Part Three: Concerning Fasting/Penance/ConfessionThe thought of fasting usually has been regarding food, abstinence from meat, and eating less on Ash Wednesday and Good Friday. Then there's the practice of "giving up something" for Lent. This has become a beautiful form of fasting, as spirtual discipline. For example, kids usually candy and sodas, while adults, it's shopping, so as to give the amount saved to the poor, or the things they enjoy, so as to spend more time doing things that matter. In all cases, fasting leads us to a greater self-discipline, a renewal of oneself.
"I speak not, indeed, of such a fast as most persons keep, but of real fasting; not merely an abstinence from meats; but from sins too." --St. John Chrysostom
Fasting can also be a act of penance. Pope Clement XIII wrote "Appetente Sacro" in 1759 to ask his Bishops to explain the reasons for fasting:
"You will begin most appropriately, and with hope of the greatest profit, to recall men to the observance of the holy law of fasting, if you teach the people this: penance for the Christian man is not satisfied by withdrawing from sin, by detesting a past life badly lived, or by the sacramental confession of these same sins. Rather, penance also demands that we satisfy divine justice with fasting, almsgiving, prayer, and other works of the spiritual life. Every wrongdoing -- be it large or small -- is fittingly punished, either by the penitent or by a vengeful God. Therefore we cannot avoid God's punishment in any other way than by punishing ourselves. If this teaching is constantly implanted in the minds of the faithful, and if they drink deeply of it, there will be very little cause to fear that those who have discarded their degraded habits and washed their sins clean through sacramental confession would not want to expiate the same sins through fasting, to eliminate the concupiscence of the flesh. Besides, consider the man who is convinced that he repents of his sins more firmly when he toes not allow himself to go unpunished. That man, already consumed with the love of penance, will rejoice during the season of Lent and on certain other days, when the Church declares that the faithful should fast and gives them the opportunity to bring forth worthy fruits of penance."
"It is only by sacrifice and suffering, offered as penance, that you will be able, by the grace of God, to convert sinners."
-St. John Vianney
Here are the penance services and confession hours at SJB:
Penance Services
-St. John Vianney
Here are the penance services and confession hours at SJB:
Penance Services
--Thursday, March 6th at 7:15 PM in Vietnamese and English
--Thursday, March 13th at 7:30 PM in English and Spanish
Confession Hours
--Saturday, March 8th at 3:30-4:30 PM
--Satuday, March 15th at 3:30-4:30 PM
--Tuesday, March 18th at 8:00-9:00 PM
It is highly recommended that one goes to one of the Penance Services to avoid long lines during the confession hours.Just for reference: The Seven Penitential Psalms are Psalms 6, 31, 37, 50, 101, 129, & 142
By order of Pope Innocent III (1198-1216), these prayers are to be prayed during the days of Lent. If they can't be said on each day of the Season, they can at least be prayed on Lenten Fridays (or one could pray one prayer on each of the 7 Fridays of Lent). One kneels when praying these Psalms, begins and ends with a short antiphon, and recites a Gloria in between. To download these Psalms in Microsoft Word format (10 pages), in both English and Latin, with Antiphons and Glorias, click here. (fisheaters.com)
The Sacrament of Confession is one of God's greatest gift. During Lent, by fasting, one will be able to reflect and meditate on God's mercy and His love.
Confession!
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John 20:22-23
And when He had said this, He breathed on them, and said to them, "Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained."
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The cry goes up "Why confess your sins to men? Why not just confess to God?" The answer is, as ever, the Incarnation. Jesus is not the Word made word or the Word made abstract theology or the Word made warm fuzzy feeling. He is the Word made flesh. And so, He commits His gospel into the flesh and blood hands of flesh and blood people and gives them the power to forgive sins in His name by the power of the Holy Spirit. We are creatures, not only of spirit, but of skin and bone. We need somebody with skin on to say "You are absolved of all your sins." So Jesus gives us the sacrament of reconciliation. (catholicexchange.com)
Contrition !
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Psalm 51:17
The sacrifice acceptable to God is a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, Thou wilt not despise.
