The sacrament of reconciliation: sin, repentance, confession and forgiveness.

       After coming back from confession today and receiving the sacrament of reconciliation, I've decided to write about this very subject since I've had many conversations with people lately about this. Though there are many words in the title of the post, we can truly summarize them in one; namely, Mercy.

    To be specific, I've had two defining conversations that have jolted me to maybe touch on this subject and though I am not expert, try to explain what the Catholic Church teaches on the subject of sin and reconciliation. The two conversations that I had, got me thinking of how people misunderstand or simply misrepresent the teachings of the Church. I only wish to hopefully but simply answer two statements that were mentioned in my conversations with biblical back up.

The first was this: Sin is sin and there is no venial or mortal sin. How comes the Church teaches that.

   One of my friend said that and honestly without revealing their identity, I was shocked since it's someone who was Catholic and really should know the teaching of the Church and where they got that from. The answer to that statement is simple however. Now since most non-Catholics simply want an answer from the bible, the answer to that question comes from the first letter of John (1 John 5: 16-17) "If any one sees his brother sinning, if the sin is not deadly, he should pray to God ans he will give him life....All wrongdoing is sin, but there is sin that is not deadly." From that letter of John, we see that the gravity of sin varies as the Church teaches and what we call mortal sin "deadly",  can keep man from his final beatitude with God if not repented but "venial" sins wound charity in the heart of man without destroying it. This is best explained in the catechism paragraph (CCC 1855) "Mortal sin destroys charity in the heart of man by a grave violation of God's law; it turns man away from God, who is his ultimate end and his beatitude, by preferring an inferior good to him. Venial sin allows charity to subsist, even though it offends and wounds it". Anyway like our instruction from scripture to defend the hope that is in us, I forwarded those verses to my friend and now pray that he may see the truth.

The second statement from my other friend was: I can never confess my sins before a man, he is not God and I can't do that. 

     That statement was from a great friend of mine who is baptist and whom I won't reveal his identity either. Now this statement didn't come to me as a great shock. I knew that was just an attack to the Catholic church for the sacrament of confession whereby we confess our sins to the priest in the sacrament of reconciliation. It was the famous bishop Fulton Sheen who once said "there isn't 100 people in United States who hate the Catholic Church, but there are millions who hate what they think the Catholic Church is."  This was so true since that statement probably rooted from a misconception that the priest replaces God. The teaching of the Church however is that the priest acts "In Persona Christi" meaning in the person of Christ. Otherwise, my duty again was to go back and show the grounds of this teaching from the scriptures.
   The first scripture which completely shows that it is actually good to confess our sins to one another is the letter of (James 5:16) "Therefore, confess your sins to one another and pray for one another, that you may be healed. The fervent prayer of a righteous person is very powerful." The second verses which more directly shows Jesus giving this power to forgive sins to his disciples is found in (John 20: 21-23), especially verse 23; "Whose sins you forgive are forgiven them, and whose sins you retain are retained."  Once again I did my duty to the truth and showed these verses to my other friend.
   Both those statements were answered from scriptures, but as we all know, we can answer as many questions as we can but still make no difference in people. That is where the power of grace comes in which can only come from God. I pray that God may give all of us the grace to recognize his mercy in establishing the sacrament of reconciliation and allowing us to confess our sins and have His very priest pronounce the words of absolution; "I absolve you of your sins in the name of The Father, The Son, and The Holy Spirit."
   St. Augustine defined a sacrament as "a visible sign of an invisible reality." Since we are still in the physical, God chooses to use our physical reality to convey His divine grace. In this case he choses to use His priest to forgive.
   One of the problems with man since the fall of Adam in the garden, he still wants to go to God on his own terms instead of going to God on God's term. Jesus instituted that Sacrament of Confession so that we can, as often as we need to approach his fountain of mercy and find forgiveness, but we still want to do it our way. Our world needs healing from sin more than ever and this sacrament brings both forgiveness of our sins and healing from the wounds that sin causes. I cannot start to express my gratitude to God for this sacrament. The more I realize my misery and sins, the more I love this sacrament. I wish that all may approach Jesus in this sacrament and bath in the ocean of His mercy.

prayer: Jesus, grant me the faith to believe your words and the humility to be obedient to them.

Tell me about your encounter with the sacrament of reconciliation or maybe if you are not Catholic, about your encounter with God's mercy.

Poetry for the soul: The innocent's cry; life must be defended

I know I said that I would post a poem on Friday's. Truth be told, I wasn't up to it yesterday but today is the day that the Lord has made. The following Poem is one I wrote from an inspiration against all the abortions that continue to occur. If life is not the fundamental thing to be defended, then to claim that we live in a just society is a lie. Remember that "Blessed are the merciful for they shall obtain mercy." 

THE INNOCENT'S CRY

do you not care that i am perishing

you ignore me as I am persecuted 

as the gift of my Creator is denied me

the light of the day i will not see

from my mother's womb declared an enemy

by  the one who should protect me

once a gift but now a burden

i am left in my darkness to die

as life freely given to me is stolen

and you sit aimlessly watching this

you turn your head from my cry

even as i am torn out of my mother's womb

like a toxic waste to be rid of

oh the horror of it all

i know that all this you can see

but you have declared in your heart

that you are not your brother's keeper

and you will not defend my cause

but this be sure of it now

that the one who gave me life

will not abandon me forever

neither watch as i am persecuted forever

but when He beckons you to answer

for these the least of His brethren

what excuse shall you have

Every year millions of babies are aborted around the world. If there is an injustice that the society has accepted as a norm is this one. The late venerable pope John Paul II called this "the culture of death".  But what can we do for reparation against this injustice? Prayer and action. We must "pray as if everything depends on God, (and it does) and work for pro-life end as if everything depended on us."