Here at St. Thomas Aquinas

Confession is offered in the Church on Monday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday at 6:00 p.m., Saturdays at 4:00 p.m., or click here to make an appointment.

Sin harms our relationship with God and damages our communion with the Church. Conversion of heart is the beginning of our journey back to God. Liturgically this happens in the Sacrament of Confession-- a wonderful experience of God's mercy and love for each of us! Stopping sinning is the beginning of the spiritual life.

This is the Sacrament in which sins committed after Baptism are forgiven. It results in reconciliation with God and the Church. (US Catholic Catechism for Adults, Glossary)

There are four steps in the Sacrament of Confession:

1.     We feel contrition for our sins and a conversion of heart to change our ways.
2.     We confess our sins and human sinfulness to a priest.
3.     We receive and accept forgiveness (absolution) and are absolved of our sins.
4.     We celebrate God’s everlasting love for us and commit to live out a Christian life. Sin 
       hurts our relationship with God, ourselves and others. As the Catechism states:

    The sinner wounds God’s honor and love, his own human dignity…and the spiritual well-being of the Church, of which each Christian ought to be a living stone. To the eyes of faith no evil is graver than sin and nothing has worse consequences for the sinners themselves, for the Church, and for the whole world. (CCC 1487, 1488)

A mature understanding of sin includes reflecting upon our thoughts, actions and omissions as well as examining the patterns of sin that may arise in our lives. With contrite hearts, we are also called to reflect upon the effects of our sins upon the wider community and how we might participate in sinful systems.

Contrition and conversion lead us to seek a forgiveness for our sins so as to repair damaged relationships with God, self, and others. We believe that only ordained priests have the faculty of absolving sins from the authority of the Church in the name of Jesus Christ (CCC 1495). Our sins are forgiven by God, through the priest.

The Spiritual effects of the Sacraments of Confession include:

•     reconciliation with God by which the penitent recovers grace
•     reconciliation with the Church
•     remission of the eternal punishment incurred by mortal sins
•     remission, at least in part, of temporal punishments resulting from sin
•     peace and serenity of conscience, and spiritual consolation
•     an increase of spiritual strength for the Christian battle (CCC 1496)

Individual confession with a priest is the principal means of absolution and reconciliation of grave sins within the Church. The Sacrament of Confession frees us from sinful patterns of behavior and calls us to complete conversion to Christ. Confession heals our sins and repairs our relationships.

"Write, speak of My mercy. Tell souls where they are to look for solace, that is, in the Tribunal of Mercy [the Sacrament of Confession]. There the greatest miracles take place [and] are incessantly repeated. To avail oneself of this miracle, it is not necessary to go on a great pilgrimage, or to carry out some external ceremony; it suffices to come with faith to the feet of My representative and to reveal to Him one's misery, and the miracle of Divine Mercy will be fully demonstrated. Were souls like a decaying corpse so that from a human standpoint there would be no [hope of] restoration and everything would already be lost, it is not so with God. The miracle of Divine Mercy restores that soul in full."

Jesus speaking to St. Faustina in the Diary of Divine Mercy

"Daughter, when you go to confession, to this fountain of My mercy, the Blood and Water which came forth from My Heart always flows down upon your soul and ennobles it. Every time you go to confession, immerse yourself entirely in My mercy, with great trust, so that I may pour the bounty of My grace upon your soul. When you approach the confessional, know this, that I Myself am waiting there for you. I am only hidden by the priest, but I myself act in your soul. Here the misery of the soul meets the God of mercy. Tell souls that from this fount of mercy souls draw graces solely with the vessel of trust. If their trust is great, there is no limit to My generosity. The torrents of grace inundate humble souls."

Jesus speaking to St. Faustina in the Diary of Divine Mercy

Christ instituted the sacrament of Penance for all sinful members of His Church: above all for those who, since baptism, have fallen into grave sin, and have thus lost their baptismal grace and wounded ecclesial communion. It is to them that the sacrament of Penance offers a new possibility to convert and to recover the grace of justification. The Fathers of the Church present this sacrament as "the second plank [of salvation] after the shipwreck which is the loss of grace."  CCC 1446

"The whole power of the sacrament of Penance consists in restoring us to God's grace and joining us with Him in an intimate friendship." Reconciliation with God is thus the purpose and effect of this sacrament. For those who receive the sacrament of Penance with contrite heart and religious disposition, reconciliation "is usually followed by peace and serenity of conscience, with strong spiritual consolation." Indeed the sacrament of Reconciliation with God brings about a true "spiritual resurrection," restoration of the dignity and blessings of the life of the children of God, of which the most precious is friendship with God. CCC 1468