Why sacrament of Reconciliation?

  • Thread starter Thread starter mkmomma
  • Start date Start date
Status
Not open for further replies.
M

mkmomma

Guest
Hello

My 10 year old daughter is beginning preparation for the sacrament of Reconciliation. She announced to me last night that she doesn’t see the need to confess to a priest, since Jesus has already forgiven all of her sins. She seems to be feeling very frustrated and expressed a desire to read the book independently, rather than with me.

What recommendations can anyone make in regard to this matter? What can I say to her to explain the Church’s teachings?
 
mkmomma said:
Hello

My 10 year old daughter is beginning preparation for the sacrament of Reconciliation. She announced to me last night that she doesn’t see the need to confess to a priest, since Jesus has already forgiven all of her sins. She seems to be feeling very frustrated and expressed a desire to read the book independently, rather than with me.

What recommendations can anyone make in regard to this matter? What can I say to her to explain the Church’s teachings?
Click to expand...
catholic.com/thisrock/2001/0110sbs.asp

Jesus said… “Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained” (John 20:22–23)."

search under confession on the main CA site…
 
basically, the Church recognizes that yes, God can forgive sins directly and if you pray and are trully sorry for your sins the Church cannot say that God cannot forgive you directly

but as part of the salvation plan of God, we are to be part of the Church, which is the Mystical Body of Christ. when we sin we not only damage our relationship with God, but we also damage our relationship with the Church. going to confession not only repairs our relationship with God, it repairs our relationship with the Church, because the priest is the representative of the Church

and i would suggest to read more on this Sacrament in the CCC. here’s the link:

scborromeo.org/ccc/p2s2c2a4.htm
 
mkmomma said:
Hello

My 10 year old daughter is beginning preparation for the sacrament of Reconciliation. She announced to me last night that she doesn’t see the need to confess to a priest, since Jesus has already forgiven all of her sins. She seems to be feeling very frustrated and expressed a desire to read the book independently, rather than with me.

What recommendations can anyone make in regard to this matter? What can I say to her to explain the Church’s teachings?
Click to expand...
Hey Howdy Hi and welcome to the forums.

Keeping in mind that she is 10 years old, I would guess she is probably first and foremost afraid of sitting in front of a stranger and telling him her huge “sins” (huge to her anyway) and will probably not just take “because that’s what you have to do” for an answer.

Maybe the way to proceed is to get her talking about her real objections;
  • How do you know Jesus forgave you? Did He tell you? Can you really be sure?
  • Did you ever do something bad and tell mom/dad you were sorry but thought about it later and realized you maybe weren’t really fully all that sorry? Suppose you are thinking the same way to Jesus? Did you ever lie to yourself about how bad you hurt someone to make you feel better?
  • Jesus loves you and he knows that the sin on your soul only keeps you from loving Him. He knows that sometimes we find it easy to lie to ourselves and keep things hidden, so He gave the power to forgive sins in His name to His priests so that when we walk out of confession, we know 100% that Jesus has forgiven us and our soul is clean.
I would also talk to her about not doing it face to face (if that can be arranged) and especially about the Seal of the Confessional. Many 10 year olds may think that Father will remember their sins and tell others or confront them about it.
 
mkmomma said:
Hello

My 10 year old daughter is beginning preparation for the sacrament of Reconciliation. She announced to me last night that she doesn’t see the need to confess to a priest, since Jesus has already forgiven all of her sins. She seems to be feeling very frustrated and expressed a desire to read the book independently, rather than with me.

What recommendations can anyone make in regard to this matter? What can I say to her to explain the Church’s teachings?
Click to expand...
relate it to reconciliation within the family
ask her to consider, in fact, ask her to tell the story in her own words
Suppose she disobeys you, and does something you have forbidden, morever something that has caused damage that must be repaired.
Does she know, that you know she did it, even before she tells you?
Does she know you will forgive her even before you are asked? probably if you are like most mothers.

Does she see a need to actually confess to you, to ask forgiveness, to be assured of your love and forgiveness? Does she see that she won’t feel right until she does this, and will be aware of trouble in your relationship until she does this?
Does she see a need to make some attempt, with your help if necessary, to repair the damage she caused?

Does she acknowledge that if this was something major, or even if it was minor but the rest of the family knows there is a problem, that she also has some need for reconciliation with the rest of the family?

