This is my motto lately. I sort of feel like I can do nothing right. I can't seem to fit working out into my schedule. Eating right just seems harder than usual. It will pass...Right?
Anyway, everything that's been happening has made me want to expand the knowledge of my faith. I am a Catholic convert. I went through the RCIA program while in college. While this was a really moving experience, there are a lot of basics that I just didn't get enough exposure to understand why we, as Catholics, do certain things and believe certain things.
First on my list is Confession. I haven't been to confession since I converted. I know I'm supposed to go more regularly than that, since I know I've sinned. But I just don't understand why I must confess to a priest rather than pray on the matter and deal with it that way. This is a constant struggle for me - things I know the Church requires and my own feelings on a matter. I'm hoping that learning more will help resolve the internal struggle.
2 comments:
You know, it isn't just the Catholics that ask for confession, though it probably isn't as well known in the other denominations because it isn't considered a Sacrament. But, we, as Lutherans, are also encouraged to make confessions to our pastor. He is only another mouth from God to forgive our sins. We are forgiven even when confessing our sins in private, but we can be lead to a deeper faith by confessing them to a religious authority.
So it's not that you AREN'T forgiven until you make a public confession, it's that confession is a useful tool to strengthen your faith.
However, I have no idea what the Catholic stance is. :-)
The Catholic stance (I've been reading up on it, just haven't had time to post) is that's it's necessary to be fully forgiven. That's why it gets to carry the weight of being a sacrament.
From what I've read so far, a large part of confessing to the priest is the relief/freedom of saying it out loud which can be extremely helpful in moving forward. There's much more too it than that, I know, but that one objective might make it more palatable for someone like me.
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