Jesus spent over three years with His twelve disciples. He called them to be discipled at the outset of His ministry (Matt. 4:19), and He gave them the lion’s share of His life until His departure in Matthew 28. He invested His life in His men. It is amazing to track in the Gospels how much Jesus gave of Himself to His disciples. The crowds pursued Him, but He pursued His disciples. He was willing to bless the masses, but He invested in the few.
David Mathis

Sacrament of Penance

Sacrament of Penance

PENANCE, SACRAMENT OF

BASIC R.C. BELIEF A virtue disposing one to be sorry for sin, to purpose amendment and to make satisfaction for sins committed. This satisfaction comes from prayer and good works imposed on the penitent in Confession. Sorrow for sin and accomplishment of the required penance both contribute to the absolution from sin.

From CONFESSION QUIZZES TO A STREET PREACHER, Carty, (Imp: Bishop Murray), page 4: “Where did St. Paul get this power and authority to judge the Corinthian guilty of incest? From Christ? No … Common sense tells you he received that power and authority to judge and forgive in the Name of Christ from the Apostles, who ordained him to the priesthood.”

Ibid., page 11. “(Pope) St. Leo the Great (440-461) wrote so specifically about Confession that some Protestants reading his works were quite sure that he was the man who invented Confession. … If St. Leo instituted Confession then there would be a general protest on the part of the Church … but there is no trace of protest in all Christian history against such an invention or institution.”

Ibid., page 12: “St. Pacian of Barcelona (390) answered those Protestors, the Novatians who believed the that God alone can forgive sins…”

Ibid, page 19: “Q: What of the thief who is not discovered by the police? A: The priest orders him to make restitution, giving back to the owner to money or goods stolen. Only when he promises to do so will he receive absolution for his sin before God. But the penitent is not obliged to give himself up to the police. It is their business to prove the crime and arrest him. … The priest will certainly not tell the police. … You might as well oblige God, since He knows all things, to reveal all crimes to the police.

From GOD’S WAY OF FORGIVING SINS, J.E. Doherty, C.SS.R. Imp. Archbishop Ritter. p. 28. “The Catholic who deliberately conceals a serious sin in confession is not profiting in the least from his reception of the sacrament; in fact, he is adding a new sin to those which have gone before.”

From PENANCE AND THE ANOINTING OF THE SICK, Catholic Enquiry Centre, London. p. 109. “The stain of sin is washed away in the sacrament of Penance and the life of Christ is fully restored. But the sinner must continue to make amends for his sins. The remnants and effects of sin still remain after it has been forgiven and the penitent must strive gradually to remove them by prayer, good works and acts of penance.”

From THE SACRAMENTS, Rev. Connell, C.SS.R., page 4. “Penance was instituted when Christ gave the Apostles the power to forgive and retain sin in John 20:22,23.”

POST VATICAN II From 1989 CATHOLIC ALMANAC. “Penance is the sacrament by which sins committed after baptism are forgiven and a person is reconciled with God and the church. Individual and integral confession and absolution are the only ordinary means for the forgiveness of serious sins and for reconciliation with God and the Church. The traditional words of absolution

  • `I absolve you from your sins in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.'” (page 226)

From AD LIMINA TALKS (Pope Paul VI), page 18, “This document of Vatican II, entitled SACRAMENTUM PAENITENTIAE, reiterated the solemn teaching of the Council of Trent concerning the divine precept of individual confession.”

From ABOUT THE NEW RITE OF PENANCE – THE SACRAMENT OF RECONCILIATION, Most Rev. Christoher Welden, Bishop of Springfield, 12/16/76. “New Rite of penance? Well, really, a new version of penance. Like the old rite, it is

  1. sorrow for sins, 2. confession, 3. absolution, 4. amendment. The new Rite will include these basic elements – sign of the Cross, welcome by priest, scripture reading, confession, act of penance, prayer of sorrow, absolution, praise of God.”

CHRISTIAN COMMENT In the synoptic Gospel, the call of John the Baptist and Jesus to repent was mistranslated in the Douay Version as “do penance.” The mistake was due to an error in Jerome’s Latin Vulgate which for centuries was the only source of authorized Roman Catholic translations. Jerome’s use of “penitentium agite” (to punish past sins by exercises of penance) is a mistranslation of the Greek “metanoie” (a reversal of thinking)

CATHOLIC JOURNALS From THE CATHOLIC VOICE, Oakland, CA, 4/28/75, by Priest Brian Joyce. “The drop in frequent confession has been so drastic that it cannot be denied. In recent years large numbers of Catholics simply did not experience confession as spiritually helpful. It is hardly credible that huge numnbers would walk away from frequent confession if their personal experience of it was consistently positive, helpful and good.”

SECULAR JOURNALS From Portland, Maine EVENING EXPRESS, 12/11/84. “Confession. Disuse by many is a target of Pope John Paul statement. Vatican City (AP) – Pope John Paul II, in a 138-page document, today attacked the idea that Roman Catholics can obtain forgiveness `directly from God’ without going through the church and predicted `a healthy sense of sin will again flourish.’

“`Roman Catholics are encouraged to confess their sins in private to a priest frequently, regardless of gravity, so that they may receive forgiveness.’

“The document, called RECONCILIATION AND PENANCE, was termed an apostolic exhortation, meaning an authoritative papal statement.”