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mea_maxima_culpa
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| Joined: | Sat Nov 18th, 2006 |
| Location: | Concord, New Hampshire USA |
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| First Name: | Peter | | Gender: | Male | | Faith History: | U.C.C./Congregational, American Baptist, & now home in Rome! |
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Posted: Sat Nov 18th, 2006 03:34 pm |
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Hi,
I'm in the RCIA program, and It's getting near the time where I need to (and want to) participate in my first Confession.
My qestion is, I'm not a 13 year old; I have 40 years of venial, and mortal sins accumulated. Do I need to tell my priest I'll need about an hour, and go through a couple of toner cartriges and a ream of paper with my list compiled form my examination of conscience? Or as a part of this process, as its the first time, I get a "pass" for everything prior to this?
How have others approached ther first confession? Am I making too much of it? If I do not complete an exhaustive examination of conscience and forget something, will it still have the efficacy I am seeking?
I just want to do this right the first time, and have no lingering woulda-coulda-shoulda feelings about it/
Thanks
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CajunRick
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Posted: Sat Nov 18th, 2006 03:55 pm |
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mea_maxima_culpa wrote: Hi,
I'm in the RCIA program, and It's getting near the time where I need to (and want to) participate in my first Confession.
Congratulations!
My qestion is, I'm not a 13 year old; I have 40 years of venial, and mortal sins accumulated. Do I need to tell my priest I'll need about an hour, and go through a couple of toner cartriges and a ream of paper with my list compiled form my examination of conscience? Or as a part of this process, as its the first time, I get a "pass" for everything prior to this?
Actually, it's somewhere in between. No, it is not necessary to list every individual sin you ever committed. Instead, concentrate on patterns of sinfulness. For example, if you cohabitated with someone you were not married to for 10 years, confess that. It is not necessary to say that you had sexual relations 247 times. If you ever had an alcohol problem that deprived your family, confess that. If you drive recklessly and endanger others, confess that.
There are many sources for an examination of conscience, but the simplest is simply to go through the commandments. Start with the first commandment. Have you ever let a job or a person interfere with your relationship with God? Have you ever selfishly sought money for yourself while failing to help the poor? Continue like that through the commandments and confess those things that you feel have seriously damaged your relationship with God.
How have others approached ther first confession? Am I making too much of it? If I do not complete an exhaustive examination of conscience and forget something, will it still have the efficacy I am seeking?
If you forget to confess a sin, you are still forgiven. However, if you remember that sin at a later date, you are obliged to confess it as soon as possible. If you withhold a sin deliberately, it is not forgiven and you have also committed a sin against the sacrament.
For an adult's first confession, I often recommend a "General Confession" where you sit with a priest, usually in his office, and discuss the sinfulness in your earlier life for about an hour. He will ask questions as necessary and provide spiritual direction to help you change your sinful ways. At the conclusion of your talk, he will offer you sacramental absolution, usually in the confessional or penance room in church. Of course, if you decide to do this, you will have to make an appointment with him. It's much more comfortable than doing it in the penance room, and you won't have everybody in church wondering who you killed. Be sure you tell him it is your first confession so a record can be made in the church records, and so he'll know to guide you through the process.
____________________
Understanding is the reward of faith. Therefore seek not to understand that you may believe, but believe that you may understand. - Augustine
Rick Luquette
Luquette Lane
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David W. Emery
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Posted: Sat Nov 18th, 2006 04:25 pm |
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Dear Maxima,
You need only consider mortal sins at this time. Scratch off the venial sins and you will see your list shrink to a manageable size.
Venial sins can be forgiven and expiated in ways other than the sacrament of penance, so you never have to confess them. (It’s still a good idea to do so once you get the mortal sin part under control, so you can work on becoming more holy and avoid as much purgatory as possible. But you’re not ready for this yet.)
Next, take your mortal sins and categorize them. Don’t leave them as individual incidents, but show the priest a pattern of what your problems are. He can understand this much more easily than bits and pieces of a puzzle that he has to assemble ad hoc in his head.