Help her to think out how these situations play out in family life, and make the connection to our duty to God as Father and Christ as brother, and to the rest of the Christian family. The vital point is that the priest represents both Christ, and the whole Christian family, and that it is not enough to have unilateral forgiveness. We need assurance of that forgiveness, and for our own spiritual health, the honesty to acknowledge and actually confess our sins so someone, and to have Christ’s assurance–not just a hope–that we are not only forgiven but absolved–the sin is washed away in this sacrament. We also need to be reconciled with the entire Christian family, which this sacrament does.

the Catholic Parent Know-How series from Our sunday Visitor are excellent inexpensive pamphlets for parents to help with these kinds of discussion
 
This is from the Compendium of the Catechism:
Why can venial sins also be the object of sacramental confession?
The confession of venial sins is strongly recommended by the Church, even if this is not strictly necessary, because it helps us to form a correct conscience and to fight against evil tendencies. It allows us to be healed by Christ and to progress in the life of the Spirit.

What are the effects of this sacrament?
The effects of the sacrament of Penance are: reconciliation with God and therefore the forgiveness of sins; reconciliation with the Church; recovery, if it has been lost, of the state of grace; remission of the eternal punishment merited by mortal sins, and remission, at least in part, of the temporal punishment which is the consequence of sin; peace, serenity of conscience and spiritual consolation; and an increase of spiritual strength for the struggle of Christian living.

In other words, it helps her to become a saint, which is what God needs to make of us before we can be happy with him in Heaven. As I told the kids I prepared for this sacrament, they all know someone that can’t be happy and no amount of ice cream can make happy, because of their attitude. We all have “attitude”, it keeps us from becoming saints, and a habit of regular confession is an excellent way to deal with our habitual attitudes. Combined with a habit of regular prayer and regular reception of Holy Communion, it leads to a life of joyful loving faith-filled self-sacrifice, the taking on of the mind of Christ. This is meant to be the ordinary way to heaven.

I told them: If you don’t let God start on that work in you now, there will be that more of the job waiting for you in Purgatory. Besides, none of the saints ever said they wish they had waited a bit longer to start. The worst day as a saint is better than the best day as a sinner.
 
Confessing out loud ensures the proper humility and sorrow for sin when approaching God for forgiveness. We also receive the grace in the sacrament to resist repeating the sin.

How easy it would be to always simply confess privately, “Sorry, God!” “Whoops, did it again.” “Darn, again.” Nothing against your daughter, but it’s human nature to take the easy way out. Though certain individuals are certainly capable of perfect contrition in private, many of us would simply be presuming on God’s mercy.

And it IS a wonderful feeling to be clean, for certain, when you leave the confessional.
 
(Part 1 of 2)

The Hebrew word for “sin” is an archery term, chet, and it means “to miss the mark”. Consider this verse from St. Paul’s letter to the Romans that our Protestant brethren like to quote: “For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” Paul wrote this in Greek, but he was a Jew, and he was thinking with that Jewish mindset when he wrote “sinned” – “all have missed the mark and fall short of the glory of God.” To sin is to miss the mark, to fall short of God’s perfection.

We can fall short, we can sin, in four general ways, which we express in the Confiteor, one of the forms of the Penitential Act at the beginning of Mass: “I confess to Almighty God … that I have sinned … in my thoughts and in my words, in what I have done and in what I have failed to do.” Jesus, Who is without sin, never had an evil thought, never spoke an evil word, never did anything wrong, and never failed to do the right thing.

That’s a tough act to follow and we all fall short of the example that Jesus set for us and which He challenges us to follow in the Sermon on the Mount when He said, “You must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect.” But with the grace of God – which comes to us especially through frequent sacramental Confession and reception of Holy Communion – we can be built up to what St. Paul described in his letter to the Ephesians as “the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ.” (Eph. 4:13)

But sin prevents us from reaching the fullness. Sin doesn’t hurt God, but it offends Him and does not give Him the honor due to Him because He is God. Justice is the virtue by which we give what is due to God and one another, so sin is an act of injustice towards God.

Sin damages our relationship with God and with others. Sin is an absence of love. By love, we mean agape or caritas, charity, one of the three theological virtues: faith, hope, and charity. Charity is that theological virtue by which we love God for His own sake and we love others as ourselves for the love of God. This is what Paul wrote about when he said: “Love is patient, love is kind…” That’s charity. Since God is charity or love, and sin is an absence of love, sin is an absence of God in our lives. Sin is that which separates us from God. If you sin by mistreating your brother by refusing to love him as you ought, you are in effect saying to God, “I am separating this part of my life – my relationship with my brother – from You.”

Reconciliation, then, is the process by which our separation from God is healed and we are united to Him again. But reconciliation isn’t just about me and God or you and God. I needed to be reconciled not only to God, but to my brother. We are reconciled not only to God, but also to our family, our parish, our local community, and to the whole Church, which is the Body of Christ, of which we are all members.

