HOW TO MAKE THE BEST CONFESSION OF YOUR LIFE

let us pray O God did instruct the hearts of your faithful by lay the Holy Spirit granted by the same spirit may be truly wise never choice in his consolation to the same Christ our Lord Oh Lady Fatima st. Joseph voluntary st. John Bosco Saint John Vianney Saint Alphonsus st. Padre Pio in the name of the Father Son Holy Spirit amen good evening my parents were open to having a big family my parents were married June 26 1954 my older brother was born March 27th 1955 nine months and one day after my parents are married you know what an Irish twin is I'm an Irish twin I was trend means that you're born within the Year of one of your siblings so every year once we hit the end of February by the way I'm I'm 15 celebrating my quinceanera I do it for four years because I was born on leap year No so every year once we hit February 29th I'm the same age as my older brother how about that so my parents had very quickly had had a boy and then a boy and then another boy another boy and finally they had a girl and her name is Victoria yeah Victoria Ann so little anecdote from the light from from the life of my little sister if you have any teenage children or maybe you walk you're a teenager once teenagers have a tendency to become rebellious so my sister Vicki when she was a teenager decided I'd want to go to confession anymore but my mom's a real trooper when she wants something she gets it done usually through a lot of prayer and penance and intelligence and insistence so a long time past five months six months seven months but eight months pass and my sister would not go to confession my mom was praying so one day my sister comes up to my mom and says I will go to confession but under one condition I'm not gonna go face to face because the pastor was a good friend father golf was his name he was a good friend of the family and my sisters I don't want to go I don't want him to see me your mom said you can go behind the screen if you like some people prefer a face to face others prefer the anonymous behind the screen my sister says I want to go anonymous I want to go behind the screen no I'm said great do it so the fatal day arrives and my sister goes behind the screen like this and says bless me Father for I've seen my last confession was 8 months ago and father Goff did this oh hi Vicki so from that moment on my sister had no problems in going to confession and it's sometimes the devil that puts up roadblocks so we don't carry out the noble proposals in enterprise that God inspires us to carry out there's kind of a long-winded introduction to the topic tonight today we're going to be talking about confession I mean talking about making a general confession when they say the word general that does not mean generic abstruse or abstract or esoteric but rather general means the confession of your whole life confession of your whole life so let's go the reasons why this should be done and then how its to be done and then we'll talk about well conclude by talking about the wonderful fruits or benefits of making a general confession okay reasons why we should make a general confession first reason is st. Ignatius says we should do it that's enough for me he's a kind of a saint I'm not and I told you four weeks ago when I was giving you a thumbnail summary of the life of Ignatius that he wanted through various stages of conversion but the big conversion came through his general confession and Montserrat remember when he made that gender confession it took in between four and five days for him to make the gender confession doesn't mean you're going to take four to five days to make the gender confession you'll be sending the priest to the cemetery okay but you want to really in imitation of Ignatian you want to prepare yourself well the second reason why is over the past 50 years there's really been a crisis in catechesis the younger generation wouldn't understand that but we were born in the time of the Baltimore Catechism we remember that the catechesis were very solid I was born the tail end of that so me my older brother got the tail end of the Baltimore then basically catechesis became feelings became basically feelings when you had in the 70s the balloons the banners and the bows old masters remember that okay everything became feelings and there was the the the way to make a good confession was not taught in many places for a couple of generations so it might be it might be such that you you you've never really made a really good confession in your whole life so now is the opportunity your third reason is this there are certain sins that cause a lot of embarrassment a lot of embarrassment and it might be such that because of that were paralyzed through fear and we don't get those sins out now there's a lot of things there the kind of embarrassing maybe a homosexual act maybe the masturbation maybe adultery it can be especially those against the sixth and ninth commandment they're pretty embarrassing and we might be filled with shame and fear I'm not gonna I'll get all these out but that one I'm going to I'm not going to tell father uh-huh that's that's a bad confession you got to tell the