E-Reconciliation: How to use the iPhone Confession App

Contrary to popular sentiment, the Confession app for iPhone or iPod is not a complete waste of time. Used appropriately, it can be a useful tool in your preparation for the Sacrament of Reconciliation.

A brief overview of the Confession app….

The app runs $1.99 at the time of this writing. Multiple users can use the same app and each is encrypted with a different password. As will be discussed later, you can utilize this multi-user aspect to use the app for purposes other than those for which it was originally created.

The app walks you through a basic examination of conscience, based upon the 10 Commandments. Each Commandment has a submenu, from which you can check off the sins you’ll be confession during the sacrament. For example, here are the basic questions asked under the 2nd Commandment:

Once you have completed your examination, you click on the Confession button on the bottom and the app walks you through your Confession, calculating the date since it was last used:

The app then walks you through the sins that you had checked off during your examination of conscience so that you don’t forget them during your receipt of the Sacrament, which happens at least to me:

At the conclusion of the Sacrament, you are given a choice of a number of Acts of Contrition. Here’s the screenshot for one that I found perfect for a general confession (which is when you confess all the sins you have participated in during the duration of your life):

 

An other function…

In addition to the preprogrammed questions based on the Ten Commandments, there is also a custom area for adding your own questions. As noted by the Catholic Encyclopedia entry on Examination of Conscience:

The ordinary method followed in the examination for confession is to consider in succession the Ten Commandments of God, the Commandments of the Church, the Seven Capital Sins, the duties of one's state of life, the nine ways of partaking in the sin of others. For persons who have led uniform life it will often suffice to recall where they have been, the persons with whom they have dealt, the duties or pursuits in which they have been engaged; how they have behaved on ordinary occasions — as, for instance, when busied in their usual employment on working-days — and on unusual occasions, such as Sundays and holidays.

 

It is this custom function that also allows the app to be used for more than an examination of conscience prior to receiving the sacrament, but also for a St. Ignatius examination of conscience as per his Spiritual Exercises. St. Ignatius is considered by many to be the creator of a “system” for the examination of conscience on a daily—or more often—basis.

St. Ignatius divided his daily examination into two types: the general and the particular.

A general examination is a good method of focusing upon the identification and corrections of all kinds of faults. St. Ignatius used a five point plan:

1.  Give thanks to God our Lord for the favors received
2.  Ask for the grace to know your sins
3.  Examine how you have lived this day
4.  Ask forgiveness for any faults
5.  Resolve to amend with the grace of  God

A particular examination, on the other hand, focuses upon the avoidance of a specific fault or the acquisition of a particular virtue. In short:

• on rising in the morning you resolve to avoid a certain fault during the day, or to perform certain acts of particular virtue.
• around noon you consider how often you have committed that fault, or practiced that virtue, marking the number in a booklet prepared for the purpose, and renewing our resolution for the rest of the day.
• at night you examine and mark again, and make your resolutions for the following day.

The idea being that you act like a careful businessmen who routinely watches his company’s transactions to see where losses come in or where greater profit may be had. St. Ignatius further suggested that you impose upon yourself some penance for every one of the faults committed and that you compare the numbers marked each time with those of the preceding day, the total sum at the end of the week with that of the preceding week, etc. The whole idea is to see how you are improving.

To use the app for a St. Ignatius style examination, I found it easiest to create a separate account so as to not confuse the two:

I then added a series of questions using the custom addition of the app:

The questions I added came from the following, taken from Examination of Conscience by Fr. John Hardon, S.J.:

Faith

1. Do I make an honest effort to grow in the virtue of faith by daily mental prayer on the mysteries of the faith as revealed in the life of Jesus Christ?
2. Do I make at least a short act of faith every day?
3. Do I pray daily for an increase of faith?
4. Do I ever tempt God by relying on my own strength to cope with the trials in my life?
5. Do I unnecessarily read or listen to those who oppose or belittle what I know are truths of my Catholic faith?
6. What have I done today to externally profess my faith?
7. Have I allowed human respect to keep me from giving expression to my faith?
8. Do I make a serious effort to resolve difficulties that may arise about my faith?
9. Do I ever defend my faith, prudently and charitably, when someone says something contrary to what I know is to be believed?
10. Have I helped someone overcome a difficulty against the faith?

