Why Do Catholics Confess Sins To A Priest? | The Catholic Talk Show

hey everybody we're back with another episode of the catholic talk show today we're going to be talking about why you should go to confession yeah we're going to talk about the biblical justification of confession we're going to talk about what you should do when you go to confession for people who maybe haven't went in a while and we're going to talk about why confession is so good for your soul and just a heads up it always begins with bless me father for i have sinned [Applause] [Music] all right we're back uh ryan father rich good to see you wish i could be hanging out with you we started talking for 30 minutes before the show and i'm like man i want to get back in the studio with you guys and it's going to happen real soon i'm stoked yeah next week yeah we're going to be back in the new studio so we moved our studio from houston to the diocese of augustine which is going to be uh pretty cool so check that out um but yeah today we're talking about uh confession right uh confession is one of those things that i think a lot of people have multiple problems with um and stumbling blocks when considering a lot of protestants will say well why should i confess my sins to a man just a priest why can't i confess him directly to god other people maybe feel a lot of fear and anxiety about going back to confession if they haven't been for a long time probably since they're you know since their confirmation a lot of people and then and then other people who aren't afraid of it and don't disagree with it just don't remember what to do what what you actually are supposed to do and what the actual steps are for going to confession so we want to talk about that today because confession is so important confession is just our god is so merciful and the fact that he set up this structure so that we can get true spiritual um i guess easement of the sins that we commit over and over and over again and then also the physical reality right here in front of us to let us know with certainty not just we hope that they were forgiven through our prayers or whatever but an actual physical sign and a physical sacrament of it it's it's such an important spiritual thing that you know in today's church it just gets overlooked so much i mean you always hear the saying that the line for communion is ten times longer than the line for confession and that's a tragedy because confession is such a beautiful sacrament and it goes hand in hand with receiving the eucharist and as saint paul says we can receive the eucharist to our detriment and we do receive the eucharist to our detriment if we are not confessing mortal sin we need to realize that confession is there so that we may enter into a full communion with jesus at the eucharistic banquet and confessions of your sin help you to turn away from the powers of evil and to truly be absolved to be washed clean renewed in your openness to jesus to receive the eucharist and live out that communion with the joy and freedom that it entails but when you actually receive the eucharist in the state of mortal sin there's no way that that joy and freedom can be accompanied and if that's what you're doing regularly without going to confession what's going to come at the end of that is i don't believe i don't believe jesus is truly present in the eucharist i don't believe in the church anymore i still feel the same anger or wrath or depression you know these past couple of weeks have been so powerful in reflection on the scriptures that holy mother church has administered to us and reflecting on how we fail to love our neighbor reflecting on the book of sirach this past weekend and how tightly we clench onto the sins of our lives and how you know reluctant we are to actually forgive others their their infirmities and their uh you know sins and transgressions against us you know well that's kind of putting us in a locked in situation to that disposition of discontent um so it's important to realize why confession is there and we're going to be you know establishing in just a moment where it comes from scripturally and also how it's practiced and just kind of as a a renewal of your own kind of mindset of entering in the confession what do you do and first thing and foremost don't be afraid in the confessional you encounter the merciful jesus and the person of the priest and the priest is celebrating in persona christi the power and the authority that jesus established in his church with the authority to forgive sins as he established that with the apostles which we're going to get into in just a minute but before we do i want to give a big shout out to our patrons we really appreciate your support and your financial contribution to make sure that this show continues into the future so big shout out to all of you and all of our followers on facebook instagram and twitter if you want to check out more about our patreon go to the catholic talk show website you'll see a button to click on patreon or you can go directly to the patreon app at patreon.com forward slash the catholic talk show we want to say a big thank you to them as well as our sponsors especially avi maria university my alma mater that i love so much and i was in the practice when i was at avi maria to go to confession regularly once a week and priests were there ready throughout the week and weekend to hear our confessions and help us to grow in our devotion to christ and reception of eucharist worthily so i want to give a big shout out to all of the priests all the administration all the wonderful people at ave maria university and as as we're getting ready to start the show i'm curious to find out from both of my brothers you know ryan and ryan from your earliest recollection you know you were brought up to go to confession you know we're all cradle catholics but when was the first time that you actually like had a very powerful experience taking the sacrament of reconciliation seriously and what was that experience for you because i would love to hear your testimony about going to confession and where like it kind of shifted for you being so important yeah you know well this may not surprise you but i was a pretty serious child right so for me uh confession the gravity of confession hit me pretty early right uh the the you know i remember my first confession very clearly i i even remember what i confessed right but i think the one that really really um was almost adult-like in its understanding of the gravity of it it was maybe about 11 or so and the priest was awesome it was father lambert from saint justin martyr he was the the founding pastor of that parish he was he was very old at the time too and it was just such a a powerfully guiding experience he took extra time to really i guess counsel me on on the sins and these were you know kid sins you know while i got in a fight or or this or that or you know i still know when you were a kid i got in a lot of fights when i was a kid i've done a lot um but you know he really took the extra time not to say okay you know your sins are forgiven move on to the next kid i remember he gave me um as a piece of wax uh in like a like a like a mesh heart that had been blessed by the pope he's like keep this on you and when you think you're gonna do these things remember that you have this holy thing with you you know it was really it was guidance on not only how to get over these sins but how to avoid them as well so it was a very powerful early experience with confession for me and um you know i've always taken it pretty seriously what about you ryan uh yeah my um i think i think you know so i went to to church and it was just not like you know my parents we prayed over meals and stuff like that and i i don't think our parish really kind of got into this i never had a priest i was not fortunate enough to have a priest like that so my first confession was probably like you know uh going to get something done so i could get a confirmation i mean that was probably that that's the way i i look at it um well you would have gotten it before before first holy communion i'm sure oh no no no no no yeah i i was just saying like my only recollection is confirmation we went to confession uh first first time i did not have a regulation recollection of it um but yeah then came back into the church on a retreat uh have a long story really wretched life uh you know lost everything and and was just nowhere to be found and my buddy invited me on a retreat with the cfr's big shout out to them the franciscan friars of the road 2000 what was it what kind of retreat was it those youth 2000s were awesome yeah it was one of those uh you know it was their eucharistic retreat but it wasn't one of the ones in new york you know i think that's where most of those were i'm not sure but it was an extension of that with a guy that actually was from jacksonville who i'm still friends with today father gabriel yeah father gabriel big shout out to him oh man yeah and so he set all this up and so i went and i went to adoration for the first time met jesus so like my conversion came when i