[I]n a Mass focused on mercy, a signature theme of his papacy, Pope Francis has urged the faithful not to give up on the sacrament of reconciliation, especially those who continue to backslide.
The pontiff urged the faithful to continue to seek reconciliation, or confession, because “every time we are forgiven, we are reassured and encouraged.”
Linking Divine Mercy to the Sacrament of Reconciliation activates Divine Mercy. Although Divine Mercy may very well be available to non-Catholics who do not have the Sacrament of Reconciliation, nevertheless concluding that the probability that this will occur is beyond the scope of this entry.
Quoted below in part is from the Gospel reading for Sunday, April 8, 2018, from John, Chapter 20 [2]:
As the Father has sent me, so I send you."
And when he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them,
"Receive the Holy Spirit.
Whose sins you forgive are forgiven them,
and whose sins you retain are retained."
For Catholics, confessions are necessary for the forgiveness of sins. It may seem that when one walks out of the confessional, one sins are forgiven (after completing the required penance). After that, one should expect to enter Heaven, unless Sainte Jean Baptiste Marie Vianney, the Curé d'Ars, [3] is correct. Below are some of his words [4], quoted without bold emphasis:
But you may ask, “What does this word ‘repentance’ mean, and how can we tell whether we have it or not?” . . . Now, if you ask me what repentance is, I tell you that it is an anguish of the soul, and a detestation for past sin, and a firm resolve never to sin again. Yes, my brethren, this is the foremost of all conditions which God makes before pardoning our sins, and it can never be dispensed with.
Without (repentance), it is impossible, absolutely impossible, to obtain forgiveness. Yes, my brethren, I must say with deep regret that the want of repentance is the cause of a great number of sacrilegious Confessions and Communions, and what is still more to be regretted is the circumstance that many do not realize what a sad state they are in, and live and die in it.
Now, my friends, if we had the misfortune to conceal a sin in Confession, this sin is constantly before our eyes like a monster which threatens to devour us, and it causes us to soon go to Confession again, so as to free ourselves from it.
But it is different with repentance; we confess, but our heart does not take part in the accusation which we make against ourselves. We approach the Holy Sacrament with as cold, unfeeling, and indifferent a heart as if performing an indifferent act of no consequence. Thus we live from day to day, from year to year, until we approach death, when we expect to find that we have done something to our credit, only to discover nothing but sacrileges, which we have committed by our Confessions and Communions. [Emphasis added.]
Oh, my God, how many Christians there are who will discover at the hour of their death nothing but invalid Confessions! [Emphasis added.]
But I will not go further into this matter, for fear that I may frighten you, and yet you ought really to be brought to the verge of despair, so that you may stop immediately, and improve your condition right now, instead of waiting until that moment when you will recognize your condition, and when it will be too late to improve it.
But let us continue with our explanation, and you will soon learn, my brethren, whether you had the repentance in all your Confessions, which is so absolutely necessary for the forgiveness of sin. I said that repentance is an anguish of soul. It is absolutely necessary that a sinner weep over his sins either in this world or the next. In this world we can wipe out our sins by repentance, but not in the next. We should be very grateful to our dear Lord that the anguish of our soul is sufficient for Him to let it be followed by eternal joy, instead of making us suffer that eternal repentance and those awful tortures which would be our lot in the next life, that is, hell.
Divine Mercy Sunday comes around once a year. Even if all the sins are forgiven this one day, it is not enough. Everyone needs Divine Mercy more often than annually; some may need it multiple times daily.
Pope John Paul II, canonized nearly four years ago on April 27, 2014, once remarked "that 'the Communion lines get longer, the confession lines shorter.'" [5] It is unlikely that the number of sinless Catholics are growing, so why do many Catholics think that they no longer need to seek the forgiveness of sins before receiving Holy Communion? Does Divine Mercy now extend to those who find no need for confession and repentance?
[1] https://cruxnow.com/vatican/2018/04/08/pope-focuses-on-reconciliation-in-mass-dedicated-to-mercy/
[2] http://www.usccb.org/bible/readings/040818.cfm; http://www.usccb.org/bible/readings/bible/john/20:19, 21-23.
[3] Background on St. Jean Marie Baptiste Vianney - https://brightonoratory.org/2012/08/09/todays-saints-st-jean-baptiste-marie-vianney-confessor/; his miracles - http://www.miraclesofthesaints.com/2010/09/mystical-knowledge-in-saints-reading.html
[4] https://www.returntofatima.org/tag/cure-dars/
[5] online excerpt from a book written by Cardinal Timothy M. Dolan
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