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Contrition is the second element of a good confession. It is part of the typically Catholic insistence of a marriage between word and deed, spirit and flesh, inner and outer. If you confess but don't mean to change, your confession is just a show. If you claim to have undergone a change of heart, but then refuse to confess your sins or change, you're just kidding yourself. By far, contrition is the most important element of the sacrament. If you are truly and fully contrite for your sins, but get killed in battle, or run over by a bus, or struck by a meteor before you get a chance to go to confession, you are still fully forgiven by God. But, of course, if you are seriously contrite and none of these somewhat improbable occurrences befalls you, then you should get to confession. And, wherever you are, you should pray the prayer of the psalmist: "Create in me a clean heart, and renew a steadfast spirit within me!" (catholicexchange.com)
The Acts of the Penitent!
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John 20:22-23
And when He had said this, He breathed on them, and said to them, "Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained."
--------------------
The cry goes up "Why confess your sins to men? Why not just confess to God?" The answer is, as ever, the Incarnation. Jesus is not the Word made word or the Word made abstract theology or the Word made warm fuzzy feeling. He is the Word made flesh. And so, He commits His gospel into the flesh and blood hands of flesh and blood people and gives them the power to forgive sins in His name by the power of the Holy Spirit. We are creatures, not only of spirit, but of skin and bone. We need somebody with skin on to say "You are absolved of all your sins." So Jesus gives us the sacrament of reconciliation. (catholicexchange.com)
Contrition !
------------
Psalm 51:17
The sacrifice acceptable to God is a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, Thou wilt not despise.
--------------------
Contrition is the second element of a good confession. It is part of the typically Catholic insistence of a marriage between word and deed, spirit and flesh, inner and outer. If you confess but don't mean to change, your confession is just a show. If you claim to have undergone a change of heart, but then refuse to confess your sins or change, you're just kidding yourself. By far, contrition is the most important element of the sacrament. If you are truly and fully contrite for your sins, but get killed in battle, or run over by a bus, or struck by a meteor before you get a chance to go to confession, you are still fully forgiven by God. But, of course, if you are seriously contrite and none of these somewhat improbable occurrences befalls you, then you should get to confession. And, wherever you are, you should pray the prayer of the psalmist: "Create in me a clean heart, and renew a steadfast spirit within me!" (catholicexchange.com)
The Acts of the Penitent!
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Isaiah 58:6
Is not this the fast that I choose: to loose the bonds of wickedness, to undo the thongs of the yoke, to let the oppressed go free, and to break every yoke?
Is not this the fast that I choose: to loose the bonds of wickedness, to undo the thongs of the yoke, to let the oppressed go free, and to break every yoke?
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One of the funniest things about the Sacrament of Reconciliation is the strange paroxysms that some opponents of the Church put themselves through to complain about penance. On the one hand, we're told that penance is an outrageous form of "works salvation" which allegedly requires us to do something in order to "earn" the grace of God. On the other hand, we're also told that penances are trivial and light and no work at all and that if the Church were serious, its priests would assign "meaningful" penances. So there you are: penance is a burden and it's not burden enough, according to the critics.
In reality, however, the Sacrament of Reconciliation is, like all things Catholic, incarnational. Repentance is supposed to issue in action, not just words. So the Church calls for some small act of penance to be done, not as a way of earning grace, but as a way of living out the grace we have received. Typically, this act is small precisely in order that it may not be a burden. But it is real because grace must be incarnate just as the Word had to become flesh. Real penance is not just a ritual: rather, it is a way of saying thanks!
(catholicexchange.com)
One of the funniest things about the Sacrament of Reconciliation is the strange paroxysms that some opponents of the Church put themselves through to complain about penance. On the one hand, we're told that penance is an outrageous form of "works salvation" which allegedly requires us to do something in order to "earn" the grace of God. On the other hand, we're also told that penances are trivial and light and no work at all and that if the Church were serious, its priests would assign "meaningful" penances. So there you are: penance is a burden and it's not burden enough, according to the critics.
In reality, however, the Sacrament of Reconciliation is, like all things Catholic, incarnational. Repentance is supposed to issue in action, not just words. So the Church calls for some small act of penance to be done, not as a way of earning grace, but as a way of living out the grace we have received. Typically, this act is small precisely in order that it may not be a burden. But it is real because grace must be incarnate just as the Word had to become flesh. Real penance is not just a ritual: rather, it is a way of saying thanks!
(catholicexchange.com)
One just soul can attain pardon for a thousand sinners.
-St Margaret Mary Alacoque
-St Margaret Mary Alacoque
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