met jesus in the holy sacrament um it just changed my life i mean i was just like i've been looking for you my whole life you know and uh and then the next day i told my small group that you know hey man i had this awesome experience this is like jesus over here like i'm telling everybody what's going on and they're like yeah we already know what's going on and uh and then uh mary this girl mary who is the godmother of benny one of my kids uh who we spent summer vacation with that we're still friends today her and i mean she got married her husband and i are friends and um but yeah she uh like i told her i was like yeah man this is all she's like you need to go to confession she's like a little wiry st louis girl like you need to go to confession like kind of like okay you know so i went and um man it was it was so beautiful man it was like you know i i met jesus i i knew my life was changed forever and she pointed me to him in in the sacrament of confession and i had a uh father andrew apostle he was the the guy no way oh wow hey let me do my first confession god rest his soul um and it's funny because there was a there was a line you know because a lot of the kids were getting in line and uh you know i could go in there and i'm i'm telling him a lot of stuff you know uh 10 years i've been away from the church and i'm telling him a lot of stuff and he's like hey i think you've covered all of this pointing me out there is like the line's getting bigger i think i was in there for like 30 minutes like am i doing this right i want to do it jesus baby i love jesus like i want to do this right you know so yeah he was just like yeah good pointed to the cross and then told me that jesus had already died for all my sins and it just all just came over me like this whole religion this whole you know everything i missed at one time just came into focus for me and that was it and uh you know so yeah and you know obviously i've sinned a lot after that but um that was my first confession that's what i remember and it was beautiful it just opened up more space in my heart for jesus to live you know like he had filled me up from the outside with uh adoration and in the holy eucharist he fills us up from the inside he probably does it with both i'm not a theologian but and uh but yeah it was like then the next day i went to uh uh to receive the eucharist and i was just like wow oh man you love me man this is great we got a thing now that is so that is so true i appreciate you sharing that story because i don't think i've ever heard i don't think i've ever heard from either of you guys uh your stories about confession for me you know i was cradle catholic as well um i have like delacrosse i don't have any recollection of confession when i was preparing for first holy communion i don't remember going to confession but confirmation i remember very well um this poor priest that was kind of riddled with cancer and i had no idea he was suffering pretty terribly but he was behind the stained glass window and i was hearing i knelt down and i started confessing my sins and i saw him on the other side kind of go like this listening to me and i was like mortified you know i was totally mortified um after confirmation just really never went back to confession for years and then i when i got hit by the holy spirit reading the scriptures after my reversion i went to a neighboring parish and we brought up father tetlow a number of times and i expressed that i really needed to meet with him and i had a lot of things on my conscience and the things that i had done that were really weighing me down and i'll never forget it to the day i die you know he wound up sitting down with me for close to three hours plus and heard my confession and just listened to all of the burdens of my soul and i poured everything out and at the conclusion he gave me a penance and absolution and i had never felt that much freedom and joy in my life in one single moment and that was probably one of the most profound experiences of confession and i find myself in the predicament of having a large you know group of people waiting outside to go to confession i do try to take a serious amount of time and an intentional amount of time with each penitent um not that it's necessary that we spend so like three hours in confession because that's very very rare um but the experience that i had of his compassion his empathy his his care and concern and and kindness and i didn't feel judged i felt like somebody was genuinely you know reminding me that i'm not defined by my sins and it became such a powerful catalyst so when i received the eucharist and i came to the altar i felt washed clean and i felt so overjoyed getting closer to the altar that when i received the eucharist in the state of grace it was so worth it and i started going to confession regularly after that and i really haven't stopped ever since there have been there have been times in my life and periods of time where i would go once a week other times where you know the sacrament isn't as available and you know so you know maybe once every three weeks or once every two weeks or once a month so i'm kind of in that situation right now where i i'm not able to get to the sacrament as often as i would like so i'm in need of going to confession now it's been like a month or so um so i'm desperate in need and you may be at home right now listening in or viewing our content on youtube and and you may be thinking hey i need to go to confession it's been years since my last confession well this show is for you and as as ryan shields going to share with you in just a minute some of the like scriptural basis of confession you know i really want to encourage you as a priest as as a pastor you know be not afraid to go into the confessional there is only mercy in the confession there is no judgment and in the seal of confession the priest is bound by excommunication if he violates the seal of confession and breaches the confidentiality of confession he is excommunicated by the act itself so it is a very serious sin when a priest does that we take confession very seriously and most of the time it completely moves through our mind and what we're focusing on is god's grace and mercy not so much your sins but applying mercy in the place where you are most wounded and that is the great work entrusted to us by jesus so in in your remembrance because you have that photographic memory and is such a great gift you know you were sharing in conversation leviticus you were sharing some old testament stuff some new testament chef before stuff before we started the show so how can we scripturally associate the uh you know the sacrament of reconciliation in the bible is it in the bible sure so i'm sure you hear this all the time why would i confess my sins to a priest when i can confess them to god well number one god already knows your sins he's omniscient he sees them right you're not that would be like confessing something that you did right in front of another person because he sees them but i think that's a stumbling block to a lot of protestants when they're considering the act of the sacrament of confession is well why would i why would i tell my sins to a priest well because it's biblical right it's biblical and it's because it's the way that jesus ordered it because he knew that we needed that in his care for us because after the ascension he would not be here to directly give you absolution they also say well if jesus died on the cross for us why do i need absolution of sins didn't he clear all of our sins like well once saved always saved well that's kind of a a little bit of an absurd concept that well once i've accepted jesus i've been saved but then i can go stab a poker and then i'm still saved it just doesn't work there's no pursuit of virtue like there's no pursuit of virtue and the greater freedom and nobility of humanity and and we could just stay saved in that one single moment of grace and now just kind of live live life uh loosely yeah i mean you could certainly lose your salvation right um but i mean this the sacrament of confession is biblical uh even in the old testament if you read uh leviticus 19 20 19 20-22 uh it talks about how the priest the the priesthood of aaron even in the old testament acted as the minister so here's one of the things that people get wrong they think it is the priest himself who by his own virtue forgives sins it is not it is the priest acting as the minister of the forgiveness of god god forgives your sins the priest delivers his forgiveness so i got i got some like in acts how god works through peter and the apostles when when you know the demoniacs were you know lifted all the things that jesus did in his ministry that he passed on to them you saw through them right in an act so absolutely that's just one aspect of it that's absolutely right right because after they got the holy spirit at pentecost and after the uh institution of the priesthood at the last supper um and at the great commission where he told them to go and forgive sins right the priests and the apostles are working on the authority of the