truth otherwise the confession is going to be incomplete so that's another reason okay another reason is making good confession is going to help you to grow in humility we all need humility right as well as it helps us to grow in self-knowledge as the poet says the man is a mystery unto himself we don't really know ourselves we're an enigma an enigma we all have blind spots maybe a lot of them okay but I like to talk about one of the most important reasons why a gentle confession should be made by means of us of a scenario or a life circumstance that many of us have experienced when people get married they marry in the church what are they thinking about the month before they get married be honest they're thinking about the party right they're thinking about the guests that are coming in from Guadalajara the bride is thinking about how long the the veil is going to be is it going to be eight inches or twelve into these transcendental important things that have to be resolved right and of course you know is it going to be carrot cake with chocolate sprinkles on top of it these very very important topics that have to be debated and resolved right and then who's going to pick up Uncle Willie at the airport so all these social social things have to be resolved but maybe before you got married maybe you committed some mortal sins maybe had premarital sex maybe a Miss Mass on purpose maybe got high-end drugs maybe a looked at pornography committed impure acts these are all they're called mortal sins so what happens is you commit one of these mortal sins and maybe many because of all these social activities that have to be resolved you never make it to confession before you get married so what does that mean it's going to happen the day of your wedding if you have a nuptial Mass there is a it's a it's a double sacrilege it's a double sacrilege when I say double is that you received Communion and mortal sin and you received the sacrament of matrimony mortal sin and the day that you were married what a way to start out your married life so from that moment on you get married you're never at peace you're always fighting and bickering with your husband or your wife you always see the negative in him first child is born you're fighting even more and more the second one is born I mean you're almost it's almost insupportable and then after eight years you're throwing the towel and say I'm not gonna put up with this anymore you know why you never receive the sacramental grace of marriage you follow me now you've never heard this priest by anyone except father broom a book should be written on this I believe this is one the primary reasons why many Catholic marriages end up on the rocks and terminate and divorce for that reason anyone who comes to this parish I've created a lot of the programs because they've been here for many years I am known as the tough priest the tough guy there's all the programs that they set up are among the most demanding in LA this is the most difficult program you've ever gone through in your life right probably yes you know meditating hour a day for 70 days you've never had to do something like this before I mean if you collaborate with it it's hard but it pays off right it's hard work and I I do it out of love you people why should I be promoting mediocrity no I've always believed being mean athlete most of my life don't lower the bar raise the bar raise it raise the bar why should I I can for myself to promoting you people to being lukewarm mediocore half-baked at Catholics that's it I think that's an insult to your dignity as a Catholic I don't see you come in to get you come in here to prepare for marriage in this parish you don't know what are you getting involved in and I'm somewhat evasive in the way that I put down the conditions no you're gonna be coming to a a one-hour talk with them with mentors every week for a year you've got 50 classes not to mention NFP and the and the retreat now people come in and they say that's too much I will defend myself I say look I'm a priest you know how many years I studied before becoming a priest 11 years until I was 30 years old that's a long haul and I'm not complaining I'm thankful that they had you know I had my bachelor's from Villanova then I got my degree in philosophy and theology from Rome at the Angelika not complaining it was a lot of studies a long haul now it took me 11 years to be a priest you can't say one year they prepared to get married is too much we have a word and we have an expression in New York that's a lot of Bologna or malarkey we have another one from New York hogwash huh so that was maybe a side mark but important so it might be that you know you got married with that condition you did not make a good confession before you're married and consequently you're really not at peace so how good is how good god is that he sent you to this course say thank you Father I'm your really show oh not me thank you God right thank you sorry thank you God okay we should be grateful that we're here really grateful and I think I know I really believe that you know in the depths of your heart that you know what I'm saying is the truth it resonates is the truth