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ASK A PRIEST

If We Confess Our Sins, Do We Still Need to Atone for Them?
Question: Is it true that even though we have confessed our sins in confession and received forgiveness, we still may need to atone for them in Purgatory?

Answer:
Even though confession does absolve us from our sins in some cases there remains what is known as temporal punishment. That is, the imperfections that remain within us due to the damage created by our sins and the need to make reparation for the wrongs we have done. We can atone for this damage through acts of penance and by earning indulgences.

Lent is a time of atonement and penance, a period in which we acknowledge our sinfulness, turn away from our past life toward a life with Christ, and embrace the call to holiness. By offering up small sacrifices during the season of Lent, such as fasting or giving up something that we like, we can atone for our sins in a particular way during Lent.

At death someone might also have venial sins or imperfections that have not been removed and so before being able to pass to Heaven and the presence of God these imperfections need to be purified.

That is why in the month of November we are urged to pray for the dead so that they may be helped by our prayers to pass more rapidly through this period of purification and thus pass on to Heaven.

I think you will find this explanation about temporal punishment, purgatory and indulgences to be of help.
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This Edition

Front Page

So soon…It’s Lent Again

Having Ash Wednesday begin so soon again in February makes it difficult for me to understand. I usually accept the fact that I must just roll with it. Ready or not, Lent is here and I will accept that and keep on doing the best I can!
Cover Choice

A Lenten Prayer: Restore Us As A Culture of Life

All of us live much of our lives with an interior struggle. On the one hand, each of us is born with an ache for “something more.” We all have a natural longing for happiness, but we can’t be happy alone.
Our Faith

The Heavy Burdens We Carry »

I have been thinking a great deal about my experience at Reconciliation this past Saturday. I felt an intense and unexplainable urge to go and confess my sins when I woke up that morning. I try to go every six weeks or so, but this was no routine visit to the priest for me. I needed to unburden myself of the numerous venial sins I had committed since I last participated in this Sacrament.

More Articles: Our Faith


Catholic Living

Purest Gold: God's Refining Fire in our Lives »

After salvation, many young Christians wonder if there's anything more to their newfound faith than just the security blanket of "being a Christian." Time and time again, God shows himself as a "refiner," and our lives are as gold. God started leading me in this study to understand what He was doing in my life, as well as in the lives of others.

More Articles: Living

Winning Family

The Phase Out »

Picking up my pen to write this column, I couldn’t imagine how time flies. Since the last publication of this column I have gone through a lot, especially the loss of my dear mother to whom I dedicate this article. Not only her, but seems I lost a whole generation of my close family.

Faith & Business

How to Achieve Business Excellence »

“Do you see a man who excels in his work? He will stand before Kings; He will not stand before unknown men.” Proverbs 22:29


Young & Catholic

Spiritual Development for our Youth »

Most of us youth in today's fast moving world are easily thrown off by difficulties and worries.


Tonic For The Soul

Fasting and Mercy »

The theme of conversion is a thread that runs all through Lent, but conversion takes on different aspects throughout the phases of Lent. The first two and a half weeks focused on the interior turning of hearts; the liturgy urges the faithful to reflect and examine consciences thoroughly.


Saint Of The Month

Saint Josephine Bakhita »
Feast Day: February 8
Patron Saint Of: Sudan
Saint Josephine Margaret Bakhita was born around 1869 in the village of Olgossa in the Darfur region of Sudan. She was a member of the Daju people and her uncle was a tribal chief. Due to her family lineage, she grew up happy and relatively prosperous, saying that as a child, she did not know suffering.



Videos Of The Month


Catholics Must Fast More Intensely This Lent»

The Norbertine Canons of St. Michael's Abbey have created this digital Lenten retreat so that you can journey through this holy season alongside them. If you want to have one of your best Lenten seasons yet, join us in our Lenten Program "The Great Fast" - https://theabbotscircle.com/the-great-fast-join


When Your Faith Is Put to the Test - Bishop Barron's Sunday Sermon»

Friends, we come now to the Second Sunday of Lent, and we’re on both dangerous and very holy ground with the first reading from the twenty-second chapter of Genesis. The ancient Israelites referred to it as the “Akedah,” which means the “binding”: Abraham binds and is ready to sacrifice Isaac at God’s command.


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