trinity not of their own authority and you can see the the the old testament uh correlation here in leviticus 19 it says if a man lies carnally with a woman they shall be put to death so right away we're talking about a capital offense according to the mosaic law yeah but he the sinner shall bring a guilt offering for himself to the lord and the priest shall make atonement for him with the realm of guilt offering before the lord for his sin which he has committed and the sin which he has committed shall shall be forgiven so you see right there a person who had sinned goes to one of the priests of aaron right one of the old testament priesthood makes an a guilt offering and his sins are forgiven so number one and there's an important function there that we that we can't miss is that he manifests his sins manifestation of sin is an important step so i'm so glad that we're putting this in the context of leviticus let's let's continue so it's like he's using a priest to lift to got like like a pre this is all about the priesthood right this is not about like you're telling this to a priest well it's this is all about the priesthood that was instituted by christ where you guys act in persona christi like when when the heaven reaches down to earth it goes through your fingers right and this is this is his decision not ours we didn't make it up nobody like said hey you know what let's see if we can get in between this awesome event no god had set this out even in the old testament there's a lineage of priests absolutely sacrifices you know that right we want to be able to see ryan we want to be able to see your face because the expressions you give yeah but uh yeah again i think a good analogy is is that the power of being able to forgive sins you know consider electricity right the electric the um i don't know electricity is a force of nature it is not something that is made by human beings now it can be generated using the known ways to generate electricity and delivered but nobody makes electricity it's a harnessing of a power that is not their own and i think that's a kind of imperfect way of looking at it that it's not the priest's power it's the priest being duly uh deputized by our lord through the through the priesthood to deliver the forgiveness for sins that christ won for us on the cross christ's forgiveness christ's sacrifice are sufficient for all sins and deputies deputy father rich that's it and the priest is that i like the priesthood and the priest ministers that now now if you look if i guess for a new testament example and this is really the i mean it's as clear as day this scripture and it's john uh 20 uh verses 22 23. i love i love just saying john 20 20 because it's like see things clearly right start with 20 20 and then you start with peace be with you i love this jesus said to them again peace be with you as the father has sent me so i send you so again as the father the first person of the trinity has sent the you know as he said jesus so jesus is sending his priests right it is that same commission with that same divine authority so he is sending and when he had said this the lineage of the priesthood the lineage of the priesthood never stopped it was always there we're a judeo-christian it's like absolutely god god doesn't change things up it's a new covenant all this stuff is like wacky doodle no he doesn't do that no not at all so continuing and when he had said this he breathed on them and said to them receive the holy spirit if the if you forgive the sins of any they are forgiven if you retain the sins of any they are retained i mean it could not be more clear right there jesus giving the authority to the apostles and their successors the bishops and the priests to forgive the sins or retain the sins of people right that is directly granted by jesus christ so when anybody says that confession or the catholic sacrament of confession is not biblical well they just simply don't know their bible and that's that's tragic because confession is the work of mercy of calvary it is the the fruit of the blood of the cross and it is something that we all people are granted to in munificence by jesus christ and that we would reject it is a tragedy but what would you say about all the evangelicals that you know and and i listen to christian music with my kids and like i listen to the words and they've received god's mercy they understand this so there has to be a delineation here between you know a person who's like it's not biblical because that's that's from the baptist whatever to like an agnostic somebody or not even agnostic but a catholic agnostic where they just don't know about this stuff but they've received god's mercy so how do you explain that to me all right i get scripture that's theological but i've personally been received god's mercy right of course and i'm a christian and i'm singing a song i think it's i think it's ecclesiastes but that the sun signs shines on the sinner and the just man equally right right god's mercy is for all people and there's ways that god is merciful outside the the sacrament of confessions certainly and there's a dream that you aren't going to be receptive to you know like you can be receptive to and that can have an effect on you and if you want to find a doctor who would speak authoritatively which she isn't technically a doctor yet but she god willing will be a doctor in the church one of these days is saint faustina the secretary of mercy she goes into great detail about the hardened sinner's heart open to receive mercy whether it's the chaplet of divine mercy whether it's the reading of scripture whether it's heartfelt contrition whether it's all those things you can't discount that we like because of mortal sin because of our sinfulness that that god's mercy uh has absolutely no effect it's an action of god's mercy that you actually think oh i'm sinful i need to go to confession or i need to i need to think you know that's an action of god's mercy in and of itself showing you showing you your sins to reach out to him i love analogies right and um certainly god can do whatever he wants he can forgive anybody in any way shape manner or fashion he can forgive a person who's non-christian at any moment he wants to um and the catechism will teach that that people even non-christians at the moment of death can through the sincere act of contrition get a full absolution of sins but that's like in the analogy of planning to find a diamond just by walking around and finding it it can happen but it's extraordinarily rare but the sacrament of confession is like being able to go to the diamond store and get a diamond anytime you want right there is a normative way in a way that was set up so that it was accessible so it was mercifully easy to encounter as opposed to wandering around this whole wide world hoping to find a diamond randomly which is a almost impossibly rare event right so i think that's a good analogy of certainly people can find mercy and god can forgive whomever he wants but in his divine wisdom he set it up so that his church can minister to those people who fall into sin time and time again because he's a merciful god um so you know even those evangelicals or whomever who have experienced god's mercy certainly you have god is has more mercy than could ever be counted but here's the norm so you're experiencing god himself exactly so but here's the normative way to go and find that as opposed to finding in the wild as it were and then and then the refreshing thing is that you know and the catholic church gets pinned up as like we invented the uh sacrament of confession like no like jesus commissioned the apostles with authority as as god we just heard john 20 20. so i i highly recommend re-read john 20 20 because it is very very clear receive the holy spirit right so now jesus who is commissioning his apostles to go out and baptize in the name of the father the son and the holy spirit right the authority is in the name of the trinity and and that's what you're doing in the name of then he's he's giving authority to the apostles in the power of the holy spirit to do what to forgive anyone's sins forgive anyone's sins that's the that's the literal words that that jesus is using forgive anyone's sins they are forgiven if you retain anyone's sins they are ret retained lo i am sending you right jesus is clearly sending and he is sending in the authority and the power of the holy spirit priests to absolve and to forgive sins period and there is a long lineage in the catholic church of priesthood that is succeeded by countless lines of bishops all the way back to the apostles right apostolic succession apostolic succession in a nutshell and we have this priesthood in the same lineage of the the the priesthood of aaron in the old testament there were important realities tied and and bloodline tied to that priesthood same exact thing in relationship to the laying on of hands and the passage on of this lineage still active in the church today it's something that should be absolutely celebrated and and explored so you know again this is in the church why would you not go to