Day 202: How Confession Heals (1468-1473)

• It’s Day 202!!

• THE EFFECTS OF THIS SACRAMENT

• What happens when we go to Confession?

• We experience FORGIVENESS and MERCY and it RECONCILES us with the Church

• Paragraph 1470 says, “In this sacrament, the sinner, placing himself before the merciful judgment of God, anticipates in a certain way the judgment to which he will be subjected at the end of his earthly life.”

• In some ways, it’s the practice of coming before God with the full TRUTH that He is LOVE

• We have failed to love so we lean into that

• IT IS REMARKABLE!!

• We will also talk about INDULGENCES

• People have a lot of questions about them

• We still believe in indulgences?

• YES!!

• So let’s pray!!

Prayer by Fr. Mike: “Father in Heaven, we thank you for this day. We thank you for the great sacrament of Reconciliation. We thank you for the mercy that comes to us through the ministry of your Church, through the ministry of your priests. We ask that you please draw us closer to your heart. Please reconcile us to yourself. Help us, especially those of us who have hardened hearts to you, to your mercy, to your grace, to your love, help us to have softened hearts that are open to your grace, hearts that are willing to race to you. Lord God, draw all of us to take the next opportunity to say ‘yes’ to you in Confession. Help us to be purified from all of our attachments to sin. In Jesus’ name we pray. Amen”

• So there we have it!!

• Paragraph 1468 says, “‘The whole power of the sacrament of Penance consists in restoring us to God’s grace and joining us with him in an intimate friendship.’”

• THIS IS REMARKABLE!!

• The whole power of the sacrament of Penance is that we are FORGIVEN of our sins

• BUT…

• We are also RESTORED to our relationship with God

• St. Paul said, “Where sin abounds, grace abounds all the more.”

• Let’s listen to Fr. Mike’s analogy…

• When we come to the Lord in Confession, the sacrament of mercy, He doesn’t just elevate us back to the level we were at previously, before we sinned

• God’s grace RESTORES us and ELEVATES us 

• Grace elevates us and perfects us

• So God restores us to a level higher than we were at 

• We fall and are raised back up by the Lord

• When we let God do that, we are actually holier after the fact than if we had never sinned

• It is a mysterious thing

• The next question someone might ask is, “If and when I fall and let God forgive me, I’m even holier than I was if I didn’t fall at all, then why not just keep sinning and get holier and holier?”

• That’s why St. Paul says to not do that

• DON’T DO THAT

• It is an incredible grace of humbly coming before the Lord and allowing Him to pick us up, restore us to intimate friendship, and reconcile us

• This is abundant mercy

• Paragraph 1468 says, “...reconciliation ‘is usually followed by peace and serenity of conscience with strong spiritual consolation.’ Indeed the sacrament of Reconciliation with God brings about a true ‘spiritual resurrection,’ restoration of the dignity and blessings of the life of the children of God, of which the most precious is friendship with God.”

• Imagine here is God that we have offended and said NO to

• “God, I know what you want. I don’t care. I want what I want.”

• That same God restores us to true friendship with Him

• The source of all BEING

• The source of all GOOD

• The source of all TRUTH

• The source of all LOVE

• THE CREATOR OF EVERYTHING THAT EXISTS!!

• Who knows your name and wants YOU to exist

• It matters to Him what we do

• We have these small, seemingly insignificant lives on this planet that last however long they last

• For whatever reason, it matters to God what we do during this life because He wants to be our friend

• MIND BLOWING!!

• We should pray about this on a regular basis because when we fail, it matters to Him

• It matters to Him SO MUCH that He DIED FOR US to RESTORE US to friendship

• Paragraph 1469 says, “This sacrament reconciles us with the Church. Sin damages or even breaks fraternal communion. The sacrament of Penance repairs or restores it. In this sense it does not simply heal the one restored to ecclesial communion, but has also a revitalizing effect on the life of the Church which suffered from the sin of one of her members. Re-established or strengthened in the communion of saints, the sinner is made stronger by the exchange of spiritual goods among all the living members of the Body of Christ, whether still on pilgrimage or already in the heavenly homeland…”

• When one member of the Church suffers, we all suffer

• When one member of the Church is strengthened, we are all strengthened

• We really believe that all members suffer 

• When one of us says NO to the Lord, we ALL suffer in some remarkably mysterious way

• AND YET…

• When one of us is healed, we are ALL healed in some remarkably mysterious way

• IT IS JUST INCREDIBLE!!

• In what way are we made stronger?

• The primary sin that leads us away from the Lord is PRIDE

• “I can live my life without the Lord.”

• What do we need in order to return to Confession?

• HUMILITY, which is the opposite of pride

• If the greatest of all vices is pride, then the greatest of all virtues is humility

• St. Paul says the greatest of these is LOVE

• YES!!

• We will not argue with Scripture

• What brings us back to the Lord after we have fallen?