even though it's kind of painful and hard to hear that and this will serve because a lot of you have children that will be confirmed know before confirmation is the same principle or or say for example I'm a Dane of the priesthood and the night before I get high in drugs and get drunk they and I'm confirmed in that state I would have received Holy Orders in the state of mortal sin that didn't happen but I'm speaking theoretically no but I would have to go to confession before so what happens if you go to confession and this is a scenario you're married for 12 years after you receive absolution then the sacramental grace of matrimony descends upon you after 12 years praise the Lord you haven't had it until you finish that confession so so confession you know as Catholics the Catholic Church is a sacramental Church we're sanctified with the sacraments but you have to receive the sacraments well Scott Hahn and one of his talks said the sacraments are like fire they can either warm us or burn us fire can either warm your burner immolated by the 11 years old I me and my older brother is about 10 or 11 we decide we're gonna sleep out that night because we're Boy Scouts and trying to tough up and so it was the middle of November really cold night so my older brother had a net he had a sleeping bag I didn't have one so I asked one of my best friends to lend me his sleeping bag so we had to fire and it was really getting cold so I was creeping closer to the fire because it was getting cold and cold this in New York and all of a sudden they woke up and he smelled a fire what happened was my sleeping bag caught on fire and then it got so cold I fell back to sleep and that is creeping closer to I smelled another fire and caught in a fire again you know so according to fire about five times and when I returned the sleeping bag to Billie Talbot who we're no longer friends anymore and friendship came to a screeching halt - no but I say that because when when I was far enough away it kept me warm but I got so close it actually burnt the sleeping bag so either the sacraments are going to warm us so again they're going to burn us we make sure that they warm myself they don't burn us out right okay that being said let's go through the steps of making good sacramental confession general confession okay first of all beg for the grace san agustin says we're all beggars before God beg for the grace beg for the grace okay tomorrow in my mass I'm going to be praying for all of you that you make the best confession here in your life what did you say there's kind of a subdued and the I name it Thanksgiving somewhat subdued somewhat quelled okay okay okay then you have you have to fight you have to find that this is a spiritual exercise you have to have to find a time in a place where this can be done well most of people that go through this program spend I say in an average four to five hours preparing for this Patrick is done the exercises more than once he said he spent eight hours but it was worth it which hard work is worth some of our people spent even more time no so you want to get you you want to make sure you give yourself I would say give yourself a whole morning or if you're working maybe the whole afternoon if you're a night owl give yourself I give yourself a good block of time but it's got to be done with silence because if you got phone calls and you got a lot of noise and you got pet Pete the parakeet that's singing a chime okay that's going to be that's going to be source of distraction that's right yeah hopefully you don't have paid Pete de perak you know you're the three-piece okay onomatopoeia right okay you won't have that that block of time because God speaks in silence and it's a good idea to pray to pray with images I suggest three images the crucifix because we see that we sent our sins are responsible for the crucifixion of Christ I think it's a good idea also to have an image of the Sacred Heart which is the symbol of love divine mercy which is a symbol of mercy God loves us God is merciful God died for us and I think you should have an image of Mary hail holy Queen Mother of mercy our life I sweep this now we're not Jehovah Witnesses nor iconoclast are we no we believe in the proper use of images images we're not we're not adoring these images but we love what they represent they represent love mercy the tenderness of the Heart of Mary as well as our sins cause Jesus to be crucified amen all right to warm up pray the Hail Mary to Our Lady of Mercy then pray to the Holy Spirit Holy Spirit will give you a lot of light like to be able to see your sins objectively I say objectively because we can lie to ourselves we can kind of justify rationalize well anyone else does that the human person is very very adept at lying to himself we call rationalization or intellectualization what is really lying and then we're we're gonna give you a booklet so that you can read through it it's an examination of conscious booklet now given that there's there's a lot of us Mayer was calculating about 170 175 this is the smallest group okay so on Sunday we got double the number we did the whole you got the house full okay we actually have four sessions