I'm hoping to go to Confession today at 4. It's been a month, and my soul needs renovation more than those people's homes on TLC. But I have an ominous feeling today. So if I die before I get there, readers of this blog being my only Catholic acquiantances, try and get some kind of absolution for me. In Brideshead Revisited they mention that last rites are given if the body is still warm (it's in jest). And I know indulgences can't remit unconfessed sin, but when we 'develop' that doctrine to get past that point, I expect someone to get me one. I'll give you all my Calvin & Hobbes comics if you do.
I'm just joking.
Nah I'm sure I'll be fine, and live to complain and joke about my beloved religion another day.
All the stuff we're learning in my Existentialist philosophy class is making me think about the medieval preoccupation with a good death. I pray for one quite often. Though once I prayed for 6 months that I would stay together with a girl I was dating because John Ortberg said it would work, and it didn't. But I was a heretic then after all :)
Showing posts with label Penance. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Penance. Show all posts
Saturday, January 16, 2010
Saturday, November 28, 2009
What Happened To Me Today.
I posted 2 things earlier today, one was basically a declaration that Trent seemed to be against not only scripture, but also what Cardinal Pole, and the Spirituali taught, as well as noting others in the Catholic Church who have dissented like Blaise Pascal, and more recently Peter Kreeft and Fr. Richard John Neuhaus, who all officially submitted to Trent, but in their private lives basically espoused Lutheran soteriology. I don't know enough about the issues in question on the Catholic side of justification to say anything with certainty. I know more than anything what the Lutheran/Reformed position is, and I know that Trent condemned that in some ways, but I am hard pressed to come up with a very detailed analysis of the soteriology of Rome beyond (what I consider) the basics.
I was considering never going back to Rome this morning, I was thinking about never confessing my sins again to a living human, and being free with just Christ. I don't want to make the story a polemic either Lutheran or Catholic. I'm just going to say what happened.
So as I considered more and more the magnitude of my sins and the hopelessness of any regeneration within me, I began to consider Lutheranism more and more. I was (and am) writing a paper on Catholic and Lutheran soteriology for history and so I went to the library and picked up some books on it. I decided I should go to confession but I was an hour early so I sat in St. Alexander's parking lot for an hour reading Martin Marty's biography of Luther.
I was reading the parts about confession and feeling that nagging doubt about Catholicism greater than I'd ever felt since my conversion. I considered driving away or just not confessing, but I waited. I really thought for some reason, that after my confession the priest would just throw me out (that only happens if you vote pro-choice I think), so I figured it would be soon enough.
But then when I got out of my car, a Catholic friend I had been teaching John's Gospel too in a bible study pulled up. He had brought another one of our co-workers who hadn't been back to confession in over a year. We are kind of the Catholic trinity at our grocery store and all came (back for them) to the Church at the same time.
As I sat there I talked with my friend and told him about my considering Lutheranism etc, and his only words were "but what about Augustine?" hah. I had taught him well I guess.
Then I confessed and the priest said some interesting things. When I asked him how I could stand before a just God and be saved, he basically said that we can't be declared perfect, and it's only through Christ's grace that we can be declared as such. I don't know if that was unorthodox or really what he meant to say. But it had been the most recent of a string of Catholic writings that I had seen that basically deny the idea that we are made perfect within ourselves by God (ie. without Christ's righteousness).
I can't even describe it except that I knew I was forgiven when he gave the absolution. I felt as if I had been given this immense gift. I had tears in my eyes and I didn't know what this meant. I sat down beside my other friends who had confessed and they looked the exact same.
