Confessions are held:
Monday from 5:30 – 6:30 pm
Saturday from 9:30 – 10:00 am
Saturday 3:00 – 3:45pm
First Fridays 6:45-7:15 pm
And by appointment! Please call the office if you desire to meet at another time with Fr. Ryan Healy for confession.
“It is called the sacrament of conversion, because it makes sacramentally present Jesus’ call to conversion, the first step in returning to the Father from whom one has strayed by sin.” (Catechism of the Catholic Church 1423)
Why confess?
Confession is a free act. It is an act of the will, a voluntary self-accusation of one’s sins. Sins are transgressions – some very serious and some less so – but still all offenses directly against God.
Our serious sins separate us from a life of grace. This separation is a serious matter because a Christian’s life is a life in God’s grace, that is, a real, spiritual, participation in the life of God. Without God’s grace we become lost in the world, a world that is fading and yet approaches fulfillment through the hope of the Resurrection of Jesus. While we live in the world we are subject to its natural and civil laws, but as Christians our true existence awaits us in heaven. Our actions and purpose all lead to eternity.
Sin keeps us from this purpose. Sin immerses us in the way of the world, as an end unto itself, and away from God; away from a life of grace.
Once we begin to realize that our distance from God is the cause of our suffering and discontent, our self-accusation or confession begins interiorly. Christ transforms this interior awareness into an exterior action – a “confession” which when sincerely performed in the presence of the Catholic priest leads to our absolution. The priest absolves the penitent from his sins by the authority gifted by Jesus to his Apostles while Jesus was personally present on earth.
True repentance requires many prerequisite virtues including counsel, humility, patience, and love. We need to pray and to examine our conscience and ask the Holy Spirit to counsel us to be aware of our sins; we need to be humble and accept that we stand imperfect before a perfect God; we need to be patient striving to overcome our sins while we await God’s grace to rescue us; and we need to love God more than anything else in the full faith and knowledge that he loves us and desires nothing more than to forgive us.
Listen to Jesus’ call to return regularly to the Sacrament of Confession, the great sacrament of spiritual growth. Listen to the Lord Jesus and “be not afraid”. The Lord awaits you in the person of the priest whose greatest joy is to return one who has sinned back to a life of grace.
“The sacrifice acceptable to God is a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, thou wilt not despise. “ (Psalm 51:17)