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Final Words
As a Sister of St Joseph who labored over teaching the words, but more important, the meaning, of the Act of Contrition to many a distracted second, third and fourth grader during the 1950’s and 60’s in schools in Philadelphia, I was delighted on reading, first, the remembrances of James Martin, S.J., in Of Many Things (5/12) and then the letters debating the words of the ending. What a joy! They did listen; they do remember!
Rose Christine Wagner, S.S.J.
Firmly Resolve
The Sisters of St. Joseph taught me to say, I firmly resolve with the help of Thy grace to confess my sins, to do penance, and to amend my life. It strikes me that avoiding sin and amending life are the same, although I used to think that the resolution to confess sins was strange in view of the fact that I had just done so (Of Many Things, 5/12).
On a related topic, when I teach the canon law of the sacraments to students each summer at The Catholic University of America, I am amazed at the students’ cluelessness on the difference between perfect and imperfect contrition, the former being sorrow for love of God, and the latter being sorrow for fear of punishment or hope of reward (and sufficient for forgiveness only in sacramental confession). They are also vague about the necessary matter for an integral confession: all serious sins by number and species committed after baptism not yet directly remitted through the power of the keys or acknowledged in individual confession that I remember after a diligent examination of conscience. I marvel that many of us knew these things at the age of seven and that there are priests in my class who do not know them at 40!
James J. Conn, S.J.