• A spirit of humility

• A spirit of humble trust in God’s mercy and God’s love for each one of us

• We keep growing

• Even if we are not growing in faithfulness, we are growing in humility which then that leads to growth in faithfulness

• Paragraph 1479 says, “In this sacrament, the sinner, placing himself before the merciful judgment of God, anticipates in a certain way the judgment to which he will be subjected at the end of his earthly life.”

• We are given the choice in this life between life and death, between God and anything other than God

• God gives us what we choose

• To be able to choose Confession

• To be able to choose God’s mercy

• To be able to choose the grace that He offers to us in anticipation of our death

• At our deaths, we want to choose God

• Going to Confession is choosing to allow the Lord to love me as I am

• What is Confession?

• What is the whole Christian life?

• The Christian life is the revelation that God so loved the world that He gave His only Begotten Son that all those who believe in Him would not perish but would have eternal life

• So here is the invitation

• God loves YOU

• All of Christianity can be boiled down to this question and this answer

• Will YOU give God permission to love you as you are?

• What’s your answer?

• Confession is saying, “Ok, God. This is where I’m at. This is what I’ve struggled with. This is where I’ve failed. This is where my heart has been hardened. This is where my heart has been broken. This is where I’ve hurt other people. This is where I’ve hurt myself. This is where I’ve violated your laws, your commands. I violated your love. I’ve thrown it back in your face. And I will let you love me as I am.”

• This is the heart of the Christian life

• This is the heart of Confession

• This is the choice choice every one of us will get to make and HAVE TO MAKE in the course of our entire lives

• Will YOU choose God?

• Will YOU let Him love you as you are, do His will?

• OR…

• Will YOU choose anything other than God?

• INDULGENCES

• We have a big definition of indulgences

• Yes, we still believe in indulgences

• WHAT IS AN INDULGENCE?

• Pope Paul VI says in Paragraph 1471, “‘An indulgence is a remission before God of the temporal punishment due to sins whose guilt has already been forgiven, which the faithful Christian who is duly disposed gains under certain prescribed conditions through the action of the Church which, as the minister of redemption, dispenses and applies with authority the treasury of the satisfaction of Christ and the saints.’”

• What are we talking about?

• Paragraph 1472 says, “To understand this doctrine and practice of the Church, it is necessary to understand that sin has a double consequence. Grave sin deprives us of communion with God, and therefore makes us incapable of eternal life, the privation of which is called the ‘eternal punishment’ of sin.”

• When we sin, we are separating ourselves from the Lord and there is an eternal consequence

• What is the eternal consequence?

• We don’t spend eternity with God

• HELL is the other way to say it

• Jesus, in His great love and mercy, has taken care of the ETERNAL consequence of sin by dying on the Cross for us

• Because of that, when we get baptized, we are reconciled with the Lord

• When we go to Confession after Baptism, we are reconciled with the Lord

• Our GUILT has been forgiven

• THAT eternal consequence of sin has been dealt with

• Paragraph 1471 continues, “‘An indulgence is partial or plenary according as it removes either part or all of the temporal punishment due to sin.’ The faithful can gain indulgences for themselves or apply them to the dead.”

• Paragraph 1472 says, “...sin has a double consequence…”

• So temporal consequence due to sin 

• OR…

• Eternal consequence due to sin

• Fr. Mike likes the term “consequence” instead of “punishment” because our minds are so distorted that when we think of PUNISHMENT we think that God is vengeful and inflicting punishment on us saying, “This is what I am going to do to you!”

• CONSEQUENCE is what happens in a cause and effect kind of way

• This is the natural or supernatural consequence of what I have chosen

• The ETERNAL consequence of what I have chosen is that if I say no to God, then I get NO GOD

• The TEMPORAL consequence of sin is that our hearts are now DISTORTED

• When we say, “God, I know what you want. I want what I want.”

• Not only is there an ETERNAL consequence that Jesus pays the price of and that we get absolved of in Confession

• There is also a TEMPORAL consequence

• Our hearts are DISTORTED and we are ATTACHED to these things

• Think about your own life

• Maybe there was a time where you committed one sin for the first time and it was a BIG DEAL

• “Oh my goodness! What have I done??”

• Maybe you thought you needed to get to Confession as soon as possible

• Then you experienced the relief of going to Confession 

• And the next time you committed the SAME SIN you felt less hurt by that or less bothered by that and it was EASIER TO CHOOSE THAT SIN

• And the next time it is EVEN EASIER TO CHOOSE THAT SIN

• We can now call that ATTACHMENT TO SIN

• We all have a healthy attachment to God’s gifts

• Sometimes we have an unhealthy attachment to God’s gifts

• Sometimes we have an unhealthy attachment to sin

• Even though I have been forgiven of this sin, even though I do not want it in my life, I STILL HAVE AN ATTACHMENT TO IT

• We call that the TEMPORAL CONSEQUENCE of having chosen the sin

• My heart is now DISTORTED

• It is EASIER TO CHOOSE in the future

• I don’t know if I can live WITHOUT THIS THING

• Think of any bad habit that you have developed

• At some point, you know you need to stop

• When are you going to stop?