The verse in our reading today was Jeremiah 23:6 saying that Judah would be called, "the Lord is our righteousness". Perhaps I have joined Peter Kreeft, and Richard J. Neuhaus, I can't explain my theology here (which probably means I'm going to get attacked for it). But I just knew that Christ had satisfied the demands of the law for me, he had acted on my behalf, he had absolved me completely, even though I had no merit or works. He had given me his merit. The only quote I could think of was from St. Bernard:
"But as for me, whatever is lacking in my own resources I appropriate for myself from the heart of the Lord, which overflows with mercy. My merit therefore is the mercy of the Lord. Surely I am not devoid of merit so long as he is not of mercy. And if the Lord abounds in mercy, I too must abound in merits (Psalm 119:156). But would this be my own righteousness? Lord, I will be mindful of your righteousness only. For that is also mine, since God has made you my righteousness." (St. Bernard of Clairvaux, Sermon on the Song of Songs)
The Eucharist which I could finally take again was a gift. I didn't see it primarily as a sacrifice, just a gift. And I was overwhelmed with love for God. Then I remembered St. Robert Bellarmine "Charity (love) is that with which no man is lost, and that without which no man can be saved". Charity/love had been restored to me.
I'll close with something from one of the men I've mentioned. Fr. R. J. Neuhaus who somehow found the truth of Catholicism and the spirit of the free grace of the gospel of Lutheranism. He writes of the mass:
"[for the Eucharist there is] a palpable yearning for a gift desired, a sigh of gratitude for a gift received. "It" is happening again. It is the Mass that holds together the maddeningly ragtag and variegated thing that is the Catholic Church. Which is to say it is the Presence. Which is to say it is Christ, doing it again, just as he promised."
Gratias Tibi Domine
I was considering never going back to Rome this morning, I was thinking about never confessing my sins again to a living human, and being free with just Christ. I don't want to make the story a polemic either Lutheran or Catholic. I'm just going to say what happened.
So as I considered more and more the magnitude of my sins and the hopelessness of any regeneration within me, I began to consider Lutheranism more and more. I was (and am) writing a paper on Catholic and Lutheran soteriology for history and so I went to the library and picked up some books on it. I decided I should go to confession but I was an hour early so I sat in St. Alexander's parking lot for an hour reading Martin Marty's biography of Luther.
I was reading the parts about confession and feeling that nagging doubt about Catholicism greater than I'd ever felt since my conversion. I considered driving away or just not confessing, but I waited. I really thought for some reason, that after my confession the priest would just throw me out (that only happens if you vote pro-choice I think), so I figured it would be soon enough.
But then when I got out of my car, a Catholic friend I had been teaching John's Gospel too in a bible study pulled up. He had brought another one of our co-workers who hadn't been back to confession in over a year. We are kind of the Catholic trinity at our grocery store and all came (back for them) to the Church at the same time.
As I sat there I talked with my friend and told him about my considering Lutheranism etc, and his only words were "but what about Augustine?" hah. I had taught him well I guess.
Then I confessed and the priest said some interesting things. When I asked him how I could stand before a just God and be saved, he basically said that we can't be declared perfect, and it's only through Christ's grace that we can be declared as such. I don't know if that was unorthodox or really what he meant to say. But it had been the most recent of a string of Catholic writings that I had seen that basically deny the idea that we are made perfect within ourselves by God (ie. without Christ's righteousness).
I can't even describe it except that I knew I was forgiven when he gave the absolution. I felt as if I had been given this immense gift. I had tears in my eyes and I didn't know what this meant. I sat down beside my other friends who had confessed and they looked the exact same.
The verse in our reading today was Jeremiah 23:6 saying that Judah would be called, "the Lord is our righteousness". Perhaps I have joined Peter Kreeft, and Richard J. Neuhaus, I can't explain my theology here (which probably means I'm going to get attacked for it). But I just knew that Christ had satisfied the demands of the law for me, he had acted on my behalf, he had absolved me completely, even though I had no merit or works. He had given me his merit. The only quote I could think of was from St. Bernard:
"But as for me, whatever is lacking in my own resources I appropriate for myself from the heart of the Lord, which overflows with mercy. My merit therefore is the mercy of the Lord. Surely I am not devoid of merit so long as he is not of mercy. And if the Lord abounds in mercy, I too must abound in merits (Psalm 119:156). But would this be my own righteousness? Lord, I will be mindful of your righteousness only. For that is also mine, since God has made you my righteousness." (St. Bernard of Clairvaux, Sermon on the Song of Songs)
The Eucharist which I could finally take again was a gift. I didn't see it primarily as a sacrifice, just a gift. And I was overwhelmed with love for God. Then I remembered St. Robert Bellarmine "Charity (love) is that with which no man is lost, and that without which no man can be saved". Charity/love had been restored to me.