Hope

1. Do I immediately say a short prayer when I find myself getting discouraged?
2. Do I daily say a short act of hope?
3. Do I dwell on my worries instead of dismissing them from my mind?
4. Do I fail in the virtue of hope by my attachment to the things of this world?
5. Do I try to see God's providence in everything that "happens" in my life?
6. Do I try to see everything from the viewpoint of eternity?
7. Am I confident that, with God's grace, I will be saved?
8. Do I allow myself to worry about my past life and thus weaken my hope in God's mercy?
9. Do I try to combine every fully deliberate action with at least a momentary prayer for divine help?
10. How often today have I complained, even internally?

Charity

1. Have I told God today that I love Him?
2. Do I tell Jesus that I love Him with my whole heart?
3. Do I take the occasion to tell God that I love Him whenever I experience something I naturally dislike?
4. Have I capitalized on the difficulties today to tell God that I love Him just because He sent me the trial or misunderstanding?
5. Do I see God's love for me in allowing me to prove my love for Him in the crosses He sent me today?
6. Have I seen God's grace to prove my love for Him in every person whom I met today?
7. Have I failed in charity by speaking unkindly about others?
8. Have I dwelt on what I considered someone's unkindness toward me today?
9. Is there someone that I consciously avoid because I dislike the person?
10. Did I try to carry on a conversation today with someone who is difficult to talk to?
11. Have I been stubborn in asserting my own will?
12. How thoughtful have I been today in doing some small favor for someone?
13. Have I allowed my mood to prevent me from being thoughtful of others today?
14. Am I given to dwelling on other people's weaknesses or faults?
15. Have I been cheerful today in my dealings with others?
16. Do I control my uncharitable thoughts as soon as they arise in my mind?
17. Did I pray for others today?
18. Have I written any letters today?
19. Have I controlled my emotions when someone irritated me?
20. Have I performed any sacrifice today for someone?

I’ll report back as to how things are progressing. While the program doesn’t allow for a counting mechanism as is strictly set forth in the Spiritual Exercises, it at least gives me the opportunity to do an examination on a routine basis—and get the most bang for my $1.99!

The New Testament... in a picture

Thus far, the above is my favorite creation that I've made using the Word of God. I used a text version of the New Testament and the application called Tagxedo, which is a souped up version of Wordle. One thing that is neat about Tagxedo is that you can put your cursor over each word and it will jump out. You can also purchase the above on a t-shirt. Very cool.

I deleted a handful of words from the New Testament, most notably "unto" and "shall".

http://www.tagxedo.com/art/a232e3ec330d442b

http://www.tagxedo.com/image/a232e3ec330d442b

what is mercy

Early Christianity defined itself in terms of mercy. In his wonderful work The Rise of Christianity, religious sociologist Rodney Stark argues that contrary to romanticized notions about the early flourishing of Christianity, the new religion was an urban movement.

Stark’s explanation, which follows, helps us to understand mercy’s link to Christianity. The early Church prospered in the cities because those urban areas were dreadful. Stark describes the conditions of these urban areas as “social chaos and chronic urban misery.”

Sheer population density exacerbated the situation. At the end of the first century, Antioch’s population was 150,000 within the city walls— 117 persons per acre. New York City today has a density of 37 persons per acre overall. Manhattan, with its high-rise apartments, registers 100 persons per acre.

Contrary to early assumptions, these cities were not settled places, made up of inhabitants descending from previous generations. Given high infant mortality and short life expectancy, these cities required a constant, substantial stream of newcomers simply to maintain population levels.

As a result, the cities were composed of strangers. These strangers were well treated by Christians who, again contrary to some modern assumptions, were certainly not universally poor. Through a variety of ways, financially secure Christians welcomed the newly arrived immigrants.

