Welcome back to the Catholic Hack! In this episode I hope to show you that God, from the very beginning, desired to give us the model of Confession that the Catholic Church now celebrates.
CCC: 1423 It is called the sacrament of conversion because it makes sacramentally present Jesus’ call to conversion, the first step in returning to the Father 5 from whom one has strayed by sin.
I believe this paragraph, from the Catechism of the Catholic Church, go right to the hear t of what I discuss in the podcast… we who separate ourselves from the Father are rejoined to him through confession of our sins. This is the same story told in St. Luke’s Gospel where Jesus tells us the parable of the Prodigal Son. The son separated himself from his father and was restored through his confession. The father, not only received him, in the confession, but then went on to restore him to sonship, to full dignity as a son of the Father.
This is the same model found in the third chapter Genesis when the Lord walks in the garden in the cool of the day. We see here how Eve has integrity and Adam does not… and we also see how God, in his love, receives them in confession, and then restores their dignity. Can you see it? Read the story of Cane and Able in the next chapter of Genesis and you will see this model again.
A good reference for general biblical references and Early Church Fathers would be:
http://www.catholic.com/library/Confession.asp
http://www.earlychurchfathers.org/belief.php?id=19&PHPSESSID=c6ff22891de34ca569d58e09e9121de7
Make sure you read Leviticus Ch 4 & 5 as well to get an idea on the Old Testament Sin offering and how that compares to our Sacrament of Reconciliation.
http://www.usccb.org/nab/bible/#leviticus
Well I hope you enjoy this podcast as much as I did. God bless you and please pray for my wife and soon to be born son John-Paul.
In Christ
Joe M
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