Today, 20 June 2014, His Beatitude Daniel, Patriarch of Romania licensed two hieromonks and nine priests from the Archdiocese of Bucharest as father confessors. The religious service was celebrated in the historical chapel of the Patriarchal Residence dedicated to Saint Great Martyr George.
To end with, the Patriarch of Romania delivered a sermon in which he said: “This day is a blessed one because we have the joy to intensify the missionary work of the Church through new father confessors. Somebody said: Give me good father confessors and I shall change the face of the world, at least from spiritual point of view. This religious service means the blessing given for a priest to be both a priest and a guiding spiritual father, not a simple forgiver of sins in the usual way.”
Then, His Beatitude spoke to the new father confessors about their responsibility and about the Holy Sacrament of Confession: “The purpose of this spiritual work is to raise the fallen one and to spiritually grow the faithful in virtues. It is not a simple pardoning, but a guidance and spiritual growth on the way to salvation. The priest must know the wound very well and find the best spiritual remedies lest the faithful be despaired due to an exaggerated seriousness of the father confessor or to a sentimental neglect with no responsibility of the father confessor. Thus, he must keep the balance between strictness and tolerance and wish the raising of the fallen one.
His Beatitude Patriarch Daniel has also spoken about the challenges of the present society in which the new father confessors will have to unfold their mission: “This is the greatest issue of our time, namely the synthesis between freedom and responsibility. How do we use our freedom? There are two kinds of freedom. It is the freedom of the saints to do good and the freedom of the demons to do evil. Man is really free when he does good deeds. When he is free to do evil he becomes the slave of wickedness. This is why the apostles say that we must not use freedom as protection of freedom, as justification of evil. It is a lot of work to do, but what encourages us is the grace of God which helps us, because very often man is changed not only through good advice, but also through the prayer for the penitent. The faithful who confess their sins ought to remember their father confessor in their prayers so that he should be enlightened by the Holy Spirit to guide them on the way to salvation. The father confessor must remember in his prayers all his spiritual sons and daughters who confess their sins to him, not only during the religious service, but also in his private ones. It is only through this mutual prayer that the spiritual advice becomes a spiritual power. A spiritual advice becomes a work of the grace that urges man to good deeds”.
The new father confessors received the father confessor certificate, a blessing cross and the new edition of the Molitfelnic book on behalf of His Beatitude Patriarch Daniel.