Finally, make sure you distinguish between sins you used to commit from those you are now committing. For the older sins, any details beyond naming them and giving a general idea of how often you committed them is probably superfluous. Be sure to mention which sins are current, and which are not. Again, this will give the priest an idea of what he needs to address specifically, rather than giving only general advice.
Now you should have things boiled down to reasonable time frame. Rick’s post gives the rest of the story. Your first confession will in fact be a general confession, so the method he outlines is apropos.
David
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mea_maxima_culpa
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| Joined: | Sat Nov 18th, 2006 |
| Location: | Concord, New Hampshire USA |
| Posts: | 16 |
| First Name: | Peter | | Gender: | Male | | Faith History: | U.C.C./Congregational, American Baptist, & now home in Rome! |
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Posted: Sun Nov 19th, 2006 03:04 pm |
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Thanks to all that replied ~~
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BettyBoopToo
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| Joined: | Mon Oct 9th, 2006 |
| Location: | Camas/Washougal, Washington USA |
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| First Name: | Betty | | Gender: | Female | | Faith History: | Fist Baptist/Calvary Babtist/Secular Confusion/ Roman Catholic |
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Posted: Tue Nov 21st, 2006 03:14 am |
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Maxima, Hello.
Welcome home
Here is a link to the examination and instructions for confession that I use if you'd like to take a look. This has always been very helpful for me.
http://www.st-thomascamas.org/forms/exam_conscience.pdf
God Bless
Betty
____________________
Patience
"Whenever anything disagreeable or displeasing happens to you, remember Christ crucified and be silent."
St. John of the Cross
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brian
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| Joined: | Fri Sep 29th, 2006 |
| Location: | Chicago South Burbs, Illinois USA |
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| First Name: | brian | | Gender: | Male | | Faith History: | methodist, evangelical, anglican, catholic |
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Posted: Wed Nov 22nd, 2006 02:12 am |
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so only confess mortal sins the first time...the problem is that we do not even know what our mortal sins were. i am not sure if i have ever committed one or if i have committed several. its not like the catechism lists what sins are mortal. only the conditions. and even then you can not know for sure that you have truly met all the conditions...cvouldn't you have just said to confess all grave/potentially mortal sins we have confessed? also, why not confess as much as we can if we want to? i hope that someone really helps us prepare cause summing up a lifetime of sin seems pretty tough. and even limiting it to "mortal" seems tough because i do not know hich sins that includes really.
my next question, is what kind of penance one may receive. i mean, if you commited adultery (which i haven't) and went to the priest a week later i would think you may havea tough penance. but if you committed adultery 10 years ago became catholic and then confessed it will the priest give you the same penance...i mean, how can he when he is giving you a penance for a lifetime of sins. i would think he would go easier on you than what your sins merit. this concerns me for someone i know who is becoming a member and i think he wants to know he has done penance and is forgiven, but because his sin is so old, i wonder if he will really be given an accurate penance to reconcile himself as maybe he should...
my third question is about the priest granting absolution and standing in for the person of Christ. it seems to me that it is important to pick a good confessor. that some may be better at it than others. i find this confusing though becasue confessing and being forgiven is supposed to be as if it is coming from Jesus Himself. but if one priest might give you a totally different view or approach to healing it does not seem very consistent to me. how could Chrsit give wrong advice or be better or worse at this. i suppose the answer is that all priests are given the authority to forgive the sin but that maybe some are better than others at helping you deal with it.
look forward to the answers.
Brian
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David W. Emery
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Posted: Wed Nov 22nd, 2006 09:57 am |
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Well Brian, I know your difficulties in this area, owing to your personal situation. I’m going to have to be brief here, however.
