Duties to God and to Church:
Do I love God with all my heart, soul, mind, and strength? Have I given God the honor and time that is His due? Do I pray? Do I express my gratitude to God? Does something or someone -- a material thing, a person, a behavior, an attitude -- come between me and God? Have I used God's Name as a curse word or cursed God? Have I broken promises, oaths, or vows to God? Have I failed to treat sacred things and places with respect? Have I received the Eucharist while not in a state of grace? Have I kept Sunday holy by attending Mass and refraining from servile work? Have I lied to a priest during the Sacrament of Penance or intentionally failed to confess a sin I should have confessed? Have I defended God and His Church when it was necessary? Do I study my faith, according to my abilities, so I can defend the Church when necessary? Do I properly value the Church's disciplines and heritage? Do I pray for the Holy Father and the Church, including those in Purgatory? Have I experimented with magic, the occult, spiritism, willful psychic phenomena, ouija boards, etc.? Do I keep Sundays and Holy Days of obligation? Have I failed to go to Confession, at least once a year during Lent? Have I failed to do my Easter Duty (i.e., receive the Eucharist at least once during the Paschal Season)? Have I failed to follow the laws of fasting and abstinence? Have I failed to support the Church as my means allow? Have I obeyed the Church's marriage laws? Do I belong to a secret society such as Freemasonry, Skull and Bones, etc.?Duties to Family:
Have I failed to perform my duties to my parents, spouse, or children -- as (mother/ father, daughter/son, wife/husband) and as a Christian whose duty it is to lead them to Christ and to pray for them and, if possible, with them?For husbands: Do I treat my wife with the respect and tenderness I would give to Our Lady? Do I treat her as less than my queen, bride, and friend? Do I strive to provide for her, protect her, and help her to feel cherished and needed without condescension or treating her as a child? Do I undermine her in her role as mother? Do I try to make her happy within the boundaries of God's laws? Do I use my headship as an excuse for laziness, cruelty, arrogance, or in any manner inconsistent with the way in which I would treat Our Lady or the manner in which Christ treats His Church?For wives: Do I treat my husband with less than the respect and tenderness I would give to Christ? Do I treat him as less than my king, groom, and friend? Do I strive to obey him, nurture him, and help him feel cherished and needed? Do I undermine him in his role as father? Do I try to make him happy within the boundaries of God's laws? Do I nag or provoke him? Is Christ the King of my household? Do I pray for my dead ancestors, family members, and friends, and for the souls of those in Purgatory who have no one to pray for them? Have I helped cause members of my family to sin? Do I try my best to empathize with the members of my family and to love them with a love grounded in Truth? Do the members of my family know they are loved? If not, is this my fault? Have I caused any member of my family to get unrighteously angry or to be unjustly hurt? Have I failed to apologize to and seek forgiveness from members of my family if there was need? Have I forgiven my parents, spouse or children for past faults? Do I give my family my time and undivided attention when possible? Do any of my habits -- spending habits, gambling, etc. -- deprive my family of support? Have I used contraception and failed to keep my marital acts open to life? Have I used N.F.P. (Natural Family Planning) for frivolous reasons? Am I too lenient with my children? Do I set standards and boundaries? Do I use fair, reasonable, and consistent discipline? Am I too harsh with my children? Do I squelch the joy out of my children's lives with needless rules, "Pharisaic" attitudes, a lack of mercy, and an authoritarian -- as opposed to an authoritative -- approach to discipline? Do I discipline them in a way that humiliates them? Do my spouse and I sabotage each other with regard to disciplining our children? Do I "force" my spouse to play the role of "mean parent" while I play "nice parent"? Have I been a good example for my children and/or the children of others? Do I have high enough and age-appropriate expectations of my children? Do I over-praise or under-praise my children? Do I prize goodness and grace in my children above anything else I prize in them? Do I teach my children the fullness of the Faith, encourage them to pray to their Guardian Angels, to their patron Saints, and for the dead? Do I protect my children's innocence, inspire their imaginations, and do all I can to encourage healthy curiosity and the ability to marvel by teaching them about God, His Church, His creation, the lives of the Saints, etc., and by exposing them to good books, music, and art? Have I found a good balance between protecting my child's innocence and teaching him about the world, in an age-appropriate way, so that he is not ignorant and naive or made to feel stupid or ridiculous about himself when in the company of those who are "of the world"? Have I given him good weapons with which to fight the evils of the world while understanding and nourishing his social needs? Do I treat male children and female children with equal dignity, with respect for their God-given individual talents and vocations, but also with respect for Natural Law and their God-given differences as male and female? Do I allow my children appropriate expression of their emotions and help them to understand and become masters of their negative emotions? Do I help my children come to a humble, healthy, true sense of themselves as children of God, as individuals with unique vocations, and as possessing both virtues and faults? Do I instill in my children a sense of duty to God, to family, to others, and to themselves? Do I nurture the possibility of religious vocations in any of my children? Have I taught my children good manners and to be aware of the needs of the elderly, the infirm, the pregnant, the otherwise challenged? Are my spouse and I consistent in our discipline of our children?Duties to Society:
Do I love others as I love myself, with a love grounded in Truth? Do I evangelize with prudence and intelligence, and without being annoying and judgmental? Do I pray for others, including those in authority and for my enemies? Have I taken anything I had no right to take? Have I failed to return anything I may have stolen in the past or otherwise make restitution? Have I cheated anyone out of anything that is rightfully theirs? Have I been honest in business, including paying my employees a fair wage? Do I treat my employees or those I supervise with dignity, respect, and consideration? ~and/or~ Do I give my employer his due and perform my job satisfactorily? Do I treat service personnel (waitresses, waiters, clerks, busboys, maids, doormen, etc.) with dignity, respect, and consideration, and without condescension? Do I consider their time and feelings? Do I tip well, given my means, in cultures where tipping is considered the norm and, in essence, "wages"? Have I engaged in illicit usury? Have I given to the poor as my means allow? Do I betray others' secrets that I had no right to betray? Have I spoken anything untrue about another (calumny or slander) or, for no good reason, said things that were true butmaliciously or needlessly or unjustly spoken and that were damaging to another's reputation (detraction)? Do I engage in malicious gossip? Do I make promises I do not intend to keep? Have I cheated on tests or homework at school or otherwise plagiarized the work of others? Am I greedy and selfish? Am I envious of what others have? Am I too materialistic? Have I cursed another (i.e., called down physical or moral evil on a rational creature, not for the sake of a good, such as justice or punishment, but out of malice or for personal gain)? If possible, if candidates are available, do I vote responsibly, with the Kingship of Christ, the dignity of human life, and the principle of subsidiarity in mind? Given my station in life, my gifts, and vocation, do I care enough for the sick, hungry, thirsty, poor, and imprisoned? Do I show good stewardship by treating the earth as God's creation? Do I treat animals with care and appreciation and refrain from needless cruelty toward them? Do I show reasonable patriotism for my country (that is "country," not necessarily "government," and doesn't mean "blind patriotism")? Do I use my God-given talents in a wholesome way and for the benefit of others? Am I mindful of how my behavior or passivity influences others and conditions around me? Do I love the sinner while remaining truthful about sin? Am I forgiving to the contrite? Have I nurtured unrighteous anger in my heart? Am I vengeful? Am I a good, reliable friend to others? Do I exhibit any racist behaviors or hold any racist thoughts (i.e., thoughts and behaviors rooted in the idea that God's love and our love for others is or should be conditioned by ideas of race or genetics)? Have I murdered anyone, including having an abortion, helping someone have an abortion, or failing to do my best to encourage someone not to have an abortion (abortion includes in vitro fertlization)? Have I participated in euthanasia? Have I encouraged embryonic stem cell research? Have I encouraged unjust war? Have I intentionally and unjustly physically harmed someone? Have I participated in the sins of others by counseling them to sin, by commandmanding them to sin, by consenting to their sin, by provoking them to sin, by praising or flattering them in their sins, by concealing their sins that others have a right to know about, by partaking in their sins, or by silence even when the cause of charity demands I speak out? Have I used alcohol or any other drug recreationally to to the point where my judgment and will were affected? Have I been chaste according to my station in life (been faithful to my spouse, honored promises or vows as a religious or priest, not engaged in fornication if unmarried, etc.)? Have I willfully looked at pornography for no legitimate reason (e.g. law-enforcement) or supported it financially? Do I dress and behave immodestly or without concern for how my appearance and behavior may lead others to the sin of lust? Have I engaged in solitary sexual sins? Have I engaged in homosexual/lesbian acts? Have I been kind and charitable to those who are struggling to overcome homosexual/lesbian temptations? Have I intentionally lusted after someone? (Note: random thoughts that come to the mind are not sinful. My priest described them once in a sermon as mere flies that should be shooed away. What is sinful is deliberately cultivating these thoughts, deliberately giving them your salacious attention, etc. Know that many great Saints had thoughts like these -- and even worse: it is quite common as one proceeds in holiness for extremely blasphemous thoughts and thoughts ofdespair to flash in the mind. Shoo them away, and know that it is the Evil One trying to make you feel hopeless. It is good at times like these to call on the Name of Jesus and fall back on the short aspirations to replace those thoughts with holy ones.)Duties to Yourself:
