Which Act of Contrition Should We Pray in Confession? When I first became Catholic, I would alternate between saying the official Act of Contrition (see below) and one that I would make up by myself. For those that are not Catholic, when a Catholic goes to confession, it goes like this: Bless me Father for I have sinned, it has been (2 weeks) since my last confession and I accuse myself of the following sins: Here we list sins by kind and number. For these sins and those I cannot now remember and for my sins against charity toward God and neighbor, I humbly repent and ask for counsel, penance, and absolution. Here, the priest gives advice or exhortation and imposes a penance (e. Our Fathers and 3 Hail Marys”).
And then the priest says, Now if you’ll make an Act of Contrition I will give you absolution. This proves that we really are sorry and not just going through the motions. We say the Act of Contrition and then the priest absolves us by saying: “I absolve you of your sins in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.”Now the “Act of Contrition” is a prayer that we say to God and the priest listens to us while we say it. This act of the will “proves” to the priest that we are seeking reconciliation with God. The priest stands as a legal and sacramental witness to this repentance. If someone said, “I don’t want to pray the Act of Contrition,” then the priest would say, “I will not absolve you.” As the Council of Trent teaches (Session 1. Penance. No sadness for sin, no grace.
- Courts differ on how a confession establishes the accused's guilt; for example, in some jurisdictions the confession has to establish all the necessary elements of.
- Listen to and read the Act of Contrition, a Catholic prayer that may be used in public worship or privately to confess sin or examine one's conscience: O.
- The basic requirement for a good confession is to have the intention of returning to God like the 'prodigal son' and to acknowledge our sins with true sorrow before.
- An act of contrition is a Christian prayer genre that expresses sorrow for sins. It may be used in a liturgical service or be used privately, especially in connection.
Now this should reveal the absolutely important role of the Act of Contrition. It becomes the heartfelt prayer of the penitent to God. We list our sins to the priest as God’s representative, but we make our act of contrition directly to God. Here’s the traditional Act of Contrition: O my God,В I am heartily sorry for. В having offended Thee,В and I detest all my sins,В because I dread the loss of heaven,В and the pains of hell; but most of all because. В they offend Thee, my God,Who are all good and. В deserving of all my love.
A person is accused of a murder he didn't commit. But in this story there is no false confession. Jeffrey Womack spent most of his adult life as a suspect in one of. Confession definition, acknowledgment; avowal; admission: a confession of incompetence. See more. In my opinion that priest is pushing more of an agenda, rather than listening to a person’s Confession. There is not a “only do this Act of Contrition” type of.
I firmly resolve,В with the help of Thy grace,to sin no more and avoid the near occasions of sin. Amen.*Now I used to make up a “custom” Act of Contrition some times in confession.
However, a holy priest told me not to do this. I was shocked and I asked him why. The holy priest explained that the more contrite we are, the more sanctifying grace we receive in the sacrament of Penance.
Father also stated that a greater contrition remits more temporal punishment (crudely: remits more time off in purgatory). Most importantly, Father stated that most “custom Acts of Contrition” do not make explicit the essential elements of an Acts of Contrition. В Such custom Acts of Contrition can be ambiguous and my not mention love of God or an the explicit intention to avoid sin and the occasion of sin “to sin no more.”The official Act of Contrition contains the necessary part of contrition stipulated by the Council of Trent, and so the words can excite in us the right and proper sentiments, thoughts, and most importantly, movement of the will toward God. This, of course, does not forbid you making a “custom” Act of Contrition with all the right components.
However, you might be flustered and forget it. Shoot, some of us still get flustered saying the traditional memorized version that we’ve been saying for years and years.
So as the holy priest said, if you want to make sure that you cover all the elements of contrition and that you excite your will to a true contrition with all the attending extra graces, use the Church’s recommended Act of Contrition…that’s they way all the saints did it. PS: A great way to memorize the Act of Contrition (and have your children memorize it) is to begin the Rosary every evening with the Act of Contrition.* An alternative version of the Act of Contrition substitutes “just judgments” for the “the loss of heaven and the pains of hell.” As far as I can tell, the version above is more official. The version with “just judgments” usually appears in children’s catechisms (e. Baltimore Catechism). Perhaps someone knows the origin of this difference.
