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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!!
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