Will your pastor open the confessional on Good Friday?
Though celebrating the sacrament is not required, many pastors believe that confession is forbidden on Good Friday.
Due to a bad English translation from the Latin and a desire to dampen any enthusiasm for "pre-Vatican Two" devotional practices, a generation or two of priests have been led to believe that the rubrics for Good Friday forbid confessions being heard today.
Not so!
The 2002 edition of the Roman Missal removes all ambiguity: "On this and the following day, the Church, from a most ancient tradition, does not at all celebrate the sacraments, except for (the sacraments of) Penance and Anointing of the Sick."
So, there may be many perfectly good reasons for not offering the sacrament today; however, "The rubrics say we can't have confession on Good Friday" is not one of them.
___________________
Follow HancAquam and visit the Kindle Wish List and the Books & Things Wish ListClick on St. Martin and donate to the Dominicans! ------>
Can we baptize in cases of eminent death on Good Friday?
ReplyDeleteI would think so.
ReplyDeleteNo. We tried to go on one Good Friday a few years back and were told only those in mortal sin would he hear their confession. I wasn't comfortable with revealing things in such an open venue, amongst a group of people, so he told us to go somewhere else. I'm glad you are doing it and I hope it catches on! We will not have confessions in our area, btw, to satisfy for the Divine Mercy
ReplyDeleteNovena/Sunday. I am doing it anyway.
Mrs O
The priests here stop hearing confession the Saturday before Palm Sunday. I've never understood that, especially since all Christians are called to receive the Eucharist on Easter.
ReplyDeleteThe two new priests at our parish heard confessions today (Good Friday) for over 12 hours. Actually it is more than 12 hours because they started at 8:00 am and were still in the box at 8:30 pm when I left after the Good Friday service. I wanted to go hug them but they probably smell bad. Just kidding but I want to do something for these fine servants of God.
ReplyDelete