On top of this, Christianity was new. While ethical demands were imposed by the gods of the pagan religions, these demands were substantially ritualistic. They were not directed at one’s neighbor. Yes, pagan Romans knew generosity, but that generosity did not stem from any divine command.

For example, a nurse who cared for a victim of an epidemic knew that her life might be lost. If she was a pagan, there was no expectation of divine reward for her generosity. If she was a Christian, however, this life was but a prelude to the next, where the generous were united with God.

Although the Romans practiced generosity, they did not promote mercy or pity. Since mercy implied “unearned help or relief,” it was considered contradictory to justice. Mercy was seen by Roman philosophers as a defect of character, belonging to the uneducated and the naïve. Stark concludes:

"This was the moral climate in which Christianity taught that a merciful God requires humans to be merciful, indeed that mercy is one of the primary virtues. The Christian understanding is this: Because God loves humanity, Christians may not please God unless they love one another. That was an entirely new understanding."

"Perhaps even more revolutionary was the principle that Christian love and charity must extend beyond the boundaries of family and tribe, that it must extend to 'all those who in every place call on the name of our Lord Jesus Christ' (1 Corinthians 1:2). This was revolutionary stuff. Indeed, it was the cultural basis for the revitalization of a Roman world groaning under a host of miseries."

http://www.americancatholic.org/Newsletters/CU/preview.aspx?id=237

St. Augustine on when life begins....

While doing some research on the corporal works of mercy, I stumbled upon was led by the Holy Spirit, to this interesting work of St. Augustine's, The Enchiridion, or Handbook, which St. Augustine wrote sometime after 420 AD. St. Augustine himself called the book "On Faith, Hope and Love."

Chapter 86. If They Have Ever Lived, They Must of Course Have Died, and Therefore Shall Have a Share in the Resurrection of the Dead:

And therefore the following question may be very carefully inquired into and discussed by learned men, though I do not know whether it is in man's power to resolve it: At what time the infant begins to live in the womb: whether life exists in a latent form before it manifests itself in the motions of the living being. To deny that the young who are cut out limb by limb from the womb, lest if they were left there dead the mother should die too, have never been alive, seems too audacious. Now, from the time that a man begins to live, from that time it is possible for him to die. And if he die, wheresoever death may overtake him, I cannot discover on what principle he can be denied an interest in the resurrection of the dead.

Mt 2:13-15, 19-23
Gospel

Gospel

When the magi had departed, behold,
the angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream and said,
“Rise, take the child and his mother, flee to Egypt,
and stay there until I tell you.
Herod is going to search for the child to destroy him.”
Joseph rose and took the child and his mother by night
and departed for Egypt.
He stayed there until the death of Herod,
that what the Lord had said through the prophet might be fulfilled,
Out of Egypt I called my son.

When Herod had died, behold,
the angel of the Lord appeared in a dream
to Joseph in Egypt and said,
“Rise, take the child and his mother and go to the land of Israel,
for those who sought the child’s life are dead.”
He rose, took the child and his mother,
and went to the land of Israel.
But when he heard that Archelaus was ruling over Judea
in place of his father Herod,
he was afraid to go back there.
And because he had been warned in a dream,
he departed for the region of Galilee.
He went and dwelt in a town called Nazareth,
so that what had been spoken through the prophets
might be fulfilled,
He shall be called a Nazorean.

The Nativity of the Lord: The Magi

Today’s reading is from Matthew 2:1-12 and is not one of the specific readings heard in any of the Christmas Vigil or Christmas Day Masses, but I thought it fitting as tomorrow’s reading picks up right when the Magi depart:

 

When Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea, in the days of King Herod, behold, magi from the east arrived in Jerusalem, saying, "Where is the newborn king of the Jews? We saw his star at its rising and have come to do him homage."

When King Herod heard this, he was greatly troubled, and all Jerusalem with him. Assembling all the chief priests and the scribes of the people, he inquired of them where the Messiah was to be born.

They said to him, "In Bethlehem of Judea, for thus it has been written through the prophet:

'And you, Bethlehem, land of Judah, are by no means least among the rulers of Judah; since from you shall come a ruler, who is to shepherd my people Israel.'"

