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Byline: Msgr. William J. King

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Sacraments

Making A Good Confession

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A father watched his young son at work in the garden. Instructed to remove the weeds, the son eagerly took up the challenge, taking garden clippers and lopping off the…

A father watched his young son at work in the garden.

Instructed to remove the weeds, the son eagerly took up the challenge, taking garden clippers and lopping off the stems as close to ground level as he could maneuver. He assured his father that the weeds were gone, never to return, but the father knew better: without removing their roots the weeds would grow back.

Making a good confession of our sins is like weeding the garden of the soul. Most of us have the experience of assuring our heavenly Father that we have removed all the weeds, but unless we attack them at their roots, we’ll confess the same sins again and again.

It takes work to make a good confession. Focusing on behaviors and actions alone is like taking garden clippers to weeds: we may for a time cut off the parts we can see, but hidden within the soil of our behaviors the roots of sin are still growing. The real power of the Sacrament of Penance is unleashed when we expose the roots to God’s grace.

The Desire to Change

Making a good confession starts long before stepping inside the confessional. Even before making an examination of conscience we should examine our motivation. Do we really want to change? St. Augustine describes his tepid approach to change in the midst of his conversion. Realizing the excesses of his lifestyle, he prayed, “Lord, give me chastity,” and quickly aded, “but not yet!”

A good confession arises from a heart that wants to change. This is the very core of a good confession — firm purpose of amendment. A humorous spin on the Act of Contrition comes from a child who hasn’t quite memorized the words correctly: “Oh my God, I am partially sorry for having offended you…” If we’re rigorously honest, however, we might admit that the child is speaking the truth. St. Augustine recalled that as he determined to leave certain sins behind he could hear those sins calling out to him as if old friends were inviting him to spend some time together again. A good confession is the fruit of prayer to God, begging the grace to want to change, to want to leave our sins behind, to want to hand our sins to God and never seek to take them back.

How should you make a good confession? Start by spending some time in prayer, preferably before the Blessed Sacrament so as to be better protected against the snares and wiles of the enemy, the deceiver. In prayer, ask God to show you the roots of your sins, not just the external sinful behaviors. Ask God to shed light upon your motivations, the desire to sin, the reasons you make the choices that lead up to sin. It is one thing to ask God to show you your sins, but quite another to reach into the roots of your sins and eradicate the roots instead of the weeds.

Examination of Conscience

Next, make a good examination of conscience. That starts with an act of praise and confidence in God’s grace. Acknowledging that you are in the strong and loving arms of God, trusting that God will care for you and provide for you, thanking God for the blessings of His grace — all of this is a fitting start to prepare for a good confession. With confident trust and abandonment to God’s loving will it is easier to open your soul to God in the Sacrament of Penance; it is easier to want to change by first recognizing the good things that are part of total abandonment to God’s mercy and grace. In the hands of God who created the soil and planted the Garden of Eden, why would you do less than trust Him completely with the garden of your soul?

Having placed yourself in the arms of God, the next step is to ask God to lead you through a thorough examination of conscience. There are many formulas for an examination of conscience. Some are based on the Ten Commandments, and others on the beatitudes. Still others focus on the Precepts of the Church or the teachings of saints. They are found in missals and prayerbooks, websites and mobile apps. Any of these can be a tool by which God can shed light on sin and the motivations for sin. It can be confusing and distracting to switch among several forms for an examination of conscience when preparing for a good confession, so it’s best to pick one form and invite God to help you through it by the light of His grace.

Always approach the examination of conscience in prayer, and allow sufficient time for God to walk you through your sins, shedding His light on the roots of your sinful behaviors. Don’t rush. Many saints advise a daily examination of conscience in order to recognize patterns in behaviors and in the tendency to sin. A daily examination of conscience shows what circumstances, encounters, people, times of day, places and activities present the greatest temptations or vulnerabilities. Only by tracing patterns of emotion and behavior can we best recognize the roots of our sins as well as how to avoid sin in the future.

The best way to avoid sin is to avoid temptation. It is helpful as part of an examination of conscience to ask God to show you the steps that lead to sinful acts. Every sinful act starts with a temptation — ask God to show you where temptation lives in your daily life, and to show you the choices you made that led from temptation to sin. Again, pray for the grace to want to change those behaviors that lead to sin, or the roots will still thrive. Pray for the grace to want to remove temptation, the occasion of sin, from your life.

