Sacrament of Confession

My Dear Parishioners,

Lent isn’t done until we have gone to Confession. It is as a part of Lent as Friday abstinence from meat. It is the final, and most important preparation for Easter. The Baltimore Catechism teaches us about the power of the Sacrament of Confession:

382. What are effects of the sacrament of Penance, worthily received?
383. The effects of the sacrament of Penance, worthily received are:

• first, the restoration or increase of sanctifying grace;
• second, the forgiveness of sins;
• third, the remission of the eternal punishment, if necessary, and also of part, at least, of the temporal punishment, due to our sins;
• fourth, the help to avoid sin in future;
• fifth, the restoration of the merits of our good works if they have been lost by mortal
• When we receive the sacrament of Penance worthily, the merits of Christ’s redemption are applied to Sanctifying grace is either restored or, if we are already in the state of grace, increased. The worthy reception of the sacrament of Penance also gives us a right to receive those actual graces which we will need in atoning for our past sins and avoiding sins in the future.
• 383. What else does the sacrament of Penance do for us?

The sacrament of Penance also gives us the opportunity to receive spiritual advice and instruction from our confessor.

A good Confession begins with an honest Examination of Conscience. Here is an Examination of Conscience Based on the Virtues. These questions allow us to look at our lives with sincerity and honesty and humility. They will motivate us on the road to conversion from sin to love of God. They will also give us the “material” for a good Confession.

MERCY: God is slow to anger and quick to mercy and forgiveness. Are you slow to anger and quick to mercy or quick to anger and slow to mercy?

TEMPERANCE: Do you eat what you like or do you eat what is healthy for your body, which is the temple of the Holy Spirit and tabernacle of the living God? Do you eat to live or live to eat? Do you use alcohol with moderation, or do you abuse it? Do you avoid marijuana and other narcotics that may lead to a life of addiction? Do you control your use of social media, or does it control you?

DILIGENCE: As soon as the alarm-clock rings do you bolt from the bed and start your morning offering or do you hit the “Snooze-button” and take a few extra winks? The Founder of Opus Dei terms this moment the “Heroic moment!” Are you disposed to the Deadly Sin of Sloth?

PURITY: Do you entertain bad thoughts or do they entertain you? Since the eyes are the windows of the soul, do you protect your eyes from impure images? Are you inclined to the Deadly Sin of Lust? Do you use pornography? If you have used pornography, do you seek remedies to avoid it? Do you encourage purity in your family and among your friends? Do you treat members of the opposite sex as children of God to be loved or objects to be used? Do you engage in inappropriate language or conversation? Do you dress modestly? Is your marriage a valid marriage? Do you encourage families and friends to seek only valid marriages?

CHARITY: Are you looking to be served by others or are you on the outlook to serve others? Are you generous with the Church and with the poor? Do you steal, time or money? Do you gossip? Are you disposed to the Deadly Sins of Greed and Envy? Do you treat others with proper respect?

JOY: Do you rejoice at all times in the Lord Jesus and His Holy Spirit or always have reasons and manners to complain about the problems of life? Do you count your blessings?

PATIENCE: Are you inclined to the Deadly Sin of Anger? Are you the epitome of patience or want things your time, your manner, your schedule? Is this your prayer: Lord I beg you to give me patience, and right now?!

OBEDIENCE: Are you ready to obey God’s will through rightful authority, the Church, and circumstances or always on the defensive to defend your “precious and inviolable rights”? Do you abstain from meat on Fridays of Lent? Do you observe Holy Days of Obligation?

MORTIFICATION: Are you ready and willing to deny yourself, take up your cross and follow the Lord Jesus or are you always looking for the easy way out? Do you observe fasting and abstaining from meat when the Church asks us, especially during Lent?

MEEKNESS: Do you try to imitate the Master who said that He was meek and humble of heart or are you brusque, cutting, demanding, and sharp towards others? Do you ever pray: Jesus meek and humble of heart, make my heart like unto thine? FAITH: Are you a man or woman of faith (the faith that could move the mountains) or a person whose faith totters, vacillates and changes like the weather and wind? Do you give in to superstitions? Is the practice of the Faith, Holy Mass, and daily prayer at the center of your life?

TRUST: Do you trust the Lord as your rock and fortress or follow the voluble and sentimental path of your feelings and emotions? Do place your trust in money or politics, or worldly possessions instead of in Jesus?

HOPE: Is your hope in God at all times and places, or do you give in to despair when confronted with the trials and setbacks of life? Do you encourage others to hope in God?

FORTITUDE: Are the crosses and sufferings of life too much for your shoulders or do you willingly carry the cross with Jesus to Calvary that ends in the glory of the Resurrection?

HEAVEN: Do you look constantly to the earth and worldly values or is your mind, heart and soul raised up to your eternal destiny— Heaven? Do you seek the guidance and intercession of the Saints?

PRAYER: Is prayer the very breath of your soul, the lifeblood of your inner being or is your prayer life mediocre and declining like the sinking sun? Do you pray with and to the Saints?

KNOWLEDGE: Is your life a constant yearning to grow in the knowledge and love of God or has your knowledge of God become stagnant, insipid and dormant?

PRINCIPLES AND FOUNDATIONS AND PRIORITIES: Is

God the Principle and Foundation of your existence? Is God always the first in your hierarchy of values and the first of your priorities? Is Holy Mass the first priority of your week? Is prayer the first priority of your day? Is pleasing God the first priority of your life?

FORGIVENESS: Have you forgiven in all times and places in your life or are there still remnants and residual traces of persons that you still hold on to resentments and grudges? Maybe it is for this reason that your soul is not at peace.

HUNGER: Jesus said that man does not live on bread alone but on every word that comes forth from the mouth of God. What do you hunger for? The five P’s? Power? Pleasure? Prestige?

Personal Vanity? Put me first? Or do you hunger for God? “Seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness and everything else will be given beside!”

SUFFERING: Is suffering a source of complaint, anger and bitterness on your part? Or do you unite your suffering to the Passion of Jesus and allow suffering to sanctify you? In other words, “Does the cross make you better or bitter?”

JESUS: Is Jesus your beginning and end, alpha and omega, your Way, Truth, and Life, your Light, Sustenance, and meaning in life? Or do you have false gods and idols on the altar of your life? Money? Pleasure? Porn? Drink? Drugs? Vanity? Prestige? Gambling? T.V./INTERNET and electronic media as sovereign to God Himself? Why not make a serious examination of conscience.

MARY: Is Mary absent from your life like that of a spiritual orphan? Or is Mary your life, your sweetness and your hope? Is Mary the Mother in whom you can entrust your whole life: your joys and sorrows, successes and failures, temptations even falls?

Despite our many failures God’s mercy always far transcends our guilt. As the Apostle Saint Paul highlights: “Where sin abounds the mercy of God abounds all the more.” Jesus pointed out to Saint Faustina constantly that His greatest attribute or virtue was that of His Divine Mercy. The greatest sinners of the entire world can be the greatest saints under one simple condition: TRUST, TRUST, and TRUST and with those beautiful words of a priest, I absolve you of your sins!!! Trust in the Infinite Mercy of our all-loving God and get to Confession! JESUS I TRUST IN YOU!

Courtesy of Fr. Ed Broom, OMV, with some modifications.

We have Confessions available Saturday mornings from after morning Mass until about 9:00 and Saturday afternoons from 3:30 until 4:30.

Also, we will have Confessions available on Tuesday, April 15 from 4:00-5:00 and again from 7:00-7:30. These will be the last Confessions available before Easter.

St. Joseph, Patron of the Church, and our Patron, pray for us!

Fr. Michael J Pawelko, Pastor