Why Frequent Confession?

Confession is one of the sacraments of the Holy Catholic Church that is probably the most important of all the sacraments in order to assure ourselves that our sins have been forgiven. And once we receive absolution from God, only then do we know within ourselves that we are able to receive Christ worthily in Holy Communion, as God wants us to do. Receiving frequent communion, then, also wipes away venial sin and helps us to stay away from mortal sin.

There is always a lot of discussion of how often a person should go to confession. It was made known to us that Blessed John Paul II went to confession once a week. At that time I thought to myself, what sins do a pope do? It seemed impossible that the great man Pope John Paul II would have to go to confession once a week. But maybe that is what has made him 'Great'.

After I heard that the Pope did this, I thought that maybe I should try and go once a month. It always seemed like I was bothering the priest in asking him to hear my confession. In the parish I had been in there wasn't a set time. He just made himself available as people needed.

When we moved to another parish in 2004, I was very happy to know that the Church had set times for confession every week. And later, they added another hour for people on two different days of the week, making it almost always possible to go to confession anytime.

It was at this time in my life that I started going every two or three weeks. After I did that, though, I began becoming more aware of my sins and my conscience would eat at me until I would go to confession again.
Now after going once every two months for years, it shocked me that I became so aware of my sins now that I was going more often.

Recently I had a period of spiritual dryness, and for the first time in a long time, it was another two months before I went to confession again, and then it was only after a struggle within myself. But I noticed, this time, that the longer I stayed away, the less aware I became of my sins. It was so bad that I didn't even know for sure what I had done to warrant going to confession. So each week I convinced myself not to go.

Then the 'I wonder if I confessed that' thought came in to my mind. I started having attacks of sorrow over sins I know I've confessed in the past, but not sure if I did it right. This came about after I was reading in a very old missal (1878) that said: "In examining your conscience, remember you have to find out what sins you have committed and how many times you have committed them".

I thought, shoot, I haven't thought about how many times I have committed a sin since I was a pre-vatican II kid. And I didn't even think they still did it until I read somewhere else that we ARE supposed to remember how many times of each sin we did. So I got worried.

Then I read 'You are obliged to confess all your mortal sins, and one mortal sin omitted either wilfully or through a careless examination of your conscience, renders your confession of no avail, and makes you guilty of the sin of sacrilege. Examine your conscience, therefore, with great care; and often during your examination make a little aspiration, "Jesus, give me your grace," or "Mary, my Mother, help me"'.

Continuing on, it said 'if you confess often, every week or month, go through your examination of conscience and always confess, in addition to your present sins, some sin of your past life; one you feel most sorrow for.'

I thought, wow. I had been told not to be so scrupulous in repeating a sin and here this little book is telling us to do it.

Finally, I was reading the book "Dogma of Hell" tonight. It talked about a man who had committed a mortal sin but refused to confess it because it embarrassed him. So he would go to confession for everything but that sin, and
still continued to receive Holy Communion. However his conscience was killing him because not only did he not confess the mortal sin, but he committed grave sacrilege by going to Holy Communion. This went on and on and he decided to become a priest. He thought maybe that would help him confess it, and when he did confess it, he got it so mixed up, it wasn't even right. Well he decided he would wait until the day he was on his death bed to confess it and unfortunately, he died without getting the chance to confess it. He showed up to someone after he died and told the person to stop praying for him because he was in hell and that person's prayers were to no avail. I thought, whoa!

Now tell me, after all I have said, do we still want to hide our mortal sins from the priest? Jesus knows what we have done. And Jesus is there and is speaking through the priest in telling us what to do. We must not ignore confession and forget our pride and confess everything or else we'll end up like that guy in the book I am reading. We shouldn't ever wish that on our worst enemy.

So the answer to the question "Why Frequent Confession?" So we go to heaven and not hell. THAT is the answer. It's all up to us. God gives us the way to become holy, but we must participate in our own salvation walk.

Catholics Need To Wake Up

The wait is over. We finally know who the running mate is going to be for Mitt Romney. And I think this could be a very good thing for Catholics and our country.

But first, the Catholics of this country have got to make a decision - are you or are you not going to follow Church teaching on abortion, birth control and gay marriage? If not, then the country is doomed, because Romney can't win without the help of faithful Catholics who will stand up for God.