and up to now we only have a we just have four of the priests we're going to try to find another one to help us out so we're going to ask you to really prepare yourself well and confess the mortal sins so the booklet has mortal sins and venial sins if interiorly you're asking what the heck is a mortal sin well I'm I'll respond to that that mental questioning that you're possibly doing upstairs okay okay a mortal sin there are three conditions we have the old school we remember them right Dave right Patrick right Mary we remembered but the younger generation you probably never heard it before even though it is in the Catechism of the Catholic Church and they are a grave matter grave matter means it's serious the Protestants do not have a gradation a differentiation for them everything is a sin but we have a gradation as John says there was sin that is unto death there's a saying that's not unto death you're reading the letter the letter of st. John so grave matter second would be full knowledge you know it then the third would be full consent of the will so those are three conditions of a mortal sin now that this is a course in catechesis but it's a little bit of catechesis i would try to memorize that and then you've got children teach them that they should know that grave matter full knowledge full consent to the well there you have mortal sin an example is mass serious is mass important okay so mass is very important you know that you're purposely or Mait going to mass on Sunday mortal sin Pony plank no doubt about that's a mortal sin that's just one example okay so you're going to be going through the booklet and we also require that your confession you have to write your general confession it's got to be written it's almost an an implicit unstated rule of our program that if you don't have a written you're not ready to make the confession right Mary if you don't have a written then you're not you're not ready because it was gonna happen is this you don't have a read and you're gonna forget something you're probably going to forget the most important thing because you get nervous no right right so so write it out don't leave it on the counter there for your kids to see [Music] don't do that it's not spiritual reading for the day I've often greatened out confessions why write and unknown symbols that I've created for myself okay okay so you're gonna write it out so in the steps of making a gender confession there are five steps the first is examination their conscience that's what you're going to be doing with the help of the guide okay second is sorrow if you do not have sour or contrition your confession it's not a good confession if it's just you're paying lip service you're just expressing your sins with your lips and it's not arriving at your heart it's not good so you have to go from your your your mind your lifts to your heart contrition meet you got to be sorry you're going to be sorry now there's two types of contrition and if you read through the older Baltimore Catechism they have these words it's called a trician and perfect contrition you have a very positive look on your countenance so I'll try to explain that to you okay electrician imperfect contrition is this I'm sorry for these mortal sins because if I die in the state of mortal sin I mean go to hell it's related to one of the gifts the Holy Spirit called fear of the Lord fear of the Lord which is the beginning of wisdom the Bible teaches us so I don't want to be living with my boyfriend because I'm living in mortal sin if we die we're going to hell and we know that we deserve it we know it that's imperfect nutrition fear the Lord that's it's it's not the best but it's enough for you to get absolution and it's enough probably if we probably to get into purgatory at least you got into purgatory know you maybe you're gonna be there for a long time but eventually you're getting you're gonna get out face it there are many levels of maturity in our spiritual life the analogy I give is this if you have children so maybe you have children ok when you're a little son was 7 years old maybe 6 you recognized that he was old enough to make his bed that you were no longer his indentured servant ok or his glorified bellhop ok rather that he's old enough to make his bed by himself so you said Billy you're gonna make your bed today and he said no I don't want to you're seven years old I shouldn't have to make your bed for you make it no I'm not gonna make it so you tell him to do it five times he disobeys you your husband comes home and you tell your husband Billy was obstinate disobedient so dad brings Billy into the next room and he says pull down your pants and he hits a grand slam with Billy that's a word which means he got a spanking next day when you say Billy make your bed yes mom some of us are like that we haven't arrived at a really strong love for God but we have fear of the Lord that's good enough to get us into heaven but we want to go beyond that we want to go beyond that let not living only only through a fear fear though it's good but it's not perfect you won't arrive at a point where you're saying you're praying to God you're saying I'm not gonna sin