explore what is provided to you in the church in this sacramental function that jesus himself expresses in john 20 20. yeah i think a lot of people misunderstand that well while priests were just an invention about constantine or something you know they write on the internet somewhere but the concept of priests in in judeo-christianity goes back to the last supper it goes back to the priesthood of aaron it goes back even further to priesthood of melchizedek it goes back to the priesthood of um of um abel the just offering grain to god and thanksgiving right the priesthood goes back to the garden of eden priesthood and the sacramental nature of the priesthood is a design of god so that people can't have you know we are incarnational right and we want god wants us to be able to experience the transcendent without being like moses having to see it through the cleft of the rock right he wants us to be able to see it right there and that's why he gives us these physical and experiential sacraments because we are a physical person right i mean god could just say poof you're forgiven but how would people know that unless god overwhelmed us with his majesty and our heads exploded from seeing it right i i almost look at it like uh you got the sacramental and then you got people that aren't sacramental and they're experiencing something that when we experience the sacramental has a vibrancy to it uh uh uh just like a ma like it's like you were saying a diamond right so you can you can totally worship god you could totally love god i mean it's just it there are so many awesome people that are even holier than i that you know are are living a christian life without the sacraments if they were to go to the sacraments they would probably end up saying the same thing right it's like this is this is like an infusion in the the depths of my heart like it's it's literally god's flesh grafting upon my own right can't can't explain it right but but they're experiencing god and it's great but it's kind of hard to lead them there usually it kind of comes with their own like questioning and their hunger and their you know because god god feeds those yeah and that's god calling in their hearts to bring them to the sacraments because that's what he made the sacraments for people are not made for sacraments sacraments were made for the people and that movement that feeling of of that that is god's calling you and magnetic pull into the sacraments because as trent teached you know or taught i'm sorry extra ecclasium nella salis right father rich no he doesn't know what you just absolutely yes she does he knows exactly what i said he said he's outside the catholic church i don't want to say what i was gonna say and he knows exactly what i said i know exactly because we've had this conversation many times and you know but i before we get into the details of confession which we're going to do in just a second i think it would be fruitful to realize one look at the look at the history of the priesthood look at the fact that sin offerings have been made in judeo-christian practices and that jesus himself the high priest he institutes this sacrament to continue in the lineage of what jesus offers right he is the sacrifice jesus is making himself the atoning sacrifice for the forgiveness of our sins like that is so loving and so incredible that it's far superior than any type of altar offering of any type of goat or or ram or bullock or dove or whatever it may be jesus offers himself as that sacrifice and the the lineage of offering goes as as the eucharistic prayer one expresses what ryan shielded said that's why eucharistic one is one the prayer for eucharistic one is so powerful because it draws on the sentiments of the priesthood of melchizedek it draws on the the sacrifice of abraham you know it draws on the sacrifice able to just like to get fortes of what was in the old testament all the way leading up to now now to kind of contextualize for for all of our listeners i have the right of penance book and this gives you the sacramental layout and the structure which i know sheila's going to dive into here in a second but i want to give the introduction that is in this book because i think it could be helpful to you the church is deeply concerned with calling the faithful to continual conversion this is the sacred congregation for divine worship their decree as it relates to this ritual book that is still active right now so think about that the churches the church is deeply concerned with calling the faithful to continual conversion and renewal if you're sitting out there thinking in your head yeah like i could see okay confession i could see the lineage i could see the history i could see the scriptural base yeah but it's just so embarrassing to go back into the confessional and confess the same sin i hear that all the time oh i just don't want to confess the same sin we are called to continual conversion it's our only hope to continue to turn with others on that social element of all being sinners to jesus who is our only hope of the forgiveness of sins and sanctification and renewal from the way that sins make us feel angry despondent isolated wrathful impatient short fused all of these different things that are effects of sins we've got to combat that back with this continual effort and the church is making that continual effort to reach us so that we may continue our conversion and our renewal it desires that the baptized who have sinned should acknowledge their sins against god and their neighbor and have heartfelt repentance for them it takes pains the church takes pains to prepare them to celebrate the sacrament of penance huh you know this is what i communicated to my parishioners if i need to be in that confessional all day on saturday that's where i will be because this is the one of the most important things that priests do commissioned to do is to forgive sins so sheila i know that you're you're going to jump in here and and uh share a little bit of detail on on you know the sacrament itself sure so i think one of the big questions is is who can go to confession right now the catechism the catholic church actually says that anybody who is baptized or that for that matter anyone any person who truly believes that they are receiving in the catholic understanding and actually understanding what they are receiving in moments of great danger or imminent death anybody can go to the sacrament of confession with a catholic priest it could be a muslim it could be an agnostic it could be a baptist it could be anyone because the church has great like like that uh preface said goes to great pains to be merciful now uh can i can i please so uh i only heard you say at their they're dying you know where they're dying right now or in in imminent death right so like maybe a soldier is going into battle maybe there's a large natural disaster right they can do that right otherwise the church would say prepare for it because the church in its prudence wants you again to prepare to fully receive that and to be fully cognizant of your sins but in times where that preparation is impossible it errors on the side of mercy and will allow anybody to go to that now that being said uh any baptized catholic can go to confession any time obviously look if here's another thing is if you've been divorced and you haven't been remarried you can go to confession right i mean you can a lot of people stay away from uh the sacraments after divorces or after you know they've been away for a long time or they didn't get confirmation or whatever they've done they've apostatized and want to come back just go to confession and you're back on track right now one of the things i think a lot of people that prevents a lot of people from going to confession is a lot of times people don't know how to go to confession anymore it's been so long so father rich you know how can you maybe walk people through who haven't been to confession in a while how to come back how to prepare themselves right and what they're going to experience when they get into that confessional and what kind of the order of that process is well first and foremost to do a good examination of conscience what is an examination of conscience let's make it simple right you've got natural law in your heart right and and the distinguishing of right from wrong and the guilt that's associated from doing things that are wrong taking the ten commandments which is revealed law from god right so now you have natural law you have a revealed law of the ten commandments start there right and then begin to examine your conscience as it relates to what you have done and what you have failed to do and taking that and there's so many other resources online too and in the comments section below i'm sure she'll can put up a a uh a good examination of conscience for you to possibly look out you got some homework man yeah no that'll be the show thanks i'll put an example shield does these things you know like with a blink of an eye um you know so she will put a an examination of conscience there for you that can help you with the steps leading up