Some Helpful Instruction on Making a Good Confession On This 3rd Sunday after Epiphany

For this 3rd Sunday after Epiphany we offer some helpful instruction about making a good Confession. 

Making a good Confession does sound like a good idea, no? And it was certainly a subject covered in some serious detail in our Catholic upbringing in years past. Not so much anymore. If anything, we can go weeks, no, months, and not here a peep about Confession or the reason for it: sin.

Now, many of us may have an impression that back in the day too much emphasis was placed on sin. Perhaps there's some truth in this - at least in some quarters. But if memory serves - and it does - there's little personal experience of this. No overbearing confessors pounding this tender soul in the confessional, instilling fear and self-loathing, or any of the other dramatic stories we hear from time to time.

Nevertheless, the powers that be determined that a more "positive" view was needed in the newfangled liturgies they thrust on us, as well as in the training of priests coming up after the "Great Divide" that followed Vatican II.

Of course, throwing open the windows of Holy Mother Church - whatever that was supposed to mean - was not intended to overthrow centuries of venerable traditional practices that connected us in an unbroken chain to Our Lord Jesus Christ and His Apostles when the Church first took on its worldly shape. But ultimately that's what happened. 

Now, the early Church followed practices that were over time refined in some way. We all know this. But any changes, additions or deletions were always carefully considered with the insistence that they not change in any way the fundamental truths that Our Lord taught us.

But that's not exactly what transpired after Vatican II. For example, the Council was careful to emphasize the importance of Latin in the liturgy (of the Latin Rite, of course, not the Byzantine Rite) as well as primacy of place for Gregorian Chant. There was no reference to a "new" form of the Mass. 

Is this what actually transpired after the Council? We all know the answer. The whys and wherefores have been debated for decades. So let's not attempt yet another round here.

Instead, we turn to something practical that has been impacted in a big way post-Vatican II: Confession. For those of us who can use a bit of a refresher in the matter of Confession, here's something we recently came across that should fit the bill. It provides the nuts and bolts of making a good Confession:

“Stating the law first in rather general terms, we may say that everyone who receives the Sacrament of Penance is obliged to confess his mortal sins in such a way that the confessor can judge the kinds of sins committed and the number of times each sin was committed. A few comments on some of the italicized words may prove helpful.

“Mortal Sins: It goes without saying that this law does not refer to sins committed before baptism. Such sins are completely remitted by baptism, and they are never matter for confession. Evidently, too, the law does not include sins already confessed and absolved. The obligation of confessing these has already been fulfilled; they are no longer necessary matter but, like venial sins, they are optional matter. It helps to occasionally include such forgiven sins in subsequent confessions, because this is an added incentive to contrition and to a continued purpose of amendment, and also because, by the subsequent confessions, it is possible to reduce more and more the temporal punishment that might still be due for these sins. God has given us no assurance that He remits all the punishment due to sin by the mere fact that He forgives the sin. The expression ‘mortal sin’ must be taken at its face value. This means, if I may use the term, a full-fledged mortal sin: that is, one that the penitent himself considered mortal at the time he did it, and which he committed with ‘sufficient reflection and full consent of the will.’ It may happen at times that a person does something that he thinks to be only a venial sin, or perhaps no sin at all, then later on learns that such an act is a mortal sin. Such a person need not be disquieted. It is not a mortal sin for him; therefore he neither had nor has an obligation to confess it. Past acts are not to be judged by present knowledge. ” - Fr. Gerald Kelly, S.J. (1956)

So there's a down-to-earth specific and practical view of Confession along with advice on best to incorporate this precious Sacrament into our lives. Yes, it's a "traditional" view; but can we doubt its authenticity, its accuracy? The only way we do that is to somehow be convinced that the Sacrament itself was changed in its very nature and practice after the "Great Divide" the followed Vatican II. And that simply cannot stand on any merit.

Our Church, One, Holy, Catholic, Universal, remains as it has always been. The Sacraments remains as they always have been. Can we say the same of ourselves?

Happy 3rd Sunday after Epiphany!