Confused Charles wrote: |
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Hello brothers and sisters,
I am in distress and I am hoping you can help me with a second opinion.
I am a long time Protestant Catholic convert. Recently I was in Confession confessing a few sins and during the Confession, I mentioned a new thing, I didn't know was a sin, that I had done.
The sin of presumption.
I was about to fall to a sin and, before the sin took place, thought,
“Dang it, I am about to fall to this stupid thing again; I am going to have to mention this in Confession, then fall to that sin.”
When I confessed finding out presumption was sinful my priest said:
"Well, that makes for a bad Confession."
I said,
“Uh oh, well I've done that in past Confessions! Possibly even my first general Confession!”
He said OK your sins are forgiven, and I said, wait . . . if that made for a bad Confession and I didn't know, then many of my past sins may not have been forgiven!
Now that I understand the rules better, should I do a general Confession now to make sure I'm covered?
He said, “no you are covered.”
This hasn't sat right with me since as every single thing I read says, if you have a bad Confession, it all needs to be confessed again! Despite my objection he is still saying, "No, you are covered.".
I don't want to be scrupulous but reading Saint Teresa says many are in Hell because of bad Confessions!
- I can't risk that so shouldn't I do another general Confession to be safe?
He says no.
- What is your opinion?
- Should I submit to my priest which I will gladly do, or
- Should I push for another general Confession, or
- Go to a second parish I also call home (I live between two churches), explain my situation, and do another general Confession there.
For obvious reasons I can't risk Hell. I am losing sleep over this.
Thank you!
Charles |
| { How should I handle a situation where a Confessor told me my previous Confession was bad? } |
John replied:
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Charles —
I'm not sure what the priest meant as a bad Confession. Normally, that means you deliberately omit a particular sin for whatever reason.
But you can't deliberately omit a sin that you don't realize is sin. Any sin you omitted because of lack of knowledge, understanding, or simply not remembering, is still forgiven and remains forgiven.
Now that you realize what you did was sin, you should do whatever possible to avoid it. In your prayer life, you should ask for forgiveness of inadvertently sinning and ask the Holy Spirit to show you whatever else you're doing . . . not understanding it to be sin.
It sounds like you've confessed this sin already, so there is no need to confess it again, unless you commit it again. It's more important to focus on the future and seek the grace to avoid sin, to repent of it, and the grace to become more and more aware of sins you need to repent of.
As a rule, it's not healthy to live in the past. God began a good work in you, and He'll be faithful to complete it in you, if you allow Him to.
Under His Mercy,
John DiMascio
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Charles replied:
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Thank you, Mr. DiMascio!
I will do that.
P.S. For the record I think his point was in past Confessions a presumption would have invalidated that past Confession, so I was scared all those old sins from those Confessions were still on me.
I will submit to my shepherd. You just can't be too careful with your soul.
Gratefully,
Charles
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John replied:
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Charles,
From your original e-mail, I don't think the priest quite explained the situation or understood it. It sounds like you unknowingly committed the sin of presumption.
Well, if we do that knowingly, then we must confess it. If you didn't know it was a sin, then your Confession and all prior Confessions were still valid. You didn't know it was sin. You didn't know you had to confess it.
I think the issue you're having is the way you view God. God isn't trying to find technical reasons to keep you out of Heaven. He does everything possible to see that you make it to Heaven. The one thing He won't do, is change your free will. He gives you all the grace needed to say, "yes", to Him. But He won't force you.
We often describe sin in legal terms. It's offense, it's a crime, it's doing something wrong and all those things are true. But there is another way, and perhaps better way to look at all this.
Our Eastern Catholic and Orthodox Brothers describe sin as a sickness. When you go to Confession, you're going to the doctor. If you don't tell the doctor, as many of the symptoms you recognize, he's not going to be able to fully help you. Now in this case, you omitted a symptom, not to deceive the doctor, but because you didn't realize it was a symptom.
Believe me, God is thrilled with you because you went to Confession. He sees us like toddlers running into His Arms when we need Him, every time we go to Confession.
A Saint doesn't become one because he lives sin free. He becomes a Saint, because by God's Grace, he keeps trying.
Your last Confession took care of everything to that point. Period.
John |
Mike replied:
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Dear Charles,
In your initial reply you mentioned that you may have to go to another general Confession.
The norm for going to Sacramental Confession in the Catholic Church is going to private Confession which, at most Catholic parishes happens every Saturday afternoon.
General Confessions are only allowed in special instances, like in the military under special cases.
I searched our AskACatholic database and found the following questions, related to this issue, that elaborate on this issue.
Postings on General Confessions versus Regular private Confessions
Hope this helps,
Mike
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Charles replied:
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