What is a faithful Catholic? Is it someone who goes to mass every weekend just because they have to or do we go because we love it? And if we love it, are we willing to follow all of the Church's teachings or are we going to remain unwaivered over what God is commanding of us?

See, to support abortion or gay marriage goes against Scripture and is a sin. Everyone old enough to read knows what "Thou Shalt Not Kill" means. But does everyone know that God calls the homosexual act an abomination? You would if you read scripture. If not, then maybe it's time to start.

Paul Ryan has been labeled a devout Catholic. With him and Romney in office, we will be assured that our religious freedom is not taken away from us, because if Obama wins again, that is exactly what is going to happen along with a bunch more in our bill of rights. The final stamp will be put on the 'no religious freedom' portion of the first amendment and it'll go on from there because now there will be no reason for Obama to hold back on his 'executive' authority.

We also need our Bishops and Priests to fall back in line with Church doctrine and stand UP for it. I would think by now the clergy who are in the upper end of the heirarchy of the Catholic Church would be the first ones to cry foul when this country makes what is evil, good, and keep fighting for it, no matter the cost. We need our bishops to tell the priests to defend and preach the teachings of the Church at Mass. And this is not being done every where. Why?

Well, I think one reason is because people don't want to be reminded of sin. Well why not? Do we or do we not want to go to heaven? And what is the first thing we learn in our Catechism/CCD classes? We learn that we need to receiving sanctifying grace to go to heaven and to keep our souls free from sin. This means receiving Holy Communion. But, we must receive Holy Communion in a worthy manner and that means, people, going to confession often. 50 years ago people knew that if they had mortal sin on their soul, they could not receive communion and people would sit in the pew and not receive. They would rather sit in the pew than have their sin forgiven. Boggles my mind. We don't see that anymore and you can't tell me that there is not one person at Mass who doesn't have some sort of mortal sin on their soul. I mean, if that is true, then we'll all be in heaven? But we KNOW that is not true. Yet people still refuse to go to confession.

Catholics, this is our chance to set things right in this country. The cup is running over with our sins and our country isn't exempt from sinful actions.

This election season, we need to pray and pray hard that we do what God wants us to do - and that is support the republican ticket and make this country whole again. Who knows, maybe Romney will become Catholic after all of this. God is on our side. We need to be on His. Always. It is His commandments we are breaking when we support these evil actions and yes, I consider artificial birth control an evil action right up there with everything else, because it shows that the couple do not put God first in their life and trust in HIM to decide how many children we have or don't have. Not only that, some of them cause abortion - a huge mortal sin.

This may be our last chance and we need to support these two men, no matter how much our pride hurts in coming to the realization that we need to obey God and not man. Do we love the Holy Catholic Church or don't we? And do we love our country or don't we? Do we want to continue down the slippery slope to hell or do we want to prepare ourselves to meet God in an immaculate way that only the Sacraments can provide?

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Are We All Destined For Hell?

If ever there is a sign for all of us here in this country that the world is about to come to an end, we can take a good look at the Democrat party and say - yup, they're leading us all straight to hell because of this health care law, because of abortion, because they want to take away our religious freedom and force us to pay for birth control and other sins, and now they side totally with gay marriage rights. Worse, and perhaps the biggest disappointment in all of this, is how a conservative judge could actually give Obama what he wanted - a health care law that is going to ruin a lot of lives, take away a lot of jobs, and cost trillions.

Do these people in our government not believe that there is a hell - put there for all of us to be punished for our sins? Are not the Catholics in the government aware of this? I just want to know.

I heard a news story today that said Kathleen (excommunicated Catholic) Sebelius doled out over two billion dollars to planned parenthood before the law was passed because she, and others, believed it was going to fail, too, and she wanted to give them money to stay in business. Did we not pray hard enough or is it too late for our prayers now? Is God tired of listening to us or are we just past the point of righteousness and on the bring of damnation?

The other question, is, will Mitt Romney really get rid of the health care law if he becomes president or is he just saying that since he wants to be president? Seriously, who can we trust or believe anymore?