I'll close with something from one of the men I've mentioned. Fr. R. J. Neuhaus who somehow found the truth of Catholicism and the spirit of the free grace of the gospel of Lutheranism. He writes of the mass:
"[for the Eucharist there is] a palpable yearning for a gift desired, a sigh of gratitude for a gift received. "It" is happening again. It is the Mass that holds together the maddeningly ragtag and variegated thing that is the Catholic Church. Which is to say it is the Presence. Which is to say it is Christ, doing it again, just as he promised."
Gratias Tibi Domine
Saturday, November 14, 2009
Scared of Confession
I have had a bad 3 weeks and I'm a little scared to go to confession. The way my life is working out, I only have 1 option for confession right now and it's the FSSP oratory /Traditional Catholic Church. I love the FSSP guys, don't get me wrong... but they kind of scare me. I normally go to a more liberal nice old man who kind of is more awkward about my confession than I am and tells me I don't need to remember the number and that I'll grow out of things as I get older and that it's all normal. So basically I have Law or Gospel (to phrase it in a Lutheran way), and as all good Lutherans know, you need a proper combination of Law & Gospel (Justice & Mercy in Catholicism). Thus am I stuck. So I don't know how long I'll hold out before I go to the Oratory and get yelled at and tentatively absolved (hopefully). But maybe I'll get a saturday off soon and I'll be able to return to my liberal confessor.
I've finished St. Ambrose's 1st book on Repentance and found this quote interesting, it kind of shames me with my laxity and complaining:
"If, then, any one, having committed hidden sins, shall nevertheless diligently do penance, how shall he receive those rewards if not restored to the communion of the Church? I am willing, indeed, that the guilty man should hope for pardon, should seek it with tears and groans, should seek it with the aid of the tears of all the people, should implore forgiveness; and if communion be postponed two or three times, that he should believe that his entreaties have not been urgent enough, that he must increase his tears, must come again even in greater trouble, clasp the feet of the faithful with his arms, kiss them, wash them with tears, and not let them go, so that the Lord Jesus may say of him too: His sins which are many are forgiven, for he loved much. (Luke 7:47)
I have known penitents whose countenance was furrowed with tears, their cheeks worn with constant weeping, who offered their body to be trodden under foot by all, who with faces ever pale and worn with fasting bore about in a yet living body the likeness of death." - St. Ambrose of Milan "On Repentance" Book 1, Chapter 16, 90-91
Granted these were the days before the penitential system / confession was around, so things were different, but it's interesting to look at.
I've finished St. Ambrose's 1st book on Repentance and found this quote interesting, it kind of shames me with my laxity and complaining:
"If, then, any one, having committed hidden sins, shall nevertheless diligently do penance, how shall he receive those rewards if not restored to the communion of the Church? I am willing, indeed, that the guilty man should hope for pardon, should seek it with tears and groans, should seek it with the aid of the tears of all the people, should implore forgiveness; and if communion be postponed two or three times, that he should believe that his entreaties have not been urgent enough, that he must increase his tears, must come again even in greater trouble, clasp the feet of the faithful with his arms, kiss them, wash them with tears, and not let them go, so that the Lord Jesus may say of him too: His sins which are many are forgiven, for he loved much. (Luke 7:47)
I have known penitents whose countenance was furrowed with tears, their cheeks worn with constant weeping, who offered their body to be trodden under foot by all, who with faces ever pale and worn with fasting bore about in a yet living body the likeness of death." - St. Ambrose of Milan "On Repentance" Book 1, Chapter 16, 90-91
Granted these were the days before the penitential system / confession was around, so things were different, but it's interesting to look at.
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