Tuesday, December 3
Corpus Christi
Advent Penance Service
Tuesday, December 3rd
5:00 p.m. to 7:00 p.m.
To prepare to celebrate a holy and joyful Christmas, all are welcome to attend our parish Advent Penance Service and to give thanks for the forgiveness received through the sacrament of Reconciliation.
According to the Catechism
of the Catholic Church (CCC):
LIKE ALL the sacraments, Penance is a liturgical action. The elements of the celebration are ordinarily these: a greeting and blessing from the priest, reading the word of God to illuminate the conscience and elicit contrition, and an exhortation to repentance; the confession, which acknowledges sins and makes them known to the priest; the imposition and acceptance of a penance; the priest’s absolution; a prayer of thanksgiving and praise and dismissal with the blessing of the priest (CCC 1480).
THE SACRAMENT of Penance can also take place in the framework of a communal celebration in which we prepare ourselves together for confession and give thanks together for the forgiveness received. Here, the personal confession of sins and individual absolution are inserted into a liturgy of the word of God with readings and a homily, an examination of conscience conducted in common, a communal request for forgiveness, the Our Father and a thanksgiving in common. This communal celebration expresses more clearly the ecclesial character of penance. However, regardless of its manner of celebration the sacrament of Penance is always, by its very nature, a liturgical action, and therefore an ecclesial and public action (CCC 1482).