You have to be around my age, a bit younger or older, or an EF of Confession devote to know this or remember it.
Private Confession, for the most part and because there was a full blown push back over the reform of private confession that had a few different concoctions after Vatican II, is basically the same as it was prior to Vatican II.
Bless me father for I have sinned...blah, blah, blah.
The only major difference between then and now is that the penitent recites the Act of Contrition before the priest offers absolution. WHAT A DANG SHAME!
In the older form, the priest offered absolution in Latin as the penitent recited the Act of Contrition.
It was hard on the penitent, especially a child, not to get confused by both the priest and penitent speaking simultaneously.
I recently learned why this custom developed and unfortunately was kkkdiscarded.
The symbolism of the priest saying the absolution while the penitent recited the Act of Contrition simultaneously was based on the Prodigal Son. When he finally came to his senses and repented of his sin, the father on seeing his son’s return meets him and as the son repents the father is forgiving simultaneously.
How cool is that! And how sad we have lost that symbolism today. Sad, sad, sad.
27 comments:
"The symbolism of the priest saying the absolution while the penitent recited the Act of Contrition simultaneously was based on the Prodigal Son. When he finally came to his senses and repented of his sin, the father on seeing his son’s return meets him and as the son repents the father is forgiving simultaneously."
Sounds rather apocryphal, like the tale of the cloth (napkin) that covered Jesus' face being apart from the shroud as a sign he would be returning, or the notion that we priests can trace the direct historical lineage, name by name, of our ordination to Jesus ordaining the Apostles at the Last Supper.
In the older form of many rites there was "overlap" of the priest and people praying or singing, wasn't there? While sentimentaly pleasing, I'm not inclinced to give the Prodigal Son story any credit for confessional practices.
Unfortunately, and actually quite sadly, you have fallen into the trap of post-Vatican II ideologies that denigrated wonderful apocryphal stories of our faith including the development of symbolism accorded various actions in the Mass and other sacraments.
In do so, the only logical continuation of such nonsense is to do away with the parables of Jesus as apocryphal stories evolved from parables in the oral tradition of preaching.
Sad, sad, sad.
The new rites attract very few people as evidenced by survey after survey. Is that apocryphal?
Unfortunately, and actually quite sadly, you have elevated legend to history. The story is sweet, but very likely not true. We don't base our beliefs and/or practices on falsehoods.
The parables of Jesus are not, as you suggest, apocryphal, and are not equivalent to legends or sweet stories. They are Divine Revelation, inspired by God. You should recognize the difference.
It is 100 percent ILLOGICAL to make this equivalence and, I will add, dangerous to the faith.
Although Fr Kavanaugh is ideologically committed to every 20th century liturgical reform and cheerfully denigrates the previous 16 or so centuries, he does have a point here. When I first confessed at the age of seven I memorized the short Act of Contrition. Later on I used the longer form which was displayed in the confessional:
'O my God I am very sorry and beg pardon for all my sins; I detest them above all things, because they deserve Thy dreadful punishments, because they have crucified my loving Saviour Jesus Christ, but most of all because they offend Thine infinite goodness; and I firmly resolve, with the help of Thy grace, never to offend Thee again, and carefully to avoid the occasion of sin. Amen.'
I had already asked for 'penance and absolution from you, my ghostly father.' There was no reason for the priest to wait before beginning the Absolution, and very good reasons for not doing so. Strictly speaking the penitent should cross himself at the 'ego te absolvo' but in practice I doubt this was universally done.
I would like to know which of the Church Fathers came up with the Prodigal Son analogy. It sounds to me like a flight of fancy. Speaking of which, we are coming up to Low Sunday, or Quasimodo Sunday, or Dominica in Albis (depositis) where an awful lot of people will be crediting the (frankly ludicrous) revelations of a 20th-century Polish nun and her priest handler, kneeling before an über-kitsch picture and singing a sentimental dirge.
Is that apocryphal?
Nope.
Definition: (of a story or statement) of doubtful authenticity, although widely circulated as being true.