Maybe Justice Roberts was right in his ruling. But think of this. If he is right, then did the democrats pull the wool over our eyes by telling us that this law will invoke a penalty if we do not buy health insurance, knowing full well that the law had this little tax issue in it? Our first clue should have been when Obama told us that it would be inforced by the IRS. Pretty skanky. Now they are raising our taxes by over 500 billion? AND medicare is going to be cut by 500 billion? What is happening?

These are just a few of the many questions I now have and I'm sure others have regarding all of this. I believe most mouths dropped open when that decision was read by the Supreme Court yesterday.

Well dear Lord, come and get us. What are we waiting for? Why allow our country and our world to continue in its sins - get rid of us. We are a horrible people. We have horrible people running this country. We are losing Catholics, Christians and so on in the name of evil. Catholic don't listen to the Church regarding birth control, abortion, and gay marriage. People do not care. People are living as if there is nothing to worry about. You know, like hell.

And actually I believe I have been living as if there is nothing to worry about either. But if you do a search on youtube and find people who have supposedly had near death experiences and landed in hell and then came back to tell us what it is like, we would all be changing our lives pronto and turning to God and leaving the things of this world alone forever. And for some of the people who ended up there, I'm sure they never gave hell a second thought. Some did not know where they even were because they weren't taught about it.

For example, one person was a born again Christian and he ended up there. What happened, wasn't he "really" saved?

A mormon lady ended up there and it changed her in to a Christian. And we're supporting a mormon for president?

The videos I watched (can't say if they are all true or not) were enough to start me thinking and praying again. I, for one, have wasted the past year doing everything BUT giving to God what He deserves - my love and attention and gratitude. Forget purgatory - that's only for people who actually listen to God and try to do as God wants. And it's really very simple. Love Him. And love our neighbor as ourselves.

Well, for me I need a total attitude adjustment. And a realization that I, like so many others, am one step closer to hell than I am to heaven.

People, we need to start praying and praying hard and not stopping. We need to pray for a conversion for those in government who now control our life and very possibly, our death. They kill the unborn. Who's to say they won't start killing others, now? Like the elderly.

When we are told in Scripture to persevere in our prayer and Christian life, God wasn't joking.

Wake up Americans. Our lives are not our own. They belong to God. And if we believe that God won't send us to hell because He is a loving God, think again. WE will send ourselves there, not God. He does not want us there. But His justice requires it. He just wants us to love Him as we were created to do. And of course, obey Him. And the Church. That's it.

So what's the answer to all of this? To start with, turn off the television and if you do watch for a while each day, watch something that doesn't have ads. Many ads could almost be classified as porn. The network channels are no better. It has gotten so bad that if I am watching something, I walk out of the room when the garbage comes on.

Also, read Scripture daily. Pray as often as you can, espcially the rosary, each day. Do penance along with fasting. Pray for the conversions of our congressmen and women and president. Attend Mass daily, if possible. Go to confession at least once a month and more if possible. You'll find that the more you go to confession, the more you become aware of your sins as they happen. We need God's grace to be saved and receiving the sacraments is the only way to receive sanctifying grace.

Follow the precepts of the Church. These are the laws our Church has made to help us in our walk. Go to mass weekly, on holy days. Fast and abstain on appointed days. Don't shop on Sundays. That day is reserved to our Lord. Try to live up to the beatitudes.

If you do use artificial birth control, stop now and confess your sin. Trust in God to give you the children he wants you to have or not have. Fight against abortion, reminding the pro-abortion people that they are killing an unborn child - a living person created by God, who formed us in the womb. If you have had an abortion, go confess it now because you have officially excommunicated yourself from the Catholic Church and cannot and especially should not receive Holy Communion, with a mortal sin on your soul. As should any of us receive with mortal sin on our soul.

If you are gay, please do your soul a favor by NOT receiving either. And same goes for hetersexuals who are living together or just live a very immoral life. Do not go to Communion. We drink judgement on ourself by doing to Holy Communion with mortal sin on our soul. We must not offend the Lord anymore than He is already offended.

Most of all have faith in Almighty God in each and everything we do. And when it comes time for you to die, request the final sacrament of the Church, IF you are lucky enough to not die suddenly. You are going to need it. We have up to the moment of death to confess any sins we may still have. God knows what we have done so there is no sense to lying or hiding them to a priest. He has been given the power from Jesus Himself, to absolve ours.

