The Christian Faith
This section of the website provides more extended teaching on larger content areas, such as the Creed and the Sacraments. It begins with Introduction·to the Christian Faith. More content will be added in due course.
The section entitled Short Talks comprises stand-alone talks and articles on different aspects of the Christian Faith, including the teaching of Jesus, the seasons of the Church’s Year and Feasts and Festivals.·
Reconciliation: Forgiveness
Forgiveness
If we have injured anyone, and they forgive us, it means that everything is all right again between us, and they treat us as though we had never injured them at all. It is just the same when God forgives us. The past is wiped away as though it had never been, and God and ourselves are together once more as though we had never sinned against him.
Reconciliation: The Sacrament
Institution of the Sacrament
As Jesus went through the Crucifixion in order that we might be forgiven, so the first thing he did after the Crucifixion, when he was raised from the dead, was to give us the Sacrament of Reconciliation (Penance). “If you forgive the sins of any,” he said to his Apostles, “they are forgiven them; if you retain (refuse to forgive) the sins of any, they are retained” (NRSV, John 20:22,23).
Reconciliation: Confession
Today we are going to talk about how we make our Confession in the Sacrament of Reconciliation. We will divide it into three parts: what we do beforehand, what we do at the time, and what we do afterwards.