Do I trust in God's mercy and love for me as a beloved child, or do I wallow in guilt for sins I've been absolved of? Am I too scrupulous and hard on myself, treating myself much more harshly than I would others I love? Am I too easy on myself? Am I honest with myself about my gifts and limitations? Do I overestimate or underestimate my importance? Do I treat myself as an icon of God, made in His image? Do I trust that God is in control or do I worry needlessly? Am I able to appreciate the fruits of His Goodness? Do I stand up for myself and my wholesome needs?below are quotes from here: http://www.calledtocommunion.com/2010/03/st-thomas-aquinas-on-penance/
Recall that justice is the virtue of giving to each his due. Penance (or repentance) is a kind of giving to God what is His rightful due. Penance is the disposition of the will or an act of the will that aims at the destruction of one’s past sins which one recognizes to be offenses against God. Penance thus is aimed at giving God what is His rightful due, by grieving (with the will, not necessarily the emotions) for those acts that have offended God, and by seeking to make amends for them, through some kind of compensation.4
Destruction of our offenses against God is not effected merely by ceasing to sin; some kind of compensation is necessary, to make amends for one’s sins against God. That is because sin leaves wounds, marks and debts in our relation to God. For example, if a man has been abusing his wife, the emotional wounds are not removed simply by his ceasing to abuse her, even if she forgives him. He must not only be truly sorry for what he has done, he must do whatever is in his power to make amends, something that may take years. Sin, as St. Augustine defined it, is a “word, deed, or desire, contrary to the eternal law.”5 But the eternal law is not a creature; it is God Himself. For this reason sin always involves a component that is against God Himself. And thus sin always involves our taking some pleasure in a word, deed or desire that deprives God of the charity, honor and obedience that He is justly due. So sin always contracts a debt of justice. By sinning we have taken something from God, by not giving to Him what is rightly due to Him. For this reason, penance involves two things: contrition, that is, grieving for one’s sins, and satisfaction, i.e. depriving oneself of temporal pleasures, or subjecting oneself to hardship in some way, to make amends to God for the pleasure that one took at God’s expense. Of course no one who has turned away from God can make sufficient satisfaction for that offense. St. Thomas says, “wherefore in such cases, he that falls short of the other must do whatever he can. Yet this will not be sufficient simply, but only according to the acceptance of the higher one”.6 In other words, just because we cannot fully make amends for our offenses against God, nevertheless, we must still do what we can to make amends, not because we think our penance is objectively sufficient to rectify our offenses, but in the hope that in His mercy God will find acceptable what penance we offer to Him out of sorrow for having offended Him whom we should love above all things.''
....[concerning mortal sin and repentance].................
The grace of God, however, causes the goodness in the man who is graced by God. Thus for any man who is graced by God, that man has goodness, and that goodness was caused by God’s grace.8 Therefore, while a man may pardon another man’s offense without a change in the offender’s will, it is impossible for God to pardon a man for an offense, without that man’s will being changed. Since the offense of mortal sin is due to man’s will being turned away from God and inordinately turned to some mutable good, therefore for the pardon of mortal sin, it is necessary that man’s will be turned toward God and away from the inordinate love of the mutable good, with the intention of making amends for the wrongs he did to God. Since this turning toward God and away from the inordinate love of created goods, belongs to the nature of penance as a virtue, it follows that it is impossible for a sin to be pardoned anyone without his having penance as a virtue.
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The reason that grace and mortal sin cannot be co-present within the soul is that to be in mortal sin is to at enmity with God, not in friendship with God. But to have sanctifying grace is to be in friendship with God. And since person cannot both be in friendship with God and be at enmity with God, therefore grace and mortal sin cannot be co-present in the soul.
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Notice that mortal sin always has a two-fold component. It necessary involves a turning away from God in some respect, and an inordinate (i.e. disordered) turning to some finite created good. This two-fold aspect of sin means that justice is violated in two ways, in each mortal sin. In turning away from God, the sinner has not given to the eternal God His due, for which action the just punishment is the eternal loss of God, because the nature of the sin determines the punishment of the sin. But the sinner has also turned inordinately to some finite mutable good, for which action the just punishment is the “pain of sense,” which is a finite punishment.
