Monday, Aug. 12, 2013
Feast of St. Jane Francis de Chantal
Deacon Robert Banet
Bless Me Father for I have sinned.
My cousin Charlie was listening to Relevant Radio and was really puzzled.
That cousin of yours is something else. What is it this time?
Well, it was a question of frequent confession. The advice was to go to confession once a month.
So, what’s the problem?
The man asking the question was not a Catholic and wondered why you would wait a month to confess if you had just committed a sin. The answer that was given was not very satisfactory.
Ah, that sometimes happens in an impromptu setting like those call-in shows.
The questioner wondered why you would want to carry that sin around for a month.
Well, they should have told him, if you have committed a mortal sin, you would of course want to confess as soon as possible.
Apparently they did not make that clear. They should have told him that when we talk about frequent confession, we talking about confession outside the times when we have mortal sin our soul.
Don’t they call that devotional confession?
Yes, we confess our small sins and even our imperfections, hoping for some advice from the priest on how to work on them.
But we have to be sorry for them, don’t we? Why do we do that?
Well, in order to give absolution, the priest must know that there is true sorrow there. Then he can absolve us.
I see. So then the idea is that the punishment for those past sins may be further removed. When a sin is forgiven, there is still the temporal punishment due to sin. We talked about that when we talked about King David and his forgiven sin. There was still punishment waiting for him.
Exactly. So when we talk about frequent confession, say monthly, we’re talking about asking God’s forgiveness for the temporal punishment due to those past sins and for advice from the priest about our imperfections.
That’s a pretty good way of explaining it. But there are further reasons for frequent confession. Maybe we could talk about that another time.
Good idea!