The Sacrament of Reconciliation
We have all been created human, which means we all make mistakes. Not one of us is perfect, but God loves us anyway. He loves us so much that He sent his only Son to be one like us in everything but sin; to suffer and die like the most despised among us; and then to share once more in the glorious life of God. God did this to show once and for all that we are always loved and always forgiven. He knew that we would need proof that his love and forgiveness is for all time. It always was, always will be, and always remains the same. Isn't that Good News? So why don't we believe it? When we have sinned what kind of foolish pride makes us so sure that Jesus gained salvation for everyone else but not for us? Why are we so sure that what we have done is so bad as to be totally unforgivable? What an insult to our loving God that we doubt his loving Mercy. And yet He still reaches to us with love and forgiveness in the Sacrament of Reconciliation. It is as though he says to us: Do you need to hear my words of forgiveness with your own ears and see it with your own eyes? So be it. It is yours.
This is great Good News indeed. Yet the sacrament of reconciliation goes even beyond this. By giving us a chance not only to seek forgiveness, but also to recommit ourselves to a loving relationship with God and by giving us the opportunity to make reparation for what we have done. Not only that, but it gives the community, who are also human, the chance to love as Jesus does, by sharing in the act of forgiving the sinner and in the case of mortal sin, by allowing the sinner back into the community.
In this sacrament, the priest is the sign of both a loving and forgiving God and a loving, forgiving community. The penitent, by acknowledging his sinfulness, seeking forgiveness, making a firm decision to change, and undertaking to make reparation, becomes a sign of our humanity and our acknowledgment that we need Jesus Christ to be our Saviour.
SACRAMENT OF RECONCILIATION
Saturdays 4:15pm – 4:45pm
Other days – before Mass
- Reconciliation - The Vatican
- Reconciliation and Penance - Post-synodal Apostolic Exhortation of John Paul II to the Bishops, Clergy and Faithful on Reconciliation and Penance
- An article on The Sacrament Of Reconciliation
- Examination of conscience for kids
- Confessional - Procedures to make a good confession