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The Sacrament of Penance [a] (also commonly called the Sacrament of Reconciliation or Confession) is one of the seven sacraments of the Catholic Church (known in Eastern Christianity as sacred mysteries), in which the faithful are absolved from sins committed after baptism and reconciled with the Christian community.
In 2011, Catholic bishops in England and Wales reversed their earlier decision to permit Catholics to practice a penance other than meat abstinence on Fridays. They said, in part: "The bishops wish to re-establish the practice of Friday penance in the lives of the faithful as a clear and distinctive mark of their own Catholic identity.
The Sacrament of Penance (or Reconciliation) is the first of two sacraments of healing. The Catechism of the Catholic Church mentions in the following order and capitalization different names of the sacrament, calling it the sacrament of conversion, Penance, confession, forgiveness and Reconciliation. [44]
Incipit of the Paenitentiale Vinniani. A penitential is a book or set of church rules concerning the Christian sacrament of penance, used for regular private confession with a confessor-priest, a "new manner of reconciliation with God" [1] that was promoted by Celtic monks in Ireland in the sixth century AD, under the Egyptian monastic influence of St John Cassian.
An example is the Mass of Ash Wednesday, in which the Penitential Act is replaced by the blessing and imposition of ashes after the homily. "On Sundays, especially in the Season of Easter, in place of the customary Penitential Act, from time to time the Blessing and Sprinkling of Water to recall Baptism may take place." [7]
Within the Catholic Church, the term "act of contrition" is often applied to one particular formula, which is not given expressly in the handbook of Indulgences. The Catechism of the Catholic Church notes that "Among the penitent's acts, contrition occupies first place. Contrition is 'sorrow of the soul and detestation for the sin committed ...
Friday Penance also explains why penance is important: "Declaring some days throughout the year as days of fast and abstinence (Ash Wednesday and Good Friday) is meant to intensify penances of the Christian. Lent is the traditional season for renewal and penance but Catholics also observe each Friday of the year as days of penance.
In the East, the prominent feature of penance was not the practice of mortification and pious works, though this was supposed; the penance imposed on sinners was a longer or shorter period of exclusion from communion and the Mass, to which they were gradually admitted to the different penitential "stations" or classes, three in number; for the ...