The Ethical and Social Aspect of Habitual Confession to a Priest

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: of Confession insist strongly on the necessity of constant self-examination and introspection. This is the first and most imperative of duties which they are never tired of inculcating1. Motives and thoughts must be probed and examined: an exact Inventory of all offences must be kept, and their whole...
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Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: of Confession insist strongly on the necessity of constant self-examination and introspection. This is the first and most imperative of duties which they are never tired of inculcating1. Motives and thoughts must be probed and examined: an exact Inventory of all offences must be kept, and their whole inward state must be kept constantly before men's eyes2. 1 E.g. '' Confession must be distinct, unshrinking and complete. The earnest effort of the penitent must be to detail every thought, word or deed which he can ever remember to have committed. (Ministry of Consolation?) Again a Book entitled Pardon through the Precious Blood, contains twelve rules for Confession of which the sixth is Neither any concealment of sins .which is the worst of sacrilege and the seventh, To be most explicit in those sins which it is the greatest pain to own. For further illustrations, which are too numerous and lengthy to quote, cf. Manual of Confession, pp. n?ig. Again the Rev. W. Gresley says, Forgiveness is conditional'upon the completeness of the Confession. (Hints for the first Confession, Ordinance of Confession, 1851.) 2 He said I was to divide my life into periods of seven years, and to recollect every circumstance that had taken place in each period. Evidence of Eliz. Shiers in Rev. A. Poole's case. Again, it was openly stated by Mr Hatchard at the Plymouth meeting that a child was taken to Confession at twelve years of age, to confess sins committed at the age of seven. Dr Dodsworth describes himself as being in the habit of receiving Confessions both of men and women, of their whole lives in details as minute as any that can possibly be made to a Catholicpriest, and he adds, It is only right to say so far as I know, that Confession is required to be at least...