to going to confession but one tip that i'd like to give you from my own perspective of how i personally prepare and examine my conscience right so examining consciencia which is the latin conscience which means with knowledge with the knowledge of what is revealed to me that's sinful so i go to the ten commandments and i begin with the first commandment and i go to the tenth commandment so the first commandment is i am the lord your god and you you shall have no other god before me right this is all fight false idols false worship um you know and we may sit there real quickly and say oh well i don't worship but all or i don't worship like these these uh you know i'm i don't believe in many gods i i do believe in jesus i believe no pope benedict has given us the most wonderful tool to establish in our own minds what we worship and he says you will realize what you will worship for that for which you have time wherever you are investing time you should really take a closer look at and to see what is occupying your time it could be it could be sports that can really occupy your heart and and or you know leisure or the pillow god you know and and you know you're turning into alcohol or spirits you know and and and that's you know your god you turn for consolation there um you know you turn to others you make yourself your god your stomachs can become your god that's very scriptural um you know your appetites all of these different things uh can really occupy your time it and like how you allocate that and and what you do with your time before god is like wow you know actually i only i'm considering like worshiping god once a week for an hour what am i doing with the rest of my time what am i investing my heart in what am i looking for to appease me you know um that that's one thing and then the tenth commandment is thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's uh goods so i look at all of that and you know and everywhere in between and then everywhere in between but i start with those two bookends well you do okay i do no like i start that's the first and the tenth commandment and i always always 100 of the time find things that i do like the power of youtube and how it can suck me in and i watch countless hours of youtube videos and conspiracy stuff you know and i just know like and you guys know that about me i'll send you a couple links you know and like i'll get sucked in and my spirit gets disturbed well i'm really investing a lot of time in an area that i'm not investing in god so what am i investing in right so that's kind of how i i start but it's very good to examine your conscience what are the things that make you feel guilty what are the things you're ashamed of what are the things that have you with a heavy heart natural law then 10 commandments and then looking through an examination of conscience will prepare you to go ultimately to the church to meet with your priest either by appointment or during the confession times now so father how would they do that how would a person uh figure out when they're able to go to confession i mean i know explain it for people who might not know how to do that for sure so first and foremost you want to reach out to your parish go to their website if they don't have a website or they don't publish a time of confession try to get a hold of a bulletin most churches have a bulletin and they will have published in their bulletin times of confession if you still can't find it call the office reach out to the secretary reach out to the pastor you know i'm looking for times for confessions i really want to go to confession after all of that if you still can't go to the church go to church for daily mass or a sunday mass and talk to people ask people where can i go to confession talk to the priest on the way out father i'd really like to go to confession i see that you're interacting with people you know do you have any time for confession or how can i make an appointment or something like that asking those questions making it a priority um you know unfortunately in some places you know like like delacrosse was saying the sacrament of reconciliation may not be celebrated in your particular parish with great enthusiasm um it doesn't mean that you can't go to your priest who has clearly the faculty by jesus christ and say father could you please hear my confession i really need to go to confession right knocking the door shall be open search and you will find you know do your very best in search yeah and those are all the ways that are probably extreme chances are just go to their website and look it up and they'll tell you what times they are or call them i mean but those are extreme examples of maybe you live in an area with very few catholic churches but it they make it painfully obvious what times there are but then father so now we've we've found we've done an examination of conscience and we found the time right we know okay it's going to be saturday at 10 30. uh they're standing in line right what are they going to experience next what should they uh what should they anticipate when they open that door uh to go into the confessional so right when you walk into the confessional you know some it just depends on the confessional itself there may be a screen or you know a place where you can kneel if you want to remain remain anonymous which is perfectly fine and the sacrament is actually written in that manner where anonymity is a part of it so you can actually kneel there behind the screen and go to confession or you might see a seat perfectly appropriate if you would like to sit down during confession as well especially if you have knee problems or if you're getting older you know don't feel like you have the obligation to kneel to go to confession i personally love to kneel when i go to confession it's definitely more of a penitential posture but you would start by saying bless me father for i have sinned you would make the sign of the cross bless me father for i have sinned it's been a month since my last confession it's been a year since my last confession it's been 50 years since my last confession and these are my sense what's that why do they do that like why why do they start it out saying it's been this long since my last confession it's context you know it's it's context i don't think it's uh it's it helps it helps it helps the priest to be able to understand what he's about to get into right yeah and also and it also is so penitent it helps defend it but it helps the priest out a lot too it's like if i know for a fact like it's been a week or a month okay you're in a good you're in a good rhythm if it's been 40 years 30 years well let me just say you know welcome back welcome back to the most beautiful sacrament and i'm just so happy to have you as you reflect on your sins what are the things that you need to confess you know and that's just like the formula right bless me father for i've sinned it's been such and such a time since my last confession but if you forget and you freeze it's totally okay the priest is there to say okay let's walk you through this all right i invite you you can repeat after me bless me father bless me father for i have sinned for i have sinned i can't remember the last time i went to confession these are my sins confess your sins if you're having difficulty i don't know if this is a sin or not but i kind of feel bad about it father talk to the priest about it you know father i'm kind of ashamed i'm really i'm really having a hard time expressing this sin you know this is what's going on it's like trash and they don't accept the paint cans you know it's like hey listen you you take out all the trash they'll sort it out for you and take it out so you know the thing is it's not about you know having you know like specific elements of trash in your life and like looking at it closely it's a it's a place where you can really unload all of the the stuff that you have built up inside of you that's causing you the feeling of being dirty or the feeling of of being guilty or shame and and it's a place to be received by mercy and to be able to clean out and have that catharsis have that open-hearted experience of jesus looking at you and saying you're not defined by your sin you're loved and and jesus so willingly looks past the fault to remind us that our capacity and our worth and our identity and dignity is tied not to our sinfulness but our ability our ability to turn to him and and depend on him for this constant conversion so yeah so as you enter into that environment like to know that priests are there to walk with you so don't feel like you have to have everything figured out when you go in there it's not a magic spell it's not a magic spell yeah you don't have to say these perfect words and and if you don't do it you're still going to hell it's not like that the priest will say okay well look if you are a catholic who is very accustomed to going to confession well the normative and the best ways forgive me father it's been six weeks since my last confession i have done x five times i've done this four times if you can enumerate them you