In the Confessional

Armed with more than a list of sins, but with a confident trust in God’s goodness, an understanding of the motivations and causes of the inclination to sin, and better knowing how the path leads from temptation to sin, you can now enter the confessional with an open heart, soul and mind.

In the confessional, do not allow the enemy, the deceiver, to disquiet you or diminish your resolve to make a good confession. Some of his tactics are to tempt you to worry that the priest will think less of you if you mention all your sins, or to tempt you to think that you cannot change, or to tempt you to think that you are not worthy of God’s mercy. Satan hates when someone resolves to make a good confession, and he will work overtime to lure the sinner away from God’s mercy. Recognize the source of these thoughts and ignore them, resolved to open your soul completely to God. Instead, pay attention to the Holy Spirit, who is prompting you toward the peace and joy and healing of the Sacrament of Penance.

It is astonishing how many people stay away from confession out of fear of forgetting what to say or do inside the confessional. This is also Satan’s deception, to keep sinners away from the wonderful mercy of God. Two things are essential to the fruitful celebration of the Sacrament of Penance: the penitent’s admission of sin that springs from a heart that wants to change (contrition and firm purpose of amendment), and the priest’s absolution. All the rest is secondary, and there isn’t a priest alive who won’t help someone through the celebration of the sacrament once they’ve stepped through the confessional door.

Once inside the confessional, remember that the priest is acting in persona Christi (“in the person of Christ”). Speak to Christ himself, baring your soul without fear of judgment, but instead with a hunger for mercy and grace. The priest is bound by the seal of the sacrament, so that nothing you say can be spoken of outside the confessional. No priest thinks less of a sinner who repents, but rather thinks highly of a person who simply trusts in God’s mercy.

Finally, take to heart the counsel of the priest and accept the penance he offers. He will invite you to express your contrition, the double-edged prayer that gives voice to sorrow for sins and the pledge of changing by God’s grace. The priest will absolve you from your sins in the name of the Church. With a lighter heart, walk out of the confessional with all your sins forgiven, a child of God whose soul is a weedless garden of delight.

Msgr. William King is a priest of the Diocese of Harrisburg.

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Sacraments

How Soon Should Your Child Be Baptized?

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As infant mortality has become less of a concern with modern health care in many parts of the world, the rush to baptize infants in the first weeks of life…

As infant mortality has become less of a concern with modern health care in many parts of the world, the rush to baptize infants in the first weeks of life has also lessened. Alongside the physical health of the child is the spiritual health, however, and in speaking of the timing of the baptism of an infant, the Introduction to the Rite of Baptism for Children states that “the first consideration is the welfare of the child, that it not be deprived of the benefit of the sacrament” (No. 8).

The document goes on to note three factors to be considered: first, the spiritual welfare of the child; second, the health of the mother, so that she is able to participate in the baptism; and last, pastoral considerations, which would include allowing for the participation of family members.

There is, nonetheless, an obligation on parents not to delay the baptism of a newborn unduly. In the same section mentioned above, the document notes clearly, “An infant should be baptized within the first weeks after birth” (No. 8.3). This teaching is also captured in canon law: “Parents are obliged to take care that infants are baptized in the first few weeks” (Canon 867). The Catechism of the Catholic Church provides the theological rationale for this obligation: “The Church and the parents would deny a child the priceless grace of becoming a child of God were they not to confer Baptism shortly after birth” (No. 1250).

These texts, and the constant practice of the Church, make the expectation clear that parents should employ the same zeal with which they care for the physical health of their newborn child in caring for the spiritual health of the baby. The celebration of baptism is principally about washing away original sin and allowing the inrush of God’s grace upon the soul of an infant, which are treasured gifts to be offered a child as soon as possible after birth. The social nature of a family gathering to celebrate this is important, as it demonstrates unity in faith and family support, but that is not the most important consideration.

For some families the delay could be because of a desire for family to attend. Given the clarity of the Church’s guidance on this point it might be best to celebrate the baptism of the baby as soon as possible, and later, if family is unable to attend, have a party to celebrate the child’s rebirth in Christ, sharing photos and videos of the event.

Rev. Msgr. William J. King is a priest of the Diocese of Harrisburg.

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3 min read
Sacraments

Can Catholic Couples Write their Own Wedding Vows?