because I love God you know I love God because I know that he loves me he loved me so much God the Father sent his son to be nailed to the cross for my salvation he loves me so much I don't want to hurt him anymore that's perfect contrition what is the grace you got to beg for it it doesn't come naturally you gotta beg for it and someone has to teach you about this that's why I'm here and the ideal is you want both of them and if you save the acting contrition the traditional acting contrition you've got both of them in the act of contrition rightthey hi Patrick yeah the old the younger in January you don't probably don't know the the old traditional one you've got those two elements fear of the Lord and love for God okay dried the law said heaven the pains but most of all because I got all good and deserving of all of my love there you have it so in that classical traditional one you got the two different elements fear of the Lord and love of God we want to arrive at love of God but usually fear the Lord comes first like little little Isabelly had to be walloped okay I'm eventually gonna get up he make his bed and give give mommy and hug and say mommy I made the bed because really I love you it's hard to say he's gonna be nineteen and a half but at least better late than never right maybe 20 okay better late than never I'm a late bloomer right okay the next step is that's the second step samalisha conscience sorry for sin then you have a firm purpose of amendment now firm purpose of amendment means you're going to do all you possibly can to avoid sin avoid the near occasion of sin you have to do all you possibly can to avoid the near occasion of sin heeeeelp laser fire is going to get burnt he walks in a slippery slope weakened to fall he'll place in danger will perish in danger we read in the Old Testament he walks and a slippery slope is gonna kind of fall so this step is firm purpose of amendment means you've got to rewind the film of your life and this is very much related to self-knowledge which is something painful you know self-knowledge can be darn painful at times sometimes we don't want to look in the mirror of our soul because we don't want to see what who we are what we've done take a Shakespeare and Macbeth conscious conscious doesn't make ours of all of us in a certain sense we're afraid to look into our own conscience see what we've done so persons places or things that have led us into sin the sin well we got a break from that so avoiding the near occasion of sin let me give you an example okay Juanito great guy but he's got he's got his kryptonite kryptonite remember that is his weak point and it's shrinking if he likes a drink he's a great guy but he likes to drink see I had problem with drinking for 20 years so he makes a retreat makes he exercised his in decides I get to give up this drinking because I'm hurting my wife I'm hurting my kids the doctor already said you got problems with your liver No so he makes a decision he's going to give up drinking but one problem is this when he by himself he's not tempted but when he goes with his beer buddies oh boy know what I'm talking about no peer pressure the beer buddies it's Miller time all that so as long as he avoids Miller time with his beer buddies there's no problem so it's Saturday night after after Saturday night after Rob Thanksgiving which is kind of a tough time when people are partying uni yes an inspiration which are really temptation I think I just drive by to see where my friends are this just a waste time at your Happy Thanksgiving no I I don't want to be antisocial those antisocial people they're pretty pretty bad people and we're gonna be affable amiable kind honey exuberant extravagant we have to do that that's it's a charismatic gift that have to manifest no here's all these words okay she's driving by there they are hit about ten of them and they're guys laying it down it is Miller time they're going to time they're going to town I mean they got these big muscles with this one their six-pack and he stops he rolls down the window they say funny - yeah one e-commerce - anything on Omar's anyway speak Spanish hej otherwise that means just just one just no no no no no no no no I can't do it then one of them he goes to the jugular vein he says one word the New Mexican hates the macho you ready Monty Lord my dear Lord is a Mexican Spanish word means mama's boy so he gets out of the car and he he drinks a couple of six-packs and he's reeling home he's singing he's seeing Christmas songs at the end of November he did not avoid the near occasion of sin he was playing with danger and I could give you a lot of examples or another one okay boyfriend girlfriend fiance they're gonna get married and in about in about eight weeks they really love each other but they had they're very passionate so he says to to Lupe and let's go out it started let's go out to a restaurant going out to one of those elegant Southern California restaurants and I'll treat poyo Loco elegant Southern California restaurants you've heard of it before right so he takes her there and he's just he's just waxing eloquent he's he's quoting Shakespeare and sonnets to her and I mean there