should i have stolen three things right you should be able to do it but if you can't you sometimes you can't sometimes people have done so much crazy things and sin so often there's no way even physically because of the nature of their sins they could even remember it that's right yeah like that across like i got it it's better to enumerate the amount of yeah yeah so if i go i got to remember how many times i did it when i go in there if you can you certainly should start writing that down but that's not realistic all the time i mean you might have somebody who's had addiction problems for a long time and they've committed many says that they couldn't even possibly remember right i mean i'm not i'm not proud to say it but i mean i've been drunk enough in my life where i've done things there i didn't remember it you know so what if i didn't remember it i'm damned to perdition that's that's not the way it works so the more you can lay them all out that's better for you right because you're specifically getting these things off of yourself confession is about freedom confession is about not walking around with that spiritual and emotional baggage and you walk out feeling better so if you can specifically say these are the things that are bothering me and these are the things i've done that means that you are more aware of who you are and the better you are off um if you have that self-awareness but if you can't take everything out and do a big spring cleaning and then we'll get to that point later where you started to enumerate like and kind right and that is like best practice so i'm so glad that you brought that up shiel it's best practice but it's best practice for those who are exercising the sacramental life to the fullest extent and they're really digging deep you know we've got to take baby steps as catholics and i think when we we look at and i was actually considering this earlier i was talking to a evangelical brother at a at a birthday party earlier today and you know biblical literacy in the catholic church is very poor you know it really is like how many people know that the sacrament of reconciliation is in the scriptures well i will counter that padre that i will counter that that if biblical literacy is poor in the catholic church and they don't know that confession is in scriptures well certainly evangelicals who tout themselves as being very no and i'm not saying i'm not saying that i'm not saying that in relation it's not it's not an apologetical argument like and and this was actually for for me with this evangelical brother we're having a beautiful conversation and and it's like you know how many of us you know are following the liturgy to the point where it's like okay now we're in the book of sirach and we're going to give a bird's eye view of sirach now we're entering into the gospel of matthew and this is the chapter in which this is happening and you know let's let's look deeper we we really don't have a lot of that in the catholic church we have a lot of the practices that are drawn out of the scriptures which are incredibly fruitful but you know we need to take baby steps and we need to really start you know inching forward to understand okay this is where it's coming from this is the scripture this is the basis this is how it relates to the old testament here's how it's well practiced now let's put it into practice and then let's dig even deeper now and then start going numbering kind and really evaluating like oh this is the sacramental structure this is what a sacrament is it's a tangible presence like it's a visible representation of an invisible reality that confers grace like i get actually filled with grace every time i'm in a sacramental church you guys remember the orthodox priest we had um on the show no but i do remember the byzantine catholic priest that we had on the show yeah very bad guy father elias father wise guy big shout out mother elias is great you know good friends with him on facebook just absolutely awesome yeah so uh he came in and and he he noted something very important i think to me and understanding the celebration of the sacraments in in the eastern tradition they're mysteries and they celebrate these mysteries yeah i love that and in the west we have to try to explain these mysteries remember that yeah and actually found a very important distinction he even brought up saint thomas aquinas again saint i'm not saying right or wrong i'm saying like isn't that beautiful how our church and its two lungs in the east and the west one verbally tries to capture the essence and deliver in a very you know uh structured systematic way and then the other side of the church it's like a mystery we celebrate these mysteries that we received from god through scripture and that's it it's like you know i thought that was an interesting um you know part of it it's a very distinct and distinctive eastern way of thought and i think it's a very cultural thing as well that you know in the latin west there was a there was the urge for codification and that makes a lot of sense because people have questions like show me why let's explain it i need to know the reasons why and the easter is really much being caught up in the you know the the wind of divine mystery that it's these things that you can't understand that's part of their beauty and i think that's but anything that's true in the east is true in the west right they are mysteries we can't understand them but also i was just saying like i was putting this out there as a means for people to understand both lungs of the church yeah it's awesome i agree with you like it it it's not again you're you're like explaining right now like you know like so i mean this is here's the west right right but but it's very interesting to me that that there's the this this cooperative spiritual uh intellectual side of confession you know it's beautiful and i think sometimes as a wes as a westerner or somebody you know here you get you get kind of like you know you start thinking about it too much right you know you just start thinking about like what it is and then you know where somebody in the east is like yeah you just go it's this mystery you know and like you receive this this beauty you right that's that's very i think that's a very important distinguish to make because the biggest thing that deters people from confession is the the the non-understanding that they have a merciful god right like that god is now going to convict me or is convicting me of what i've done wrong because that's what we do we have a penal code all these things that are all in front of us all consuming and now you have like you know somebody who experiences this supernatural gift that god gives you to go to confession this contrition that you might have and instead of directing it towards god in the confessional you know it it just sort of festers and then you you i think i think the devil i think you know convicts people against themselves to say i can never be the accuser he's the accuser that's what he does so it's that i think a lot of people don't go to confession because they don't feel like they're worthy and your girl the secretary of jesus right she wrote the most beautiful thing i might have said it on another episode it's like the person who's in the gravest and the most the worst right i mean she she said something beautiful yeah that keeps going as has has the the most right yep the most claimed the most claim to my mercy yeah what does that say so awesome what does that say about that that's a mystery right that's beautiful you know i mean like that i mean if that doesn't tell somebody right now that doesn't want to go to confession i don't know it will that's secretary you you're you're a fan boy you could talk more about i've though i remember reading that and being like oh it's mind-blowing dude i really appreciate that though de la crosse worship i worship god's mercy i worship amen god's mercy like because he is mercy i cry sometimes because of all the times that he has just loved me through at like if you were to plan your life and be like i'm gonna do this sometimes i wake up i'm gonna do this i will like a flower you know a very nice flower by the way but but you know i mean like that's the thing is like to me confession is like a practice it's a practice i keep going back i keep going back i keep going back john paul ii a saint went every week you telling me this guy's a saint why is he going every week why why is he going every week because he's a sinner you know this is a practice this isn't like just getting you in the box for the first time this is like a way of life god has given us to increase us and and be in in the presence of other people around us you know it's clearing our hearts out to be to be present we're like mantras yeah you know i think in the early church a lot of people only went to confession once in their life and they tried to wait until their death bed to do it or john wayne right yeah i mean they really try to do that but the church has throughout the you know centuries really moved towards making mercy accessible and that's why uh