Reconciliation

This sacrament, also known as the Sacrament of Penance or Confession, offers an encounter with a loving God that forgives our faults, restores grace to our hearts, and calls to a deep conversion to follow Jesus’ love commandment. The priest, as the agent of God, forgives sins committed after Baptism when the sinner is heartily sorry for them, sincerely confesses them, and is willing to atone for them.

The Lord Jesus Christ, physician of our souls and bodies, who forgave the sins of the paralytic and restored him to bodily health, has willed that his Church continue, in the power of the Holy Spirit, his work of healing and salvation, even among her own members. This is the purpose of the Sacrament of Reconciliation. (CCC1441)