Reconciliation requires us to examine ourselves and figure out where in our lives we have separated ourselves from God and from others, when we have fallen short of the life which a disciple of Christ is expected to live.

In order to know when we’ve failed to live a Christian life, we need to know what a Christian life looks like. You know the expression “what would Jesus do?” That’s a rough paraphrase of a verse St. John’s first letter, where he wrote that “he who says he abides in [Jesus Christ] ought to walk in the same way in which he walked.” (1 John 2:6) In other words, if you talk the talk of Christ, walk the walk of Christ!
 
(Part 2 of 2)

The most frequently asked question about Confession, by Catholics and non-Catholics, is: why do I need to confess my sins to a priest, why can’t I just confess them directly to God?

First, be honest. Who actually does that? Who actually goes to their room and confesses their sins completely and honestly with God? Second, be happy the Church celebrates this sacrament privately.

The short answer is that this is how God ordained it. Our relationship with God is not private but corporate – we are united to God through His Son and His Son’s body, the Church – He ordained that we might know His forgiveness through an act of that body, the Church: a sacrament. This short answer could use some explanation.

The sacraments are God’s promises to us; this is how God promised to forgive the sins we commit after our baptism, through the absolution granted by His priests.

First, it is clear from Scripture (not to say anything about the Tradition of the Church) that Christ gave His apostles (and their successors) the power to forgive sins (cf. John 20:21-23); how can they forgive a sin if it is not confessed to them?

Second, several times in the New Testament we find people confessing their sins aloud to someone. St. James wrote that we should confess our sins to one another. (cf. James 5:15-16) Those who came to the Jordan River to be baptized confessed their sins to St. John the Baptist (cf. Matt. 3:6) and those who came to St. Paul in Ephesus confessed their sins to him and publicly separated themselves from their former way of life. (cf. Acts 19:18-19) It’s worth pointing out that John the Baptist and Paul both spoke of doing penance; John told the Pharisees to “bear fruit that befits repentance” (Matt. 3:8) and Paul preached that we should “turn to God and perform deeds worthy of repentance.” (Acts 26:20) This is part of walking the walk, not just talking the talk.

Third, Paul wrote about having received the “ministry of reconciliation,” having been entrusted with “the message of reconciliation,” and being an “ambassador for Christ” through whom God makes His appeal to sinners. (2 Cor. 5:18-20)

Fourth, the priest in the sacrament operates in persona Christi (“in the person of Christ”), just like when he celebrates Mass: when the priest says “this is my body”, it is Christ speaking through him. Because a sacrament is an outward sign of an inward grace, the absolution from the priest is the outward sign of God’s forgiveness which is the inward grace. The priest is not there to keep track of your sins and make judgments about you when he sees you; in fact, nothing you say in Confession can be revealed by the priest. The priest is there to be a minister of reconciliation with God.
 
mkmomma said:
Hello

My 10 year old daughter is beginning preparation for the sacrament of Reconciliation. She announced to me last night that she doesn’t see the need to confess to a priest, since Jesus has already forgiven all of her sins. She seems to be feeling very frustrated and expressed a desire to read the book independently, rather than with me.

What recommendations can anyone make in regard to this matter? What can I say to her to explain the Church’s teachings?
Click to expand...
She is confused which is why she needs you to help her understand the book. First she needs to understand that Jesus has not already forgiven all of her sins. Jesus has obtained the possibility of Forgiveness of her sins which we receive through various means. One being the Sacraments, first through Baptism, then specifically the Sacrament of Reconciliation. Possibly she has discussed this with non-Catholic friends who have convinced her of their beliefs.
 
I take it that your family is in the RCIA process? Ask Father to meet with her outside the RCIA class and go over confession with her. Also, speak to your DRE and the Youth Minister. They have helped many kids understand the Sacrament.

If coming from an Evangelical/Protestant background, a 10 year old will be familiar with Scripture and you may want to get a copy of the “New Catholic Answer Bible” - the Scriptural Apologetics helps are first rate!

Amy Welborn’s “Prove It!” books are very good for this age and older teens.
 
I think the best way to convince your 10 year old that this is a good thing, is to participate as a family. Let her see her parents and others she loves go to confession. Often. With her, so she can see how you go in and how you come out, and what you do afterwards. Tell her how it makes you feel. (And find out who is evangelizing to her and saying negative things about confession . . . she’s hearing this somewhere else, I’m willing to bet on it.)
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top