you know you don't see that where it's a once you know a once-in-a-lifetime thing that your confession happens right along with your baptism and you know it's it's it's definitely a good thing so now i guess wrapping up confession so we've done an examination of conscience we've found how to go to confession and we know kind of now what to do when you're in there and if you don't from this ask the priest he'll help you so then after you've confessed your sins as much as you can remember like and kind or if not say and for all the sins that i've committed that i can't remember which is you know the classic line of mind because you know it happens it happens and i'm terrible and i sin a lot and there's a lot that i can't remember i'm sure so i always say that as well um what happens then padre after they've uh finished giving their their accounting of their sins what happens next so then so the outline would then go to the penitence penance right so you as as one who is confessing you're what's called the penitent right you're you're in the process of seeking penance for your sins this is the most important thing and what validates your confession is your fulfillment of penance and i just want to read from the introduction as it relates to the penitence confession and the acceptance of the penance so a penitent who has been the cause of harm or scandal to others is to be led by the priest to resolve to make do restitution next the priest imposes an act of penance or expiation on the penitent this should serve not only as atonement for past sins but also as an aid to a new life and an antidote for weakness as far as possible therefore the penance should corresponds to the seriousness and nature of their sins this act of penance may suitably take the form of prayer self-denial and especially service to neighbor and works of mercy these will underline the fact that sin and its forgiveness have a social aspect i love that last sentence these will underline the fact that sin and its forgiveness have a social aspect because sin has a social effect yeah therefore i always get a hail mary and a you know an our father and that's not best practice so you know and he's just thinking like that is satisfactory but it's not best it's satisfactory it satisfies the the the validity of the sacrament but it should correspond and something that we miss a lot i think in practice too and this goes out to all of our brothers in the seminary brother priests that are listening to as well and this is for me as well this is not coming from any place of judgment this is like i need i just reading through this i'm like oh man i gotta i've gotta shore up a lot of my practices right yeah it's good to go back to the general instructions it's good to go back to the sacramental instructions so restitution you know making right what you've done wrong that's a part of it apologizing to somebody yeah like that restitution should be a part of it yeah then your penance should be associated if it can right the one thing that i'll the one thing that i'll share is that the penance should never ever ever ever reveal the sin confessed right it should never reveal the sin confessed that would that would invalidate and the priest would be wrong for doing that yeah which in some way that if the priest in some way gave you a a penance that kind of tipped the cards and said this is what you've done right that you were confessing in in confidence that's wrong now also if the priest does not give you penance and there is not a penance associated your confession is invalid you'll have to go again if you do not get a penance from the priest it is an invalid confession so that's also important to remember yowza and i actually i i'm glad you said that too because i always check in with the penitent i always say do you understand clearly your penance yes okay your act of contrition then you pray your act of contrition or you could be led by the priest and the priest may say and i say this a lot of times as well one of the optional um acts of contrition is is an abbreviated one especially when you have a lot of penitence waiting you can say you know repeat after me my god i'm heartily sorry for all of my sins have mercy on me a sinner you know jesus son of the living god have mercy on me a sinner the jesus prayer the jesus prayer right so that that's an appropriate uh act of contrition and then the priest will say the words of absolution god the father of mercies through the death and resurrection of his son has reconciled the world to himself and sent the holy spirit among us for the forgiveness of sins notice that these words of absolution are referring to the authority of what is actually the process in which you're forgiven you know by the authority of the holy spirit right and the the most important form and what you have to hear for valid uh absolution is i absolve you right ego absolvote i i absolve you right so i want to go through step by step real quick in absolution because i think i can finish the formula of absolution too so people can recognize it absolutely just so so we can kind of go we can go back um to to that but um so to realize okay once again we'll just kind of go from the from you gather there examine your conscience you enter in to the confessional you either kneel or you sit bless me father for i have sinned by making the sign of the cross it's been such and such a time since my last confession and these are my sins you name your sins the priest may or may not give you counsel he may or may not give you counsel then he will encourage restitution then he'll give you a penance this depends on you accepting your penance you must accept your penance then the priest will say your act of contrition then you say your act of contrition then the priest will go into absolution and i'll go through it uh you know one one word by one word god the father of mercies through the death and resurrection of his son so really think lord think about this father of mercies through the death and resurrection of his son has reconciled the world to himself and sent the holy spirit among us for the forgiveness of sins through the ministry of the church may god give you pardon and peace and i absolve you from your sins in the name of the father and of the son and of the holy spirit the necessary form the formula of absolution that must be said is i absolve you from your sins in the name of the father the son and the holy spirit if you hear that your absolution is valid right that's an important piece of it as well and then the priest will say go in peace thanks be to god some people respond his mercy endures forever right you ever say go and sin no more go and sin no more that may be another one go and sin no get that one so once that process is done um well first i wanted to touch on one thing right well why you know i think a lot of people ask this well why is a priest giving me penance why i just go say a hail mary you know our father and all the terrible things i've done are wiped away no and i and i the reason i brought up that uh passage from leviticus 19 earlier is to show that even in the old testament times there is always an element of giving an offering in reparation for your sins right making a goat offering or a dove or god doesn't eat doves god doesn't eat goats and doesn't eat a burnt offering god doesn't need anything the reason that that you are giving that is because you are making taking a detachment from yourself and offering it away as reparation right god's not going to eat the burnt lamb and god doesn't need your prayers you need to offer those prayers to reorient yourself towards him you are not again it's not a magic spell it's not an our father and a hail mary and you know the the murder you committed is gone it's not like that it's it's the sacrament of jesus christ giving you that forgiveness god given that forgiveness through the death and resurrection of jesus christ and you giving that reparation for it now father one last thing is that is a person's um is a person's forgiveness actually affected if they do not do their penance yes so so if a person does not do their penance the the the validity of the sacrament is in question and it is rendered invalid that's right so your penance is absolutely necessary for a valid confession so please make sure if you have if if you forget you know maybe jot down or bring like a little pencil and a pad or something like that where you can you can jot down your pennants um again your restitution and your penance is that process in which you begin to make restitution and you start to enter back into your social environment with the commission to make right what you have done wrong and to make you know that that sense of that penitential offering to god in expression that you are heart heartily sorry for your sins and you want to spend more time in communion with god so that you be can be consumed in mercy and continue to spread that mercy wherever you go so there is the now there is the caveat that if a person like we said earlier if they're in a mortal danger or they're going into a um an emergency surgery and they say