1. First off, nobody is sinless, and practically everybody has committed a mortal sin at one time or another. Just concentrate on the grave sins (use a guide booklet if you think it will help) and, for your first confession, let the priest decide if they were mortal. Let the lesser sins go for now. The worst they can be is venial. You should not spend more than an hour or so going over your past life, no matter how long it’s been since your last confession or, in your case, for your initial confession. Anything forgotten is forgiven along with the rest because you made the effort. God does not demand the impossible.
2. My experience with penances is that they are almost universally trivial. You say a prayer or two, that sort of thing. Now how can this atone for a really big sin? Because it is done under obedience as part of the sacrament. It is the obedience that atones, not the act in itself. You were guilty of disobedience; your obedience atones for it.
3. Absolution and counsel are two different things. In the sacrament of penace, the absolution is given by the priest in the person of Christ. It is always effective provided we are truly repentant. The counsel, however, is not so protected and may be better or worse depending on the priest’s education, insight and how his day went. This is where care in choosing a good confessor becomes important.
David
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brian
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| Location: | Chicago South Burbs, Illinois USA |
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Posted: Wed Nov 22nd, 2006 03:01 pm |
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i am not sure if i agree with you about everybody committing a mortal sin. i think mortal sins are rarely committed. and i think there may be many priests who agree. I think there are many sins we commit that appear to be mortal sins but maybe we just are not 100% aware of the reality, or not giving 100% consent. I would think that God would go to the cautious side before taking anyone out of a state of grace and realize that we largely comit even serious sins out of a state of some ignorance. all this is not to say i have never committed one. i can think of some that may qualify, but then again maybe i just was not 100% guilty of them.
anyway, if almost everyone commits a mortal sin, what is the use of batpism since its effect will be completely removed until reconciliation? i mean, does baptism have no effect now, or does confession just return the baptismal grace that we have lost? but if you commit a mortal sin and return to confession than does that mean that you lost forever your baptismal grace and are starting over, or is is the original grace of your baptism returning?
also i wonder about contrition. becasue the sins i have committed that may or may not have been mortal i think i have been given the gift of contrition for. therfore was i ever really in a state of mortal sin? to me mortal sin is not just something you do, but a state of mind that you continue in even after committing the sin. it is the fact that you are telling God by your actions and attitude that you do not care about Him therfore the relationship is severed.
still i found it interesting that we are so careful to never tell anyone that they have committed a mortal sin becasue we must know the conditions, yet your advice was we should confess all of our mortal sins. i still think it would be better to have said confess the sins which may have been mortal from what we can tell. or those sins of a grave matter that we seemed to give full consent to. i mean, what if i am guilty of a grave sin in my past, but i have decided becasue of undue influence or lack of consent it was not a mortal sin? should i then not confess it at my first confession? i thought that it was necessary to confess all grave sins before receiving communion. but if i only confess what may have ben mortal sins than i may end up receiving communion having not received absolution for my grave sins.
sorry to give you a hard time, it is just i am so not used to all this sin classifying stuff. to me the important thing before i was catholic was simply contrition. whether or not my sins were grave or mortal or venial, i always tried my best to confess them and i do not see a time even for a day where i could imagine not being in a state of grace because even my worst and most disobedient actions always broke my heart imminently.
I'm nowhere near perfect and i acknowledge my sinfulness, i just dont understand all this yet.
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Cindy
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| Joined: | Fri Nov 17th, 2006 |
| Location: | California USA |
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Posted: Wed Nov 22nd, 2006 05:01 pm |
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I've found the booklet "A Contemporary Adult Guide to Conscience for the Sacrament of Confession" by Father Richard Rego to be very helpful. It's available through Catholic Answers.
A Contemporary Guide To Conscience - For The Sacrament Of Confession
God bless!
____________________
"Where Peter is, there is the Church" -- St. Ambrose of Milan
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David W. Emery
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Posted: Thu Nov 23rd, 2006 12:14 am |
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Brian wrote:I think mortal sins are rarely committed.