Jay he's going to tell him and after what he says you know I really love you let's let's just so let's go to my condo just go to my condo let's pray the rosary together there by the pot the time they arrive there forget to bring their rosaries and they have premarital sex they should have never gone to that condo denier occasions since she do have two cars have a luxurious meal at poyo local maybe even go back for seconds okay and after that you go in your car I go in my car and I'll see you next Saturday no give her a nice little peck on the cheek bye that's called avoiding the near occasion of sin and there are tons of examples you know you're weak when you go home and you're by yourself the danger of looking at some bad stuff no on the internet well there's no one at home and I've fallen into this in many many times instead of going home I'm gonna go to the church you know go to Mass I'll make a holy hour then it go up you know I'll play tennis with my friend then I come home okay my husband is gonna be home and my wife we can be home or my my mother-in-law is gonna be home again I think this is one of the reasons why maybe some of us make confessions that are not really fruitful is we don't rewind the film of our life to see why we fail before coming you do the same thing over and over again he's been discover yah they know there were the broken record come confession in his heart it's hard to go back and see the shadows the dirty spots in the interior Castle as Teresa of ávila calls it okay but enough on that okay we haven't even arrived at the confessional yet now we have step 4 okay now you've arrived at the confessional so on Friday and Saturday we're gonna be giving you a slot in which you're gonna be signing up and and you'll hopefully we'll be able to get you into confession as soon as possible prepare to wait at least an hour probably pray your rosary examine your conscience renew your sorrow for your sins okay before you enter the confessional there's a there's a number in the diary st. Faustina Kowalska where she goes to confession then she comes out and she's not at peace which is pretty rare usually st. Faustina she go to confession she's just overflowing with a lot of peace and joy but this time she didn't experience peace and Jesus appeared to her and she said Jesus why didn't I experience peace he said because you forgot to pray for the priest before you went in the confessional probably none of you have ever done that before try to do it you're gonna see your confession probably gonna be upgraded a bit you know that I have a guardian angel did you know that so do you so both of them are working together the confession or the angels present got power I like that number okay so that being said you went to the confession now when you enter the confession make sure you close the door [Laughter] you might have an eavesdropper outside that's planted there to hear your dastardly deeds you'd be surprised how many people leave the door open I'm kind of shocked me because I'm a pragmatic pragmatic New Yorker I mean why why do you leave the door open just close it then that person when the person leaves then he closes the door oh when you leave leave it open otherwise they're gonna think that someone's there right so make sure it's not the most important thing of the confession but close the door please then let's go through the mechanics have a good confession that you'll learn you know 60 years ago he said you enter okay you you can you can go behind the screen oh hi okay you can or you can go face-to-face but is a good idea to always start off with the sign of the Cross then you say these words bless me Father for I have sinned my last confession was five weeks ago tell the then after that my last confession was five weeks ago this is a gentle confession of my whole life these are my sins excellent now why the priest is a spiritual doctor the priest is a spiritual doctor I may be mentioned one of the other talks I one of my siblings the older one he's a orthopedic surgeon okay he's about he's back surgeon now if if you go to him for the first time he's gonna say well when when was the last time you've seen the doctor have you ever seen have you ever seen a back doctor before you say oh this is the first time in my life or you say no I went six and a half days ago there's a huge difference right so we as not back surgeon but but soul surgeons the time element puts our mind in the gear and then to confess well once again going to the diary of st. Faustina Saint Faustina says there are three essential qualities of making a good confession they are transparency humility and obedience you hear that okay you listening so I'll repeat it okay transparency humility and obedience transparency means you check you have to be clear ah great here's a priest it just came from Vietnam he does know English and I'm gonna speak really fast [Laughter] remember when I arrived in Argentina from from Italy my Italian was very good my English is pretty good too but my Spanish was really bad I had a long line of people I wonder why so you want to be transparent some of you have heard of dragnet the older generation remember dragnet Joe