent of the ugliness of your sins, He will be there beside you without condemnation but with a Heart overflowing with forgiveness and tender love.

The closer we get to Christ, the more clearly we will see our sins. So just concentrate on coming closer to Christ.

To come to know our sins must not be a morbid preoccupation with our failings (that could push you to OCD and scrupulosity). Rather it is meant to be a lesson in humility and to appreciate the great love that God has for us when He died for us.

We need to always remember God’s love and that even the worst things that happen in our lives can be avenues of grace.

Entrust yourself to our Blessed Mother and you cannot go wrong. For sure, she will lead you to her Son.
 
All is resolved. I have nothing to worry about. I can now continue on my spiritual journey. I am very very happy and blessed. I talked to my priest. I explained that I had been reading and learned that perhaps I was not in a state of grace because my confessions had been incomplete…that I always just picked up where I left off. He seemed to think I was too concerned and was worried that I was reading things that were going to make me crazy. He explained that in the EAST, we do not confess such detail or numbers of times of sin…that confession is more about healing and correction of a behavior. I told him I had serious sins I thought I had never spoken about. He suggested I just have confession. He really wanted to help. I told him I did not feel prepared, I would come back the next day. He said okay, just come at the regular time. I think he was concerned that I would obsess too much. I spent about 3 hours praying and examining my conscience. I realized that I had to make a list…though I do not do this because I was taught that you should confess from the heart and trust the Holy Spirit to guide you. Nonetheless I took a list. I knelt down and told Father I had a list…I sensed his concern. I went through it sincerely covering the commandments (which I compressed using the two greatest commandments), the beatitudes (which I incorporated within the commandments, and as much of church teaching as I understood…admitting that I was remiss in knowledge of ancient traditions and teachings (very important in the east).
Father was patient, he said he did not want to disappoint me but was not going to give me much penance (I think he was concerned about me being too hard on myself). The whole experience took about 16 minutes start to finish.
I feel much much better in that I can try to just put things in the past now…which is what Father wants me to do. I do feel a little embarrassed…that maybe Father thinks I was being silly…that I was too worried about past things…and maybe I was difficult to listen to…as I did repeat a few things which I had spoken to him about…but not in the context of confession.

Father was very, very kind, and gracious.

Anyway…it is all done. Now, I will not have to “go back” in my heart and mind anymore. I can focus on now.

Thank you everyone, God Bless You,

Handmaiden

Thank you all.
 
May the Lord bless you more and more! I am so happy for you, too:)
 
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