John,
This blog wouldn’t be the same without you.
By the way, I have followed this blog for quite a number of years, with only 2 breaks for a few months due to certain circumstances..... I wonder what ever happened to two of my favourite contributors here - Gene and Bee?
AJP.
I ask for prayers for my elderly, very ill mother, Leone Kirton; who very likely has only weeks to live.
She has been a devout, practising Catholic her whole life. A mother to 5, a grandmother to 17.
Amazing to think that, in the early 1950s, my mother failed the medical exam to become a nun, or to enter a convent.
Shortly after that she met my father (RIP) who had just left the Marist Order, before taking his final vows, at a CYO dance.
PGK.
PGK - Prayers for your mom. I have an uncle who was a Marist (FMS Marist, not SM Marist), who left and married my Aunt Johanna!
PGK, you have my prayers, have been there, done that, and wouldn't wanna do it again, as have many here.
John, I am all with you on private revelations foisted on the universal Church where such pious devotions take over from proper love and worship. Meant to be an aid, they become rote ends in themselves.
Father, you have a typo showing as kkk which is this day and age of instant outrage is enough to have a mob of protestors outside and/or black helicopters circling overhead the rectory.
Speaking of sad, Biden was having press conference earlier today about the "epidemic" of gun violence and what he plans to do about it. Gee...I think the number of abortions far exceeds the number of persons killed by guns each year, maybe by ratio of 25 or 30 to 1? Seems like then he should be emphasizing the epidemic of abortion violence which has happened tens of millions of times since 1973. But as they say, I would not hold my breath....
As for pious legend, apocrypha and etc, although many such were not accepted as divinely inspired and inerrant, this does NOT mean everything in them is a flight of fancy.
Unless one has the highest level of evidence that they are false, and/or they contradict divine teaching, there is no particular reason to disbelieve them apart from a natural inclination to disbelieve everything.
Most such historical-critical "research" almost always starts with the premise that this cannot be true, and then disjointed snippets amassed by the "researcher" to "prove" their point. Father K dismissing apostolic succession, for instance.
The main reason such cannot be "proved" is that the shipwreck of time with its wars, burnings, civilational collapses, plain decay and loss of writings have erased much that was there, but lack of records does not disprove the obvious fact it all started somewhere and was handed down generation by generation.
Simply because you CAN find some spontaneous generation (royal appointments, sale of offices, etc) does not negate the fact that the majority would have come through legitimate succession.
Anon 1:37 -
You say, "Unless one has the highest level of evidence that they are false, and/or they contradict divine teaching, there is no particular reason to disbelieve them apart from a natural inclination to disbelieve everything."
I say we don't prove a negative. Rather, unless one has evidence that pious legends are true, there is no reason to believe them, much less to base liturgical practices on them, and much less to use the tales as explanations for liturgical practices.
I absolutely do not dismiss Apostolic succession. That is an undeniable element of Divine Revelation and must be believed. What I do dismiss is the notion that a priest today can trace his sacredotal lineage, name by name, bishop by bishop, back to Jesus Christ and the calling of the Apostles. That is the kind of "legendary" tale that, while sweet, is historically unsupportable. It is also unnecessary.
Apostolic succession has more to do with the continuous teaching of the Church than with the ability to trace one's "ancestry" step-by-step to Christ and the Apostles. A validly ordaiend priest leaves behind, or breaks the Apostolic tradition when he denies revealed truth, when he rejects the legitimate authority of his bishop, or when he, in some other way, steps away from Apostolic teaching.
See International Theological Commission, Catholic Teaching on Apostolic Succession, 1973
Sarcedotal and apostolic succession are inextricably linked, two sides of the same coin. And you are the one arguing from a negative, not I. You are saying unless it is in print, from very few sources, you will dismiss it out of hand. But you also frequently argue against proof in writing, including sources of scripture and their originality and dating, where often one could easily mistake your utterances as cribbed directly from Hans Küng, or perhaps there is no mistaking in it.