confession they don't have the opportunity to do their penance that penance is not rendered and valid if they die before they have the opportunity to do that penance but if they had the sincere uh desire to do that but were unable to because of their death then their penance i'm sorry they're their absolution is still valid so there's that caveat in case anybody knows that or a person who experienced that who were not able to do the penance that was given to them right so there is that wrinkle there i'm so glad that you brought that up because you know there's there's some you know people that are suffering because they have been given a lifelong penance i've i've released people from lifelong penances that are like unbelievable to me some of these things that i've heard i've heard yeah yeah why but i've heard and i'm i'm like shocked um so that's happened to me in my priesthood and i've i've released people from these these types of penances that are just completely undo you can do that you can undo that it's part of oh yeah yeah yeah like yeah that's yeah and if you don't do your penance you should confess that the next time you go to confession and all the others you know right your last one was invalid so you probably have to recap you've got to reconfess all that stuff i mean but i mean i you know again like god's not gonna hold it against you if you die or other things i also think that he doesn't hold against you if you don't know like i just found this out granted i've been given very easy penances you know most of most people most people do receive pretty well but you know if you don't know there is there is still a structure so if you did not do your penance there is a structure and you didn't have the intention to then it's an invalid confession it just it is and that's not unmerciful but it's true it's it's the same thing with marriage prep you know like we'll sit there and issue a prenuptial questionnaire and if somebody's like just straight up lying that they are not going to be faithful to their spouse or they're not going to give to their spouse the right by which pertains to the procreation of children like that that invalidates that is a serious impediment to marriage and grounds for annulment i think what i was talking about is like i didn't know right when i went to confession even if it's not valid i still didn't know so i mean oh no so i guess my crucial development as i've grown spiritually and grown closer to god personally i know this he has shown me mercy in every single aspect of my life yeah and i can't imagine him you know if i forgot to hail mary on the way out because somebody called me or whatever and i forgot and i didn't even know about i can't imagine him being like you know your intent was not followed up by that freaking hail mary ryan i can't imagine a god like that i'm sorry i'm just like i'm not not buying that well you can like that's what the church teaches and i believe everything the church teaches yeah it's not my opinion it's not my opinion it's not my opinion it's the teaching of the church but now that you know private it can be rectified is is now the catechism of the catholic church ryan yeah thanks man thanks for putting me out there like that no yeah i i get what you're saying like you know pure ignorance of it you know and if the intention's there again i'm not the arbiter of god's mercy but i'm just saying it was like walking up to him like you know and i think you know it begs it begs us to to express like look if you're ignorant of a particular sin or whatever like there's there's concerns like there's no culpability right like you didn't know right you did not know but now that it's revealed to you yeah right it changes things and it enriches your practice it enriches your your appreciation of why the church has instituted it this way right and that's the whole concept is actually coming from a place of ignorance to a place of knowledge i mean even you are saying like this is i'm gonna readdress the way i approach confession in your priesthood after you read that yeah because i don't have perfect recall like i i have to be reminded all the time like when i read the general instructions of the roman i i try to i try to make it a practice of refreshing every year that's why i have my canon law books that's why i have my patristics it's why i have you know my my ritual books it's like let's look at this having this show is helpful to me because it's like let's revisit it and like how am i practicing you know the liturgy and how am i celebrating the liturgy how am i instructing people um yeah i just learned so they appreciate it yeah and i've you know even i'm gonna be a little i'm gonna try to remember how many times i've done stuff you know i'm gonna try to rate it and then i'm gonna i always do my parents i might have forgot one or two times in my life i don't even know i'm just saying like you know i'm sure it's happened to me too i'm sure it has where they gave me one thing and i heard something else i i don't think god split hairs like that and i agree with you on that um the other thing that i do all the time and maybe this tells you what a bad catholic i am and how often i go to confessions i i'll clam up and forget the act of contrition and like your act of condition i'm like uh and then i go and i get my phone and i'm trying to look up active contrition real quick he's like all right over there but most of the time they'll have a prayer card yeah the confessional and the threesome they don't i walk in there and i'm like oh no and i start sweating where's the prayer card i'm like no so i'll put an also in the show links with the uh examination of conscience i will also put a prayer card or a link to the act of contrition so you can have that easily on your phone i always make sure that i have it with me or if i don't have my prayer book with my card with me i'll look it up and have it open on my phone so when i go in there so i don't climb up and forget it because i don't have it memorized because that's what a sinner i am obviously so there's a couple and i'll put a couple other resources in there for confession as well so but just go you know go to confession if you haven't went go it's just you know i want to go now after hearing this and i real i really need to go too it's been too long don't don't just go once like it's an event it's a practice go make it a part of your life and and do it for two or three months go once a month go once every two weeks once every six weeks whatever go four or five months you call us back and tell us how awful your life is that's a great point we'll give you an hour back somewhere i don't know [Laughter] so i think it would be really cool to to revisit what delacrosse was saying as it relates to the mystery of god's love for us and the mystery of mercy um and in the introduction of this ritual book it's the entitled the title is mystery of reconciliation in the history of salvation and i want to finish with this quote jesus not only exhorted people to repentance so that they would abandon their sins and turn wholeheartedly to the lord but welcoming the sinners he actually reconciled them with the father moreover he healed the sick in order to offer a sign of his power to forgive sin finally he himself died for our sins and rose again for our justification therefore on the night he was betrayed and began his saving passion he instituted the sacrifice of the new covenant in his blood for the forgiveness of sins after his resurrection he sent the holy spirit upon the apostles empowering them to forgive or retain sins and sending them forth to all peoples to preach repentance and the forgiveness of sins in his name it is the very central teaching of christianity the forgiveness of sins let us pray father we praise you and we honor you and we thank you for the gift of the mercy of your son jesus christ that realigns our love of you and love of our neighbor we ask that you may fill us with the spirit of fortitude and courage that we may walk courageously into the confessional to encounter your mercy and to be consumed by your mercy and renewed in this constant state of conversion that we are called to we give you thanks for structuring your church in such a fruitful way and a nurturing way and we pray for a greater appreciation of what you have commissioned in this world through christ our lord amen amen may the lord bless you and give you beautiful times to go to confession as soon as you can and we'll see you next week god bless [Music] you

Channel: The Catholic Talk Show

Views: 20,782

Rating: 4.8934755 out of 5

Keywords: Catholic, Catholic Podcast, Catholic Talk Show, Ryan Scheel, Ryan DellaCrosse, Father Rich Pagano, Catholic Radio, Catholic TV, Catholic Show, Taylor Marshall, Matt Fradd, Mike Schmitz, Robert Barron, Catholic Answers, Catholic Stuff You Should Know, Church Militant, Bishop Barron, Breaking In The Habit, Confession, Reconcilation, Catholic Confession, Sacrament, Penance, Sins, Confessional, Act of Contrition, Examination of Conscience

Id: RRhONMqimFA

Length: 82min 11sec (4931 seconds)

Published: Mon Sep 14 2020