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A sense of romanticism sometimes prompts couples to think that the celebration of marriage is “their day,” when in truth it is one of the important sacramental celebrations of the…

A sense of romanticism sometimes prompts couples to think that the celebration of marriage is “their day,” when in truth it is one of the important sacramental celebrations of the Church. It is a wonderful thing that the couple feels so close to the celebration, wanting it to reflect their joy and hope and their personal histories. They open their whole selves to God’s grace in accepting the gift of marriage to another. Still, it is the Church’s celebration and not the couple’s own. This is especially true of the content of marriage — what the Church calls the “object of consent.” The Church has received the gift of married life from its author — God himself — and joyfully celebrates that gift with the spouses. The spouses receive the gift; they do not define marriage for themselves. Their openness to receive the gift in its fullness is expressed in their “consent” to the gift, their consent to marry one another as God has defined marriage.

The Code of Canon Law for the Latin-rite Catholic Church contains an essential element of basic contract law: the words and actions of the couple during the wedding celebration are the best indications of their intentions (see Canon 1101). The canon says that the “internal consent of the mind is presumed to be in conformity with the words and actions used” by the couple in the wedding celebration. Hence, the words used by each spouse when he or she consents to marry (the “vows”) are very important.

The Rite of Matrimony offers great freedom to the local conference of bishops to adapt the words and symbols of the wedding liturgy to local culture and customs, but it does not allow the couple the same type of freedom in altering the Church’s liturgy. For a time there was laxity among some clergy in allowing couples to change the words of consent or to compose their own vows. This led to some unusual expressions of the couple’s consent to marry. Hopefully this experimentation has ended, because the couple does not have the freedom to write their own formula for the exchange of consent.

There are other opportunities for the couple to compose and include a prayer or reflection within the Church’s Rite of Matrimony, and even more freedom for the couple to include their own spiritual reflection on marriage within the rehearsal before the rite, or the reception following the rite. However, apart from the several options for standard and approved texts that the couple may choose from within the Rite of Matrimony, the couple is not free to compose their own vows in a Catholic wedding.

Msgr. William J. King is a priest of the Diocese of Harrisburg.

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Saints

What is St. Gertrude’s Prayer?

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Pious tradition holds that Jesus promised St. Gertrude that a thousand souls would be released from purgatory each time the following prayer is said devoutly: “Eternal Father, I offer You…

Pious tradition holds that Jesus promised St. Gertrude that a thousand souls would be released from purgatory each time the following prayer is said devoutly: “Eternal Father, I offer You the Most Precious Blood of Your Divine Son, Jesus, in union with the Masses said throughout the world today, for all the Holy Souls in Purgatory, for sinners everywhere, for sinners in the universal church, those in my own home and within my family. Amen.”

In His revelation to St. Gertrude, Jesus did not attach conditions to the recitation of this prayer, and He did not specify added requirements. In fulfillment of His promise, the mercy shown to sinners in response to this intercessory prayer is a direct gift from God.

An indulgence, on the other hand, is an action of the Church in fulfillment of the promise of Jesus in Matthew 18:18: “Whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.” An indulgence is remission of the temporal punishment due to sins. According to Pope Paul VI in Indulgentiarum Doctrina (an apostolic constitution discussing indulgences), indulgences are either plenary or partial. There are four conditions for receiving a plenary indulgence: to have an interior disposition of complete detachment from sin; to have sacramentally confessed sins; to receive the holy Eucharist; and to have prayed for the intentions of the Supreme Pontiff. According to the Vatican’s Supreme Tribunal of the Apostolic Penitentiary, which has competence, or jurisdiction, regarding indulgences, these conditions must be met within a period of “about 20 days.”

Devout recitation of the above prayer does not convey an indulgence, but instead invokes the mercy of God directly, and therefore it does not require the fulfillment of conditions attached to an indulgence. The prayer, devoutly offered, is sufficient in itself.

Rev. Msgr. William J. King is a priest of the Diocese of Harrisburg.

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9 min read
The Church

Too Many Rules In Catholicism?

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In truth, there are not that many rules at all in the Church, when we consider that we are a society of over a billion members globally, with a history…

In truth, there are not that many rules at all in the Church, when we consider that we are a society of over a billion members globally, with a history spanning several thousand years (if we include our pre-Christian biblical roots and traditions).

In a sense, the question is like asking why a car’s GPS system keeps telling the driver when to turn right or left: Is it providing guidance or giving a rule?

Pope John Paul II reminded us when he promulgated the Church’s current Code of Canon Law in 1983 that the Old and New Testaments form the first source of law for the Church. Turning first to the Bible, then, let’s consider what St. Paul taught about living the message of Jesus.