Meanwhile, essentially zero survives from the time of Christ, only scattered copies of copies of copies are all which survived through the ages upon ages, and even those all combined would handily fit in a single book shelf. Underpinning all of that are what truly holds them together, all the teachings, "traditions", legends, pious practices, rites etc. which you consistantly denigrate, stripping flesh from bone and leaving only some dead thing over which to play clever word games, the sort Paul warned against so strenuously.
You are a wonder in offering up the negative on a consistant basis, leaving one to wonder what positive you find in your religion or life at all...past, of course, the building a world of peace and justice on earth.
If one has evidence that a legend, pious or otherwise, is true then it ceases to be a legend.
"You are saying unless it is in print, from very few sources, you will dismiss it out of hand."
No, I am saying the list connecting any priest today with an unbroken chain of bishop-to-priest ordinations back to Christ doesn't exist. Those who claim to have such a list are wrong.
We have, as I understand it, no original texts of Sacred Scripture. That does not mean that what we do have in any less authoritative. We believe this because the Church teaches us that it is true. Legends and pious practices rely on Revelation for their authority, if any, not the other way around. A pious practice is enlived, given meaning, by Revelation.
Since the Sacred Scripture is words, then discerning the meaning of those words amd how that meaning applies to our lives under the guidance of the Church's Magisterium is exactly what we should be doing.
Gene and Bee became fed up with a certain anonymous priest
The Garden of Eden indeed---and temptation and potential bogeys await the golfer at every hole. While the numbers (population) probably don't justify it today, maybe Augusta could become a diocese someday---maybe run it up to Lake Oconee and Athens, take some territory from rapidly growing Atlanta Archdioese, and over to Swainsboro (Emanuel County). Short of that, maybe McDuffie County could be transferred to the Savannah Diocese as metro Augusta marches westward on Interstate 20---Columbia County was transferred in the late 1970s as that happened. If I am correct, Holy Trinity parish in Augusta is the oldest Catholic parish in all of Georgia, so why not honor it with cathedral status?!?
Does it need to be a list to be true? That would be epistemologically false.
'Oracular' means 'pertaining to an oracle'. Heard Confessions are 'auricular'.
With regard to succession, it is estimated that some five million people can claim direct descent from William the Conqueror.
I suspect Bee and Gene have died, probably from not wearing face masks during the pandemic.
100% of people trace their lineage to Adam and Eve and through them , they must claim they inherited original sin and are in need of the forgive of the Risen Lord through Baptism and Penance.
Uber Undertaker,
LOL !!
John,
That is very interesting what you wrote about c. 5 million people who can claim direct descent from William the Conqueror.
I recently read a biography of PG Wodehouse. Apparently, Wodehouse was familiar with his lineage; he referred knowingly to ‘the manly spirit of the Wodehouses - descended from the sister of Anne Boleyn.”
My father, in retirement, put a lot of work into our family tree.
As an average sort of Australian, 3 of my most typical ancestors are
Mary McGuinnes, born in Dublin, Ireland, aged 19, arrived in Sydney, NSW colony, in 1849, housemaid, illiterate, Church of Rome.
William Kirton, born in Cambridge, England, arrived in Sydney, NSW colony, in 1838, transported, having been convicted of theft, Church of England.
Samuel Fleishman, born Mannheim, Germany, (or what was to become Germany in 1870) arrived in NSW colony in 1851, free settler, baker, Jewish.
A man’s character is in no way determined by his ancestors but can be judged by the health and wealth of his wife.
AJP.
Uber K,
This is par for the course for you. Grow up. Bee and Gene were your intellectual betters
I can't help but notice that almost everyone who traces their ancestry back always seems to have come from some king, queen, or other historical VIP. Apparently, few people who trace their ancestry ever come from simple country folk or people who made their living from the sea, etc.
But they say that all blue-eyed people in the world have a common ancestor in that one person who lived about 10,000 years ago and had the genetic mutation producing blue eyes.
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