Then Herod called the magi secretly and ascertained from them the time of the star's appearance. He sent them to Bethlehem and said, "Go and search diligently for the child. When you have found him, bring me word, that I too may go and do him homage."

After their audience with the king they set out. And behold, the star that they had seen at its rising preceded them, until it came and stopped over the place where the child was. They were overjoyed at seeing the star, and on entering the house they saw the child with Mary his mother. They prostrated themselves and did him homage. Then they opened their treasures and offered him gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh.

And having been warned in a dream not to return to Herod, they departed for their country by another way.

Matthew is the only gospel that references the Magi. Most interesting is the fact that there is no specific number of Magi given. This is one of the situations (similar to Adam and Eve eating an apple in the Garden of Eden) where popular belief is different from what is actually written. As noted in the Catholic Encyclopedia, since there are three gifts presented, it would seem to imply there were three wise men. However, in the Orient the belief is there were twelve wise men. Christian art throughout the ages has varied from one to eight.

The names of the Magi are also uncertain. The names Gaspar, Melchior, and Balthasar are commonly referenced in the Latin rite. From the above Gospel passage, it appears they all came from "the east".

Being a 3 hour Catholic

I was reading a blog this morning (Telling the Truth by Time and Money) about how little time and money we, as Catholics, actually give to the Lord. There were a number of comments concerning the issue, most of which focused on money. This prompted the author to post a comment, noting that “everyone so far has spoken about money and almost nothing has been said about time.”

That got me wondering if there were any passages in Scripture which indicate how much time we should spend each day focused upon our faith and God. Since Scripture asks us to tithe 10% of our financial income, then I don’t think it is unreasonable for us to also tithe 10% of our temporal income. So, at 24 hours per day, that means that we owe the Lord 2.4 hours per day, which for ease of reference I’ll round up to 2 1/2 hours per day.

That leaves me to spend the remaining 21.5 hours as I see fit. Assuming I sleep 8 hours, eat 3 hours, and bathe/hygiene 1 hour, I still have 9.5 hours to spend. I usually work an 8 hour day, which means I still have 1.5 hours to spend doing other things, such as exercise (1 hour) and spend time with my children (30 min). Hmm, I’m all out of time and still haven’t even watched any TV or cleaned the house, let alone mowed the lawn, fixed the car or attended one of my kids’ sports activities….

Clearly there has to be a way of spending time with the Lord that will allow me to multitask, so I can spend that 2.5 hours of faith-oriented time and still get my laundry done. That got me thinking as to whether or not I could figure out ways to “sneak in” God-time while doing other things. That’s how I came up with the 3-hour Catholic plan. Here’s what I’ve come up with thus far:

1. Upon waking, say my morning prayers and read that day’s readings, contemplating them whilst taking a shower and getting dressed for work. Time spent: 45 minutes.
2. While commuting to and from work, listening to the local Catholic radio station (love Catholic Answers Live!). Time spent: 40 minutes (20 min. each way).
3. While running on the treadmill, listening to a Catholic podcast or CD. Time spent: 1 hour.
4. Over the noon hour, saying a rosary before or after eating lunch. Time spent: 15 minutes.
5. Putting kids to bed: read and discuss a Bible story and say prayers. Time spent: 15 minutes.
6. Before bed: say a Novena prayer with my wife. Time spent: 5 minutes.

I was surprised to find that without much effort at all (other than remembering to do it!), I quickly figured out how to spend 3 hours of my day working towards improving my prayer life and increasing my knowledge of my faith without taking any more time out of my daily life nor interrupting things that I already do. That also opened up the extra 2.5 hours for me to do other things!

Once I got to thinking about it, I realized that you could quite easily add another half hour attending daily Mass over lunch (perhaps even keeping the noon-rosary and skipping lunch altogether for a bit of simple fasting), not too mention add some additional time on reading a good book on theology or Catholic issues or watching a bit of EWTN to unwind. One could relatively quickly get 4 or even 5 hours of faith-based living accomplished each day just by what we choose to do each hour and figuring out a way to bring God into the picture….