Helpful Hints For Confession!

[springbreeze]

Dear friends

A meditation.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------


Helpful Hints For Confession!
By the late Father Kilian McGowan, C.P. Used with permission, from the Passionist Priests, to help spiritually guide the layman.

A rather common complaint of the average person is that he seems to be getting little our of the practice of frequent Confession. He wants to know the reason why, and just what can be done about it. He is probably getting much more from Confession than he believes, but this examination may make this spiritual practice more profitable.

What's your attitude toward your Confession? Do you regard it as an encounter with the merciful forgiveness of the Heart of Christ? Do you know that you are approaching the Divine Physician just as truly as the people of His day and saying: "Lord, be merciful to me a sinner"?

Are you more concerned with the offences than the One offended? Do you spend most of the time carefully listing your sins, and fail to give enough to stirring up your compunction of heart? A worthy Confession consists more of having a sorrowful heart than in telling one's sins exactly. Do you forget that not venial sin ever has to be told and spend so much time looking for these that you almost forget to look at the Merciful Savior?

Do you really appreciate that in Confession your soul is coming in spiritual contact with the Precious Blood of Christ that washes away the sins of the world? Do you know that this sin destroyer of the Sacramental System not only removes all sin, but attacks and undermines their roots by weakening the tendencies to sin?

Do you have such an erroneous concept of God that you conceive of Him as a kind of giant electronic brain carefully noting, totaling and remembering each imperfection, failure and sin? Surely nowhere in the accounts of Jesus do you find such a heartless taskmaster as this. This false image of God must be destroyed at once. He knows your heart as well as your sins. He prefers to recall what you have tried to do rather than what you have failed to do.

Are you so concerned in remembering and mentioning each little sin in Confession that you dissipate your spiritual energy and fail to concentrate your spiritual effort on that glaring fault that cries aloud for attention? Do you not only mention yours sins, but also try to get to the roots of them? What is it that makes you vain, or self-centered or proud or irritable? And what do you intend to do about it?

Do you really appreciate that true sorrow looks to the future where that special weakness is to be avoided, as well as to the past wherein it was indulged? Do you really intend to take all necessary means to avoid prudently your chief weakness in the future? Have you made definite and well-planned resolutions to remove the sin in your life that offends God the most? Do you forget that you are becoming more perfect in God's eyes by persevering in your efforts to avoid whatever offends Him, even though you may not entirely succeed? Or that He will surely bless your strivings with ever-increasing grace?

What do you do to learn to hate sin? Do you gaze upon your crucifix, or meditate upon the sufferings of His Passion, and say: "This is what my sins did to my God." If you don't, you should. It will dispose your heart for more fruitful Confessions. It will also teach the malice of sin and the fullness of His love.

Finally, remember that no penitent was ever refused absolution by the Merciful Christ-no matter how great the sins. The formula of absolution was ever the same: "Go in peace and sin no more."

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

God Bless you and much love and peace to you

Teresa