Please share it with us.
Confession. What Is Confession? We've all had to face it at some point in our lives.
You stopped to think for a moment, and became aware. You realize that what you did to someone is wrong, cruel, or unjust. You hurt someone who has only been loving toward you. You realize that you hated someone, or perhaps a specific group of someones, just for being who they are. Or you didn't care enough to think first, or you thought only about your own gain. Too often, you may even want to hurt them.
It's not just 'missing the mark' or 'making a mistake' - - it is the evil that's a part of you. There, I said the 'e- word'.) You come to understand that your actions show that you're not the good person you thought you were. OMG.. You know it now, but your new awareness stays there kicking around between your ears, not really changing anything.
You could tell it to a psychologist; not bad, but it doesn't yet start to get rid of what lies behind what you did. That takes something more. In the Christian faith, that something more is called 'confession'. It's something more because you're admitting your wrongs to God, the One who can give you the power to disarm it and reverse course. And, you're admitting it to a specific person, someone from the community of believers around you who can then. Confession of sins usually takes the form of a ritual, a pattern that takes you through a process.
This gives you the immediate opportunity to make the first steps toward the journey of a changed way of life. The pattern starts with contrition, then the actual admission of wrong acts and thoughts as such (repentance), then absolution with acceptance of Christ's forgiveness.
More on those words, below.) As you go through the process, it's likely you'll sense a release from your guilt. You're escaping the chains of your former ways, and starting to heal on the inside because it's now out into the light. You'll be ready to start doing things according to the way of Christ - the 'next step'. It's a repeated pattern that you would do again and again, like putting one foot in front, then the other, and so on, which moves you forward.
The pattern comes from looking at passages of the Bible about repentance and forgiveness. For instance, in. Psalm 3. 2: (1) unhealth due to secret sin; (2) acknowledged his sins to God; (3) God forgives! There are several psalms of repentance, for example, Psalm 5. Psalm 5. 1 is a lyric of personal repentance that doesn't use the framework of a confession. Yet it became a song for worship, which is a community act that turns it into a confession before all who gather to worship. Confession is usually best done as a private matter, one- on- one.
Indeed, most nations give clergy legal protections to keep confessions of crimes confidential. Even where there is no protective law, the clergy are bound before God to keep confessions in total confidence. Confession can take place in contexts where there is more than one confessor, such as small fellowship groups, house churches, prayer groups, or Bible studies. In those situations, the group (or its leader) then declares that God forgives not only the specific penitent(s), but the faith community as a whole. This is usually followed by prayers with the one who confesses.
Most churches ask that the worshipers make confession before one can receive Holy Communion. Worship liturgies bring in confession by way of a general confession of sin and absolution, and by pleas for God's mercy. This form of confession appears in each standard service, since the sins keep on coming, and God's Word keeps telling us about it. We need to face up to it repeatedly, and hear again and again that Jesus has forgiven us.
History of the Practice of Confession. Several of the Psalms show repentance and (public) confession.
Yet there are several other OT verses on confession of sins. Moses, and the Prophets, confessed on behalf of the people; a typical example is. Jeremiah, over his people's idolatry. When he heard what had happened to an earlier expedition to rebuild Jerusalem, Nehemiah confessed the sins of his people. For him, it was an immediate and gut reaction to confess sin before God when calamity takes place.
In. Numbers 5: 6- 8, Yahweh had commanded that (apparently financial) wrongdoers confess their sins, and then give full restitution plus 2. The early church's leaders were learning how to work the most spiritual benefit from the confession of sins. Tertullian (in *On Repentance*, 1. With one and two individuals, there is the Church; and the Church indeed is Christ. Therefore, when you cast yourself at the knees of the brethren, you are dealing with Christ, you are entreating Christ." 'Brethren' infers the confession was to more than just one priest, but in front of other fellow believers.
There is no mention of doing it according to some sort of rite or pattern, or of doing it in secret. However, it was personal confession of personal sins, done in the presence of others. Cyprian of Carthage (ca.
