Penance and Reconciliation

For those of us old enough to remember, the saying “Mass on Sunday — confession on Saturday” is, in large measure, no longer true for many Catholics.  But prior to the Second Vatican Council, this was the way the sacraments worked; there…

We all carry both psychological and spiritual wounds that affect our motives, our reactions to other people’s behavior, and the deeper reasons we fear or avoid certain things. When I was in junior high, I dabbled in the occult. My parents…

I’ll never confess my sins to some man!” I spouted off a bit too forcefully to a Catholic friend. We were discussing what we believed was important for salvation. “I have my Bible and Jesus, and I confess my sins directly to him,” I…

Question: I haven’t been to confession in many years. But I feel something is tugging at me to go. Do I have to confess every sin since my last confession? What about ones I no longer remember? Are priests really bound not to tell anyone…

At its core, Christianity is a religion which revolves around suffering. From the beginning of the Scriptures we see how man’s own folly has condemned us to lives filled with suffering, and the long breadth of human history easily…

I don’t think anything could have matched the sweet aroma of the steaming hot dog that day, or the tingling warmth on my fingertips as I held the tissue-wrapped bun. I smeared a good-sized gob of yellow mustard on the hot dog, and the…

The statistics are sobering. According to a study published in 2015 by the Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate at Georgetown University: Only 22 percent of Catholic parents are attending Mass weekly or more often. 68 percent of…

Let’s face it, there are plenty of us who could stand to go to confession more often. And we have a duty to receive the sacrament of Penance and Reconciliation. According to the Church’s command, “after having attained the age of…