The Confiteor in the new translation

Continuing my series on the new translation, here is my article in this coming weekend's bulletin.

This week we will take a look at the Confiteor.

Translation currently in use:

I confess to almighty God
and to you, my brothers and sisters,
that I have sinned through my own fault
They strike their breast.
in my thoughts and in my words,
in what I have done and in what I have failed to do;



and I ask blessed Mary ever-Virgin,
all the angels and saints,
and you, my brothers and sisters,
to pray for me to the Lord our God.

New (corrected) translation:

I confess to almighty God
and to you, my brothers and sisters,
that I have greatly sinned
in my thoughts and in my words,
in what I have done and in what I have failed to do,
And, striking their breast, they say:
through my fault, through my fault,
through my most grievous fault;
Then they continue:
therefore I ask blessed Mary ever-Virgin,
all the Angels and Saints,
and you, my brothers and sisters,
to pray for me to the Lord our God.

The new translation restores the order of various phrases and the gesture of striking the breast to the original order as given in the Latin.

You will notice the addition of the word “greatly”. In order to receive Holy Communion without committing the grave sin of sacrilege, we are obliged to confess any grave (mortal) sins of which we may be conscious to a priest in the Sacrament of Confession. Our public confession at Mass is quite different from sacramental confession. It is presumed that most people present at Mass will not be conscious of unconfessed mortal sins yet we all together confess to have greatly sinned.

Two thoughts come to mind. The first is that we are all sinners. Even if we have confessed to a priest our mortal sins all of us can still say that we have “greatly” sinned in that we have committed mortal or other serious sins in the past and we publicly acknowledge this in a renewed act of repentance and sorrow. The second is that all sin, no matter how light (venial), is actually a serious matter before God. Nothing is of slight importance when it comes to the love, honor and obedience we owe to our Creator. Even our smallest sins were redeemed by the price of Christ’s Blood on the Cross.

We acknowledge the four ways in which we can commit sins: thoughts, words, deeds and omissions. We could each do a profound examination of conscience on these four areas: uncharitable or impure thoughts, uncharitable words or bad language, immoral or uncharitable activity alone or with others, omitting to fulfill our duties.

In the new translation, we acknowledge three times that our sins were committed through our fault, the third time emphasizing that our fault was “most grievous.” We make no excuses for the sins, mortal or venial, that we have committed. Our admission in this regard should move us to a sincere repentance and intention to amend our lives. We conclude the confession of our sins to God and to those present by asking for the prayers of Mary, the angels and saints and of one another, thus bearing testimony to the communion of saints and the power of intercession.

Gestures: please remember that we are directed to strike our breasts during the Confiteor as a further external manifestation of our repentance. Have a blessed week. Fr John.