AD) wrote that those who don't confess their sins before having communion "do violence to His body and blood" (The Lapsed, 1. For Cyprian, it not only involves purging of the conscience, but it is part of a ceremony, and that it is done in the presence of a priest. Basil the Great (in Rules Briefly Treated 2. John the Baptist (Matthew 3: 6) and to the Apostles (Acts 1. It is fair to note that neither biblical example says they had to go to a prophet or apostle, only that they did.) Pope Leo I (ca.
AD) ordered that "the guilt of consciences be indicated to priests alone in a secret confession". While the act of confessing one's sins existed even before Jesus' day, the formal rite of confession as we now know it didn't come until much later. The early church did not confess in small private rooms, but in the home where the main leader was living or staying.
Once the church started meeting in buildings set aside for church use, people came to confess there, possibly in the worship area. From this came the Orthodox practice of doing it at an icon station in the main room. There is little evidence of any one specific ritual, rite, or format in place everywhere. They just did it, probably in an informal manner with much prayer. Early- church confession was rooted in God's forgiveness and turning away from sin.
It had the purposes of reconciliation and spiritual growth. The Celtic monks (ca. CE) made confessions of sin an important part of their way of spiritual direction. They developed a format much like the one that is currently in use, with specific prayers and the concept of penance. The Celtic Christians were in many ways the spiritual ground- breakers of their day.
Something like what they did soon became common throughout Europe. John the Faster of Constantinople (1. Orthodox order of confession.
The Fourth Lateran Council (1. CE) for the first time required yearly confession for Catholics.
Private rooms for confessions (called 'confessionals') became important to the Roman Catholic tradition. Contritioncontrition [ < Latin contritus < conterere (to crush, grind against) < terere (to grind). Akin to 'thresh' and 'thrash'.] Definition: True repentance for wrongdoing.
Other words in this word- field are penitence, repentance, regret, remorse, and compunction. Contrition is when you realize that you've done something bad, harmful or cruel, and you're crushed or ground- up inside. This causes you to turn away from this act and others like it - - that is, the next step is repentance. It's more than just sorrow over sin: it's not the goal but the start, the recognition that it's time to let go of something about what you were. While one specific sin may be front and center, in contrition you carry the awareness that you are the kind of being that does such things. In Roman Catholic thought, "perfect contrition" is when you turn away from sin because you love God.
Such contrition is held to justify even without sacramental confession. In progressive Protestant thought, contrition leads to self- improvement, which is the process by which God makes us better. In Evangelical thinking, there is no conversion to faith unless we are crushed by sin; conviction over sin is what leads to repentance which leads to salvation. Charismatics stress that it is the Holy Spirit who leads us to become so keenly aware of our wrongs, and who crushes our stubborn heart. Thus our willful repentance and change is the Spirit's doing.
It does no good to count up your sins; that would just replace the 'I- did- it' (forensic) guilt with a huge dose of self- defeating 'woe- is- me' guilt in your mind. The Spirit stirs up within us inner disturbance over a sin; that is what brings us to confess. Repentancerepentance [ < Latin re- (again) + paenitêre (to repent)] Definition: A change of mind, a reorientation of one's thought and action away from what it was before. The gospels use the Greek term metanoia.
For a Christian, repentance is the actual decision to turn away from the wrongs we've done, and trusting God that he completely forgives you for those wrongs. Because we keep doing wrong throughout our life, the task of repentance is lifelong. If you stand there too proud to admit to wrongs (or worse, being proud of doing them), then there is no way to relate to God. You have not turned against your wrongdoings, and you do not really believe in Christ. Repentance is more than just a positive change of attitude and behavior. In repentance, you realize that your wrongdoing was wrong; you not only turn away from it, you turn against it, and you change your behavior in a way that reflects this turning away.
This is why it is important that you call it something sharply negative, such as "sin".)Jesus got rid of the eternal separation from God that our state of sin caused. We're guilty, and do not merit this, but God's grace- filled compassion makes it happen. However, even a forgiven sin can still have stiff consequences. For instance, cheating on my wife (if I had one) most likely would end the marriage.