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First he reminds us, as we saw above, that in every mortal sin there are two turnings: a turning away from God who is the immutable Good, and an inordinate turning to some mutable good. This two-fold turning of mortal sin induces two debts of punishment, because these two turnings intrinsic to every mortal sin are not equal in their degree of injustice. The just punishment for turning away from the eternal God is eternal separation from God; this separation is called ‘hell.’12But the sin of turning inordinately to some mutable, finite good also incurs a debt of punishment, “because the disorder of guilt is not brought back to the order of justice, except by punishment.”13 Hence there must be temporal punishment, “since it is just that he who has been too indulgent to his will, should suffer something against his will, for thus will equality be restored.”14 Justice can be violated in the short-term, as when someone commits an unjust act. But ultimately justice cannot be violated, because all violations of justice must eventually be brought back to the order of justice, and this can only be done by just punishment.
The debt of punishment for turning inordinately to some mutable, finite good is not eternal punishment, but temporal punishment, because a finite sin does not justly deserve an eternal punishment. So when a man turns inordinately to a finite good without turning away from God, as happens in venial sin, he does not incur a debt of eternal punishment but he does incur a debt of temporal punishment.15 Thus, when the guilt of sin is pardoned through the grace that comes to us through the sacrament of penance, “the soul ceases to be turned away from God, through being united to God by grace.”16 But, the debt of temporal punishment may yet remain.
.........Here St. Thomas explains that mortal sin produces in the soul a disposition or even a habit, of inordinate love for a mutable good. When the guilt of mortal sin and the eternal debt that it incurs, are removed from the soul by the grace that comes through the sacrament of penance, these inordinate dispositions remain in the soul. These remaining inordinate dispositions are called “remnants of sin.” In a sense, we bear in our bodies the debt of temporal punishment, the sign within us that justice has not been restored. But since our eternal debt has already been paid through the grace Christ merited by His Passion and death, which we receive through the sacrament of penance, therefore the remaining debt is the debt of temporal punishment. This is why, in response to the objection, the pardon of the guilt of mortal sin through the sacrament of penance does not in itself remove the debt of temporal punishment.
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Operating grace is the actual grace whereby God works in us without us. Co-operating grace is the actual grace whereby God works in us with us, by strengthening our will and granting us the capability of performing some act. According to St. Thomas, the forgiveness of guilt and of the debt of eternal punishment belongs to operating grace. We cannot merit either the forgiveness of sin or the removal of the debt of eternal punishment. But, says, St. Thomas, the remission of the debt of temporal punishment belongs to co-operating grace. Then, just as the effect of operating grace precedes the effect of co-operating grace, so the remission of guilt and of eternal punishment in the sacrament of penance precedes the completion of our payment of the debt of temporal punishment. This is why when we walk out of the confessional after receiving absolution from our sins, all our sins are forgiven and our debt of eternal punishment is paid, but we must do some penance, as assigned to us by the priest. In doing so we are making satisfaction for the purpose of paying our debt of temporal punishment, which payment is, at the same time, a growth in sanctification, by removing from us the dispositions of inordinate love for created goods.
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[CCC1472] [I]t is necessary to understand that sin has a double consequence. Grave sin deprives us of communion with God and therefore makes us incapable of eternal life, the privation of which is called the “eternal punishment” of sin. On the other hand every sin, even venial, entails an unhealthy attachment to creatures, which must be purified either here on earth, or after death in the state called Purgatory. This purification frees one from what is called the “temporal punishment” of sin. These two punishments must not be conceived of as a kind of vengeance inflicted by God from without, but as following from the very nature of sin. 21
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1459 Many sins wrong our neighbor. One must do what is possible in order to repair the harm (e.g., return stolen goods, restore the reputation of someone slandered, pay compensation for injuries). Simple justice requires as much. But sin also injures and weakens the sinner himself, as well as his relationships with God and neighbor. Absolution takes away sin, but it does not remedy all the disorders sin has caused.62 Raised up from sin, the sinner must still recover his full spiritual health by doing something more to make amends for the sin: he must "make satisfaction for" or "expiate" his sins. This satisfaction is also called "penance."1460 The penance the confessor imposes must take into account the penitent's personal situation and must seek his spiritual good. It must correspond as far as possible with the gravity and nature of the sins committed. It can consist of prayer, an offering, works of mercy, service of neighbor, voluntary self-denial, sacrifices, and above all the patient acceptance of the cross we must bear. Such penances help configure us to Christ, who alone expiated our sins once for all. They allow us to become co-heirs with the risen Christ, "provided we suffer with him."63The satisfaction that we make for our sins, however, is not so much ours as though it were not done through Jesus Christ. We who can do nothing ourselves, as if just by ourselves, can do all things with the cooperation of "him who strengthens" us. Thus man has nothing of which to boast, but all our boasting is in Christ . . . in whom we make satisfaction by bringing forth "fruits that befit repentance." These fruits have their efficacy from him, by him they are offered to the Father, and through him they are accepted by the Father.64
Once we understand the distinction between the debt of eternal punishment and the debt of temporal punishment, and the basis for that distinction, then we can begin to understand certain other Catholic doctrines such as purgatory and indulgences. Purgatory is that place in which those who died in a state of grace pay any remaining debt of temporal punishment, in order that with a pure heart they may enter into the joy of seeing God in the Beatific Vision, for only those with a pure heart will see God.23 An indulgence is a remission of the temporal punishment for sins whose guilt has already been forgiven, and thus whose debt of eternal punishment has already been paid. These doctrines only make sense if we first apprehend the two-fold turning intrinsic to every mortal sin, by its very nature.