I see them committed every day by the people around me. They know full well what they are doing, and they don’t care. Just ask them — they’ll tell you. They believe their actions are justified by the frustrations visited on them in the ordinary course of life, by the sense that they are the only ones that matter, by their subjective view of justice or fairness in comparison to others, etc. If they can do it, I am certainly not exempt. And if I am not currently sinning mortally, it is because God’s grace keeps me from it.
To me mortal sin is not just something you do, but a state of mind that you continue in even after committing the sin.
One’s motive is prior to his act, not after it. What you are speaking of is self justification or “attitude,” which may be present before, during and/or after an act. But an attitude can be good or bad depending on its object.
In other words, an object is not good or bad depending on one’s attitude towards it, but the other way around, because good and evil are objective qualities, not subjective.
Moral relativism is a heresy. It was the gist of a recent fad in moral theology called Situation Ethics. I discussed this ideology last year on the old forum and showed how it fails to deal with the divinely revealed truth of intrinsically good and evil acts, what we call moral absolutes. One of this heresy’s favorite principles is that the end justifies the means: “All acts are, in essence, morally neutral; our overall intent is what makes any act good or evil.” This assertion is categorically denied by Catholic doctrine, which accepts that the moral value of an act is established by natural law, not by the agent.
We do not judge our neighbor because we do not know his inner culpability. Culpability is distinct from right and wrong. For instance, I may take take something belonging to another because it is desirable and, at the moment, not being guarded. Objectively, this is sinful. But did I know that, being desirable, it probably belonged to someone? Did I try to find the owner, and since no one else claimed it, I took it for myself? Was I in great need and took it to save my life? But these are objective circumstances, not subjective justifications: there is a difference.
Now I realize that you are probably thinking in terms of repentance when you emphasize subjectivity and the persistence of attitude. Repentance is good. But again, repentance must be subject to objective standards just as sin must be. Otherwise, just as sin vanishes in a puff of ideological smoke when approached from a purely subjective point of view, so also repentance loses its force and reason for being.
What if I am guilty of a grave sin in my past, but I have decided because of undue influence or lack of consent it was not a mortal sin? Should I then not confess it at my first confession?
A person must refrain from over-analyzing his conscience, because this will inevitably lead to a moral breakdown. You know your own traits and have discussed them with me. This is why I said above that you should not spend more than an hour or so going over your past life for a general confession. You will get to worrying and conjecturing instead of simply repenting.
At this point you are not ready to decide for yourself what your level of consent was. My first rule, above, was this: “Just concentrate on the grave sins… and… let the priest decide if they were mortal.” Until you gain some experience and understanding of the state of your soul and concretely what constitutes consent, leave these judgments to the priest. Your job right now is to confess grave sins. What is a grave sin is spelled out in print; as I said, you can use a guide booklet for this. There are plenty of them available, so help yourself.
You ask several other theoretical questions, but I do not see them as germane to our discussion of culpability and what to confess in the sacrament of penance, so will leave them unanswered for now. Be assured that I am not “putting you off.” I am here to help, and if you wish to ask those questions later in their proper forum areas, I’ll be glad to discuss them with you.
David
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Darlene
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Posted: Sun Nov 26th, 2006 10:07 pm |
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I'm so glad this topic was mentioned. I have recently wondered about what I would say at my first confession. BTW, can a Protestant like myself, go to a priest for confession while still being a Protestant?
Darlene
____________________
The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all. II Corinthians 13:14
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CajunRick
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Posted: Sun Nov 26th, 2006 10:12 pm |
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Darlene wrote: I'm so glad this topic was mentioned. I have recently wondered about what I would say at my first confession. BTW, can a Protestant like myself, go to a priest for confession while still being a Protestant?
Darlene
Yes, but "spiritual direction" would be a better term. Only Catholics or those on the verge of joining the Church can receive sacramental absolution.
Any priest should gladly speak and pray with you.
____________________
Understanding is the reward of faith. Therefore seek not to understand that you may believe, but believe that you may understand. - Augustine
Rick Luquette
Luquette Lane
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