Our Lady Queen Of Peace Parish
Penance & Reconciliation
Confession enables us to experience God’s love and mercy. When we sincerely tell our sins out loud and are granted absolution by God (acting though the priest), we get a fresh start and put our sins behind us. Through confession, we learn that God’s love and mercy really are boundless.
“…If you should stray from him for any reason, react with the humility that will lead you to begin again and again; to play the role of the prodigal son every day, and even repeatedly during the twenty-four hours of the same day; to correct your contrite heart in Confession, which is a real miracle of God’s Love. In this wonderful Sacrament Our Lord cleanses your soul and fills you with joy and strength to prevent you from giving up the fight, and to help you keep returning to God unwearied, when everything seems black. In addition, the Mother of God, who is also our Mother, watches over you with motherly care, guiding your every step.”
St Josemaría Escrivá, The Christian’s Hope, Friends of God, no. 214
Confession times
Mon – Sat: 10.30 – 11:45
Sun: 10.30 – 11:45 and 20 mins before & after 9pm Mass
Also on Thu: 7 – 8pm (during Holy Hour)
(subject to change, depending on priest availability)
Downloads
- Some helpful guidelines for examination can be found here.
- A shorter Examination of Conscience and guide for Adults, Teens and for Children.
Videos
The Sacrament of Reconciliation Explained
How do I go to Confession?
Don’t be afraid to go!
Pope Francis’ Top Ten Reasons to Go to Confession
Below are some of Pope Francis’ memorable quotes about why Catholics should go to confession:
- Confession helps people feel shame for the wrong they have done and embraces them with God’s love so that they know they are forgiven and can go out strengthened in the battle to avoid sin in the future.
- “But if a person, whether a layperson, priest or sister, goes to Confession and converts, the Lord forgives. And when the Lord forgives, he forgets. This is important,” Pope Francis told reporters July 28.
- The confessional is not a dry cleaners, a business of sorts that just washes out the stain of sin, the Pope said to members of the Vatican’s investment agency April 29.
- “…when the door starts closing a bit because of our weakness and sins, Confession reopens it.”
- “I can’t be baptized two or three or four times, but I can go to Confession, and when I go to Confession, I renew that grace of Baptism,” the Pope said at his general audience Nov. 13.
- It’s not a torture chamber where you’ll be raked over the coals.
- Confession is an encounter with Jesus whose “mercy motivates us to do better.”
- It’s not a psychiatric session that neglects the question of sin or a mental email to God that avoids the face-to-face encounter with the Lord through the priest.
- The sincere and humble admission of one’s weaknesses, of having “a sliver of Satan in my flesh,” shows that the power of salvation comes from God, not oneself,” Pope Francis said in a morning homily June 14.
- Confession “is going to praise God, because I — the sinner — have been saved by him,” who always waits and always forgives “with tenderness.”
See also: the Catechism of the Catholic Church on contrition, confession and satisfaction in The Acts of the Penitent.