Friday just the facts ma'am first the facts ma'am when you go to confession just the sins ma'am justice things ma'am so you don't want to be beating around the bush that's the next point humility go to confession you're confessing you're confessing the sins of your husband my husband he's proud he's obstinate he's angry I mean is this your your confession or your husband's confession he said well father if you knew my husband man you would cut me a little bit of slack you really know him that's not that's not humble that's pride that's pride you're putting honey or marshmallow over over cow dung yeah feel like a nice graphic New York image okay the cow dung is the sin no you're making it saccharine sweet to the point you got to be humble and obedience you have to obey the priest oh I don't want to go to that priest because I don't want to do what he tells me to do that's bad will that's not good you know he's gonna be telling you the truth you don't want to obey the truth there's something wrong there so those are three conditions transparency humility and obedience do you for your penance okay when you see eight Hail Marys how about four or father come on it should be double the number my my for me this is whatever the priest gives you always to the devil when I was in in formation always to double because our sins probably merit much more than the Pens did the priests that gives to us probably merits much more okay then also in the context of your confession you have to tell with respect to the mortal sins you have to tell the number and the species of the mortal sins another analogy a woman goes in to a hospital to have a in operation she's got breast cancer here the doctor does the operation which takes four hours when she wakes up from the operation after the anesthesia has worn off what's the first question she's gonna ask the doctor doctor did the Dodgers win no that's not that important nothing against the Dodgers but you're gonna be saying father doctor did you get it all right I think that's the first question did you know you got about 30% I'll see you next week hmm you wanna make sure that the doctor gets it all otherwise they're going to come back so when you go to confession it's spiritual surgery we want to get all of it out I want to get all of it out nothing left except a clean pure heart and soul amen you want to tell the the number and the species of the mortal sins the somebody might be thinking well you know I'm you know I I'm kidding I'm kidding close to fifty years old how on earth am I gonna remember all those sins I'm twenty-five how can I remember all the sins in my life okay you may not be a very good mathematician but the Holy Spirit is a darn good mathematician the Holy Spirit will lie upon him don't forget you may not remember but if you pray the Holy Spirit is gonna hone in you can help you to get pretty darn close to the number I believe the Holy Spirit is God he's the truth so this would be an example of an incomplete confession okay a fiance is about to get married okay father I mean my last confession was a year ago miss mass premarital sex and I I purposely got drunk okay okay the priest intervenes okay you mismanaged premarital sex you got drunk that was just one time transform in Dakota and into a coyote no many more okay well how many well I miss mass you know it was once a month well that's 12 times premarital sex yeah once a week how many how many weeks in a year 52 times drunk well you know is every other weekend hey about 26 times see what I'm saying if you don't say that and I'm a stickler on that I'm the sole surgeon if you don't if you don't do that I don't feel at peace for for we as a priest it's hard it's hard work but I'll do my part you do your part it's so I'm saying try to prepare yourself for the love of God and to have mercy on the priests yeah I'll do my part I'll give you absolution and I'll try to get you out as soon as possible you're you're gonna be totally forgiven but you got to do your part because you know the grace of the sacrament the abundant really depends on you more than on me I'll give you absolution but if you're really well disposed I spoke about the whole concept of dispositive grace the better your disposed the more graces and in the sexual realm you got a you got to specify okay was it masturbation was it fornication was it adultery was a double adultery was it a homosexual Act sorry you got a specify because all of those that they mentioned they're mortal sins were some of more serious fornication is bad but adulterer is much worse you know why it's a sacrilege recycle I mean you promised to be faithful your spouse you broke your vow you broke your promise more serious and if you're married in this double adult you know what that is you're married woman you're cheating with a married man it's even worse say for example they both have four kids how many people are damaged Thomas Aquinas says the more you damage charity the more serious the sin is you've damaged you damage directly ten people in a homosexual act is worse because it's against nature so you have to be you have to be specific in that okay so once you forget you once you have you've expressed