Finally, visit the blessed sacrament as often as possible. Tell God everything. Cry to Him. Ask Him for help. He WILL help you. Tell Him "Jesus, I Trust In You" and begin trusting Him in every aspect of your life. And pray for those who are leading all of us down the wide path to hell.

Proud of Our Catholic Politicians?

I'm so NOT proud to have so many Catholic democrat polititians in our government I could scream. The lastest Catholic, VP Joe Biden, came out (no pun intended) Sunday and stated that he is perfectly comfortable with gay marriage. Caroline Kennedy agrees with him. WHAT? Well how quaint.

Caroline Kennedy. You know, JFK's daughter? A huge Catholic family. Granddaughter of Rose Kennedy? Oh wait, I forgot, they're democrats. The party who believes it's ok to support sin, no matter what branch of Christian they are, including Catholic.

Seriously folks. Do people truly believe God is joking in Scripture when he forbids gay unions?

Now I understand the equal rights thingy. I don't think it should be restricted only to people who are married. And in that case, heterosexual couples should enjoy the same civil rights benefits that the gay people are screaming about. Isn't that the right thing to do? I mean, fair is fair.

But no, that isn't how it usually works. Heterosexual people have to tie the knot and as we all know, gay people want to tie the knot too. But we know God forbids this so how can man do what God said no too?

Easy - just vote it in. Forget the end of our life. Forget that we might end up in that very hot cesspool of sulfer. God loves us. He doesn't care what we do. We don't need confession anymore - I mean that is what Evangelicals say. And they say God doesn't care what we do as long as we BELIEVE that Christ died for us on the cross.

Well shoot, then I am saved for sure because I believed that story at the age of 6. But I'm Catholic, so, according to them, I'm not saved. Well, so much for the easy part.

Here it is in a nutshell. The Catholic Church teaches gay marriage is wrong, but the democrat Catholic politicians in congress want it to be legal along with that other big sin, you know, :::whispering::: abortion.  And if you turn to the Evangelical way of thinking, then you are saved Caroline and Joe. Now isn't that nice? You don't have to do anything the Church says because you are democrat and the evangelicals say you're saved, so long as you pray the sinner prayer. Oh wait, did I forget to mention the sinner prayer? Well... just go look it up. Anyway all you do is pray it and happy days will be here again - you will be saved. No ifs, ands, or buts about it. Forget what God really says. Shucky doodles folks. There is hope at the end of the tunnel.

Are you listening Kathleen Sebelius? Are you listening Nancy Pelosi? You, too, are saved. Just watch any Evangelical program on tv. All of them recite that magical sinner's prayer. You don't even HAVE to be Catholic anymore. At least it let's the pressure off the Bishops. That's the least you democrats could do instead of commiting grave sacrilege everytime you receive Holy Communion - you know - the REAL BODY and BLOOD of Jesus Christ?

Speaking of the Bishops, just when is the Catholic Church going to put their foot down and demand that these politicians not be allowed to receive Holy Communion? The rest of us, when we commit mortal sin, don't get to go. So why should they? Does being "a government politician" make them immune, by God, for supporting sin? I'm just asking.

Now I don't want to be judgemental, or anything like that, so I guess I can't say for sure they will go to hell. But guess what folks? God hears your words just as we all did. He knows our thoughts, too. And Joe Biden, did you say this because you plan on running for president after Obama is done (hopefully after THIS election)?

I imagine there are many bishops and priests rolling over in their graves today at the nonsense our Church is letting politicians get by with. Oh wait, there are a lot of unmarried, living together Catholics, too. Wake up Catholics. Our unrepented sins are going with us when we die. Go to a local Catholic Chuch near you and confess your prayers today with a contrite heart and do the right thing because you love God, not because you love your job. Here is a hint: God says gay marriage is wrong. Period. Throw away that sinner's prayer and repent. For the Kingdom of God is at hand.

If you want to read the story on Joe Biden, follow the link.
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2012/05/06/biden-says-absolutely-comfortable-with-gay-marriage-rights-cites-will-and-grace/

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