The primary Protestant objection to the notion of penance is that it is incompatible with the finished work of Christ. According to this objection, since on the cross Christ already paid for all our sins, therefore the notion that we must still make satisfaction for our sins is a denial or belittlement of the sufficiency and completion of Christ’s sacrifice. This objection typically presupposes that there is no distinction between eternal and temporal punishment, and in addition presupposes that our satisfactions would in some way diminish the satisfaction made by Christ, rather than be a participation in and acceptable through His satisfaction. Another objection is that the distinction between eternal and temporal punishment is not found in Scripture. But the Council of Trent gives a number of examples from Scripture that presuppose or imply the distinction.24 Another objection is that doing penance would give us ground for boasting. The Council of Trent also addresses that objection, teaching:
The satisfaction that we make for our sins, however, is not so much ours as though it were not done through Jesus Christ. We who can do nothing ourselves, as if just by ourselves, can do all things with the cooperation of “him who strengthens” us. Thus man has nothing of which to boast, but all our boasting is in Christ . . . in whom we make satisfaction by bringing forth “fruits that befit repentance.” These fruits have their efficacy from him, by him they are offered to the Father, and through him they are accepted by the Father. … But let [priests] bear in mind that the satisfaction they impose [in the sacrament of Penance] be not only for the protection of a new life and a remedy against infirmity, but also for the atonement and punishment of past sins; for the early Fathers also believed and taught that the keys of the priests were bestowed not to loose only but also to bind. It was not their understanding, moreover, that the sacrament of penance is a tribunal of wrath or of punishments, as no Catholic ever understood that through our satisfactions the efficacy of the merit and satisfaction of our Lord Jesus Christ is either obscured or in any way diminished.25
In this way temporal punishment, penance, and purgatory are all compatible with an affirmation of the forgiveness of all our past sins, and with the perfection and completion of Christ’s Passion. Temporal punishment is compatible with the forgiveness of all our past sins, because of the two-fold injustice in every mortal sin. Temporal punishment is compatible with the perfection and completion of Christ’s Passion because of the distinction between operating grace and co-operating grace. By way of these distinctions, the saint to whom Christ had just spoken days earlier, saying, “Thou hast written well of me, Thomas,” teaches us here why it is wrong to think either that we can make full satisfaction for our sins or that we do not need to make any satisfaction for our sins.
end of quotes
quote from St. Augustine:
from the catechism http://www.catholiccrossreference.com/catechism/#!/search/1439-1442
VI. THE SACRAMENT OF PENANCE AND RECONCILIATION ⇡
Sin is before all else an offense against God, a rupture of communion with him. At the same time it damages communion with the Church. For this reason conversion entails both God's forgiveness and reconciliation with the Church, which are expressed and accomplished liturgically by the sacrament of Penance and Reconciliation.38
Only God forgives sin ⇡
Christ has willed that in her prayer and life and action his whole Church should be the sign and instrument of the forgiveness and reconciliation that he acquired for us at the price of his blood. But he entrusted the exercise of the power of absolution to the apostolic ministry which he charged with the "ministry of reconciliation."42The apostle is sent out "on behalf of Christ" with "God making his appeal" through him and pleading: "Be reconciled to God."43
see also http://www.catholic.com/tracts/confession
"Individual, integral confession and absolution remain the only ordinary way for the faithful to reconcile themselves with God and the Church, unless physical or moral impossibility excuses from this kind of confession."95 There are profound reasons for this. Christ is at work in each of the sacraments. He personally addresses every sinner: "My son, your sins are forgiven."96 He is the physician tending each one of the sick who need him to cure them.97 He raises them up and reintegrates them into fraternal communion. Personal confession is thus the form most expressive of reconciliation with God and with the Church.