In the Letter to the Romans, St. Paul takes the first 11 chapters to present a well-developed theology of grace and redemption, culminating in the gift of salvation that is ours in Christ Jesus, through the mercy of our heavenly Father. Then, Paul presents a challenge: “Do not conform yourselves to this age but be transformed by the renewal of your mind” (Rom 12:2). The challenge is to allow our faith to change our behavior: since God has done so much for us, we should respond by conforming our behaviors to the higher standard of God’s grace.

Mercy and Grace

If we understand the depths of God’s mercy and grace, we cannot but be compelled to examine our behaviors in response. In other words, we can’t go on living as unbelievers. However, this change in our external behavior arises from within, a grateful response to all that God has done and continues to do for us. It is a change motivated by loving God and understanding His loving will for our lives. It is not a change mandated by law, but by love.

This was also the message of Pope John Paul in giving us the current Code of Canon Law. “The Code is in no way intended as a substitute for faith, grace, charisms and especially charity in the life of the Church and of the faithful,” he said.

Jesus commissioned the Church to go into the world and teach, not to legislate. For all of the Christian centuries, that is what the Church has done. The teaching of the Church, flowing from Divine Revelation in the Bible and through the Holy Spirit in the tradition of the Church, leads to the development of doctrine and dogma.

At the same time, as the Church has grown and encountered new questions, it has dealt with questions of Church organization and discipline. This led to the development of law in the Church. We call this canon law, from the Greek word for a measuring rod. Canon law is always a servant of theology, however, and as the final canon of the Code of Canon Law reminds us, the salvation of souls is the supreme law of the Church.

Doctrine and Law

There is a difference between doctrine and law. They call for two different responses. In the end, though, they should both have an influence on how we live our lives.

Doctrine, or Church teaching, helps us understand the meaning of the Gospel and the action of God in our daily lives. Doctrine may be purely theological — that is, focused on the mysteries of God such as the Divine Trinity, or the nature of Christ (Christology), or Divine Revelation. Doctrine may also deal with the practical application of the Gospel to daily life, as in moral theology, or the social doctrine of the Church. It may deal with the nexus between God and humanity, as in sacramental theology, or divine worship, or the nature of the Church (ecclesiology).

The Church asks us as Catholics, first of all, to understand doctrine. We’re asked to inform our minds by reading the doctrinal statements of the magisterium, the teaching authority of the Church. Only then, after we have read and understood the teaching, does the Church next ask us to assent to the teaching intellectually. This is the basis of a properly formed conscience: knowing, understanding and assenting with our minds to the teaching of the Church. Next follows the impact of that teaching in our lives — namely, putting it into practice.

A Catholic employer who understands and assents to the long history of Catholic social doctrine would want to respect the dignity of workers and provide a decent salary and working conditions. However, there is no “rule” that specifies exactly how to do this. Canon 222.2 says, generally, that the Christian faithful are “obliged to promote social justice,” and Canon 1286 obliges many Church employers “to pay a just and honest wage,” but these general provisions flow from the broader history of social teaching.

Similarly, a lengthy history of doctrine on responsible human sexuality and the gift of life asks Catholics to understand and give assent to the fact that artificial contraception is incompatible with Christian morality. This doctrine is repeated in many teachings of the Church, but scour the Church’s legislative texts and one discovers that there is no law which explicitly proscribes artificial birth control (except for the result of abortifacients). The clarity and persuasiveness of the doctrine should lead us to understand the teaching and to choose to put it into practice in our lives, in an evolution from mind to conscience to action. Immoral does not mean illegal since the role of law in the Church is very narrow compared to the broader roles of doctrine and conscience.

Law is different. Law does not ask that we first understand it and then give assent to it. Law asks instead that we obey first and then look for the values and teachings behind the law. The Ten Commandments, for instance, are law, not doctrine. However, it helps us as Christians to try to understand why avoiding these 10 behaviors is important to God. What is the history behind these commandments? What is their context in the Bible? That kind of questioning is also helpful in understanding some of the disciplinary norms and practices of the Church. Why are these behaviors so important to my spiritual or religious growth that they are mandatory?

Jesus himself did not avoid giving His disciples guidance on how to live their lives, whether dealing with paying taxes or forgiving others. But Jesus put law in its proper context for His followers: “If you keep my commandments, you will remain in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commandments and remain in his love” (Jn 15:10).

