The Catholic Sacrament of Reconciliation (also sometimes referred to as Penance or Confession ) has three elements: conversion, confession, and celebration. In it we find God’s unconditional forgiveness; as a result, we are called to forgive others.

Reconciliation (or penance, or confession) is one of the two Sacraments of healing. It is the Sacrament in which sins committed after baptism are confessed after an examination of conscience and forgiven by a priest in the name of Christ.

“Whose sins you forgive are forgiven them, and whose sins you retain are retained.”  – John 20:23 

The Sacrament of Penance is an experience of the gift of God’s boundless mercy.  Not only does it free us from our sins but it also challenges us to have the same kind of compassion and forgiveness for those who sin against us. We are liberated to be forgivers. We obtain new insight into the words of the Prayer of St. Francis: “It is in pardoning that we are pardoned.”

Jesus entrusted the ministry of reconciliation to the Church. The Sacrament of Penance is God’s gift to us so that any sin committed after Baptism can be forgiven. In confession, we have the opportunity to repent and recover the grace of friendship with God. It is a holy moment in which we place ourselves in his presence and honestly acknowledge our sins, especially mortal sins.  With absolution, we are reconciled to God and the Church. The Sacrament helps us stay close to the truth that we cannot live without God. “In him, we live and move and have our being” (Acts 17:28). While all the Sacraments bring us an experience of the mercy that comes from Christ’s dying and rising, it is the Sacrament of Reconciliation that is the unique Sacrament of mercy.

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