• You have an attachment to that thing

• It might even be an addiction, but it is something that holds you back from the fullness of life

• It holds you back from freedom

• That is a TEMPORAL CONSEQUENCE of having chosen the thing

• The ETERNAL CONSEQUENCE of sin is HELL

• Jesus dealt with that when we are forgiven

• There is a TEMPORAL CONSEQUENCE of sin and that is the ATTACHMENTS that we have to that sin

• Because of this, it is one of the reasons why we do penance after Confession

• Penance is like the rehab after surgery

• BUT…

• There is also the GRACE that God has given to the CHurch

• This GRACE is called INDULGENCES

• Pope Paul VI says in Paragraph 1471, “‘An indulgence is a remission before God of the temporal punishment due to sins whose guilt has already been forgiven, which the faithful Christian who is duly disposed gains under certain prescribed conditions through the action of the Church which, as the minister of redemption, dispenses and applies with authority the treasury of the satisfaction of Christ and the saints.’”

• Here’s what this means…

• The Church has the God-given ability to say, “Ok, if you do these actions, these are the kind of actions that heal you. These are the kind of actions that will remove those attachments of your heart to sin, the actions that will remove the attachments of your heart, the unhealthy attachments of your heart to creatures.”

• So there are FOUR ASPECTS to performing indulgences

• First is the action itself 

• It could be to pray the Stations of the Cross in a Church or oratory

• Or pray the Rosary on Divine Mercy Sunday

• Or pray the Divine Mercy Chaplet on Divine Mercy Sunday

• These are ACTIONS

• The second part is RECEIVE HOLY COMMUNION

• The third part is GO TO CONFESSION within a week of completing the action, especially for a PLENARY/FULL INDULGENCE

• The fourth part is to PRAY FOR THE INTENTIONS OF THE POPE (Our Father, Hail Mary, Glory Be for the monthly intentions of the Pope which can be found here: https://www.usccb.org/prayers/popes-monthly-intentions-2023 )

• Why are these four things important?

• First of all, the action itself is rehabilitation

• It is me saying yes to something the Church has asked me to do

• The source of all sin is PRIDE

• When I do what the Church is asking of me, I am walking in humility so it is healing

• Secondly, receiving Holy Communion is important because this is receiving the very Body and Blood of our Lord

• This is communion with the Church

• This is communion with our Lord Himself

• Remember, Holy Communion/the Eucharist is the great remedy for sin

• Thirdly, going to Confession is important because it means we are RECONCILED

• We are forgiven by the Lord and His mercy

• He has dealt with the ETERNAL PUNISHMENT of sin

• Lastly, praying for the Holy Father is important because it is us recognizing that our sin has not only affected our own heart and our own relationship with the Lord

• It has also affected our relationship with the whole Church

• We do not exist in isolation 

• WE ARE THE BODY OF CHRIST!!

• So when we pray for the Holy Father, we are praying for the Universal Church

• These four aspects that make up indulgences are remedies that heal our hearts

• What does it all entail?

• It all requires God’s grace and it all requires our cooperation with God’s grace

• We can do none of this without God’s grace

• None of this is possible without God having given His authority to the Church to bind and to loose

• Keep this in mind…

• Who is the Church to say that this is an indulgence and that other thing is not an indulgence?

• Remember, Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior, our God gave to Peter and to the Apostles the authority TO BIND AND TO LOOSE

• THIS IS AN EXERCISE OF THAT AUTHORITY THAT JESUS HAS GIVEN TO HIS CHURCH!!

• THis is one of the reasons why we are able to lean into indulgences

• You can obtain an indulgence for yourself or you can apply them for the dead

• You might think you’re OK

• Maybe you are OK

• BUT…

• There is someone you love who has passed away and you want to apply this indulgence to that person, to the purification of their heart, to the freedom of their soul 

• You want them to experience the grace of God in Heaven, in Eternity, quickly and soon

• Look up PLENARY INDULGENCES 

• Look up PARTIAL INDULGENCES 

• (This is the book I use for indulgences… https://www.daughtersofmarypress.com/product-page/holy-souls-book 😀 or you could also check out this one: https://catholicbookpublishing.com/product/117 )

• Look up indulgences that you can do, that you can pray, and apply the grace of this indulgence to your loved one that has died

• Your deceased wife

• Your deceased husband

• Your kids

• Your parents

• Your grandparents

• Your friend

• To do that is to exercise the Communion of Saints

• Fr. Mike is praying FOR YOU!!

• Please pray for Fr. Mike and for each other!!

• I cannot WAIT to see you tomorrow!!