The Church is not free to ignore the teaching of Jesus in the Bible, and certainly not free to ignore the rules that He gives us. His teaching on divorce and remarriage often causes people to express concern about the “rules” of the Church: “But I say to you, whoever divorces his wife (unless the marriage is unlawful) causes her to commit adultery, and whoever marries a divorced woman commits adultery” (Mt 5:32). However, this is a rule of Jesus and cannot be ignored.

Doctrine exists to help guide our understanding of God, the Church and the life of grace. Both doctrine and law are given to us by the Church not as roadblocks or hindrances in our life, but as helps to us in our spiritual journey. They are actions to do (the obligation of Sunday Mass) or things to avoid (desecration of the Holy Eucharist) so that we can arrive more easily at our spiritual end — namely, the salvation of our souls.

If I ignore my car’s GPS direction to turn right at the next corner, it takes a moment to recalculate how I can get back on track. Depending on the route, I might have to make a detour or U-turn. In the same way, if I ignore a rule of the Church I can recalculate how to get back on track in my religious or spiritual journey, and if need be go to confession when I’ve sinned.

It is important when we encounter a “rule” in the Church to ask first if it is really a rule at all. Perhaps it is instead a practical application of a moral or theological doctrine. Either way, we ought to try and understand the teaching and reasons for it before questioning a “rule” of the Church.

The Issue of Penalties

There is another important point to keep in mind when we consider law in the Church. Very few rules carry a penalty. Only those few actions that injure the life of the Church or seriously imperil the soul of the offender carry a penalty. For instance, a completed abortion carries the penalty of excommunication from the Church. A priest’s direct violations of the seal of confession or the sexual abuse of minors are other examples of acts requiring severe penalties. You can see that these rules exist to protect the most important values of the Church.

Most Church “rules” don’t impose a penalty for violating them. For example, it is a spiritual and penitential practice to abstain from meat on Ash Wednesday and the Fridays of Lent. If I were to eat a hot dog on one of those days I would not be excommunicated or otherwise punished by the Church. I may have violated a rule, but the rule exists to help guide me spiritually in understanding that I can depend on God’s goodness and providence while denying myself something of this world. The sin in eating meat is not about ignoring the rule as much as ignoring the opportunity to grow in my dependence on God.

Some Catholics question why there are so many “rules” in the Church. When asked to identify a problematic rule, it is often not a “rule” at all but a matter of teaching or doctrine that is at issue.

Msgr. William King is a priest of the Diocese of Harrisburg, Pa. 

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Sacraments

What Are Marriage Banns?

2 min read
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In some places you will find “Marriage Banns” in your parish bulletin. But what is it all about? In the early Middle Ages, secret or clandestine marriages became a problem….

In some places you will find “Marriage Banns” in your parish bulletin. But what is it all about?

In the early Middle Ages, secret or clandestine marriages became a problem. The Church had no required form for celebrating marriage at that time, and so a couple could choose to marry privately and without any pomp or ceremony, and even without witnesses, friends or family in attendance. No one would really know if they were married.

It was only in the year 1215, at the Fourth Lateran Council, that the Church required a recognizable and public form of celebrating marriage, a requirement that was repeated by the Council of Trent in the late 1600s and made binding for all Catholics worldwide in 1908.

Before there was a required form for Catholic marriage, when a person approached the Church for marriage it was difficult to know whether they had been previously married. It was not unheard of for a person to conceal a previous marriage rather than disclose that fact. Hence, the Church began to require the publication of the Banns of Marriage. This is an announcement of an intended marriage, naming the persons to be married, which is publicly read or posted three times. It is similar to the dramatic scene often shown in film and television (though it is not a Catholic practice) of the officiant of a wedding solemnly declaring in these or comparable words, “If anyone knows why these people should not be married, let him speak now or forever hold his peace.”

The Code of Canon Law permits the local conference of bishops to establish norms for marriage banns (see Canon 1067). In the United States, this has been left to the determination of the local bishop. Many bishops today permit the local priest to dispense from the publication of banns if he judges that there is no practical need for them. Other bishops require the publication of banns only in specific situations, such as when a Catholic is marrying an unbaptized person. Canon 1067 also requires questioning the parties and witnesses to establish the freedom of spouses to enter marriage, so banns are often omitted or dispensed if the parish pastor is satisfied that he already has sufficient information to ensure that a couple is free to enter marriage.

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