If every priest would realize the urgent necessity of this sacrament. If it were thundered from every pulpit that no one should come to Holy Communion who is not living a life of grace, who is not living according to the moral law of the Church, what a difference it would make in the lives of Catholics. Indeed what a difference it would make in the lives of everyone whom good penitents touch. If more priests would realize that there is no greater way to be a peacemaker than in the confessional. “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called the children of God.”
.- In a recent series of teachings on the Sacrament of Reconciliation, Archbishop of St. Paul and Minneapolis John C. Nienstedt discussed how sin affects our relationship with God and related his personal experience as a confessor of 13 years.
Justifying the Catholic practice of Penance, he described confession from a priest’s point of view and also warned against the abuse of General Absolution.
“From the very beginning of his public ministry, then, Jesus calls all men and women to conversion from sin,” the archbishop wrote in the November 5 issue of the Catholic Spirit. Full article here.