your sins and it may seem to be somewhat mechanical but you can you can just read off a list the preparation can take four five eight hours and then you can just come in just read off the list without without too much explanation yeah you might seem kind of be like a laundry list that's okay it'll just get it out and just read it down get out the numbers and now this is the this is the real challenge can I ask all of you to try to get it done within 10 minutes so I'm I thinking we want 10 hours father okay even aces were given four to five days why why did you give us at least 10 hours no the reason was we don't have enough priests I would love I would love and the Genna confession give each of your half hour but we don't have time right Mary we don't have time you're not aware of it but there's a shortage of priests so we got for the priests here maybe three the one of the priests is elderly and his health isn't that good so we're gonna ask you to to try to get it done within 10 minutes in my experience is because I'm the one that wrote out this program so I'm known as most experienced for the past 11 years those who confess quicker those who are better prepared okay otherwise you're running me ragged and you're running ragged too okay so if you're well prepared you're well prepared you just go right at it and don't go off on tangents talking about peripheral or tangential things nope just cut to the quick and tell the things as they are all right then after at the after you finished you say the anti contrition hopefully you know it say whatever language you want me God is a polyglot God knows language is pretty well and then the priests gives you absolution you want to hear some beautiful words and i absolve you of your sins in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit beautiful words but I did not give you a general absolution I was giving you a general solution it's not the way it works okay okay so the priest gives you absolution beautiful words all of your sins are forgiven one more element the fifth step you got to carry out the penance and now we suggest that you try try to carry out the penance as soon as possible if you can get it done right away do it right away often what we're hearing confessions will have the Blessed Sacrament exposed either in the new church or the old church so you can be praying in front of the Blessed Sacrament we did beautiful so I like to I like to as I often do I like to end with a story they'd heard from father Tim Gallagher talking about this topic this is the story to show us that the really beautiful fruits or effects of a good confession general confession Ignatius says you make a good confession that helps you to make better communions because your soul becomes all the more pure and clean and there's nothing greater in the world than to receive all of the Eucharist with a pure heart this is the story fifteen-year-old girl was going through depression her mother decides to connect her with a professional psychologist so she's seen the psychologist who's a non-believer but a good psychologist once a week for an hour and the girl is going spending the time with he's professional unloading and talking about her problems so months go by years go by she's over 25 10 years of past and she's thought about suicide several times because life is just insupportable but something happens one day the psychologist wanders into a church in her in the city the the girl now actually 25 10 years of past he's a he's a Catholic so the well psychology's enters into this church and she sees a bullet that kinds of it kind of looks like a kiosk we call it a confessional she sees a man dressed in a black robe yours truly called the priest and he sees that this little kiosk has the door opened with a light on the top of the that little booth there so the man with the robe goes in and then the young woman goes in after the man in the role and the psychologist is fascinated by this never seen anything like this before unbelievable and she's waiting and looking three minutes past five minutes past eight minutes past ten minutes past and what happens now is a miracle even though this psychology has never believed in miracles the door is open and the girl comes out and she has this radiating smile she's just radiating peace and joy and the psychologist said wow what I tried to accomplish in 10 long years I could not accomplish what happened in that little box in ten minutes why psychology can help us get in touch with her emotions but only Jesus Christ can heal the wounded hearts and that's the purpose of confession Jesus is the wounded healer he's the wounded healer and he's come to heal wounded hearts all of us are wounded by original sin by social sin by personal sin but Jesus Christ loves all of you and he wants to give you his loving embrace so you can experience the word Shalom peace be with you amen and God bless all of you and I'll be praying for you [Music]

Channel: Fr. Ed Broom, OMV

Views: 7,114

Rating: 4.881041 out of 5

Keywords: CONFESSION, IGNATIAN SPIRITUALITY, FR ED BROOM, OBLATES OF THE VIRGIN MARY

Id: pbzl4lXQET8

Length: 66min 36sec (3996 seconds)

Published: Fri Sep 28 2018