quote:I had dinner with a family on Easter, and in attendance were some elderly Catholic women. One of which stated quite clearly that her Church 'Teaches us to worship the Saints and Mary, never talked much about Jesus, and discouraged us from reading the Bible, because it would only confuse us.'.
The thought running through my head at that moment was: Dagonee and Eaquae_Legit would have a FIT if they heard her affirm that.
At the Easter Vigil, as the elect are being fully initiated, we sing the Litany of Saints. Each verse is 2 or 3 saint names sung by the cantor, and then the congregation responds with "Pray for us."
At the end, it shifts to the Lord and Jesus, and then the response definitively changes to one that could be called worship.
Even the "Hail Mary" is a request that Mary pray for us.
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posted
Who is this Veronica character who wipes Jesus' face in the sixth station of the cross? I don't remember seeing that name in the Bible.
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posted
I do not know enough about Catholic doctrine to add to this thread, but I just wanted to say that I was over 30 before I could really understand and articulate my beliefs well.
I think too many Christians are superficial Christians - they take what parts of the doctrine they want to and don't care much about going deeper.
I even had the assistant pastor of my church tell me my studies into theology, and my desire to want to know more about what I believed and why I believed it made me "elitist" and that I would have to go to seminary school before I'd find people willing to discuss it.
Needless to say, that angered me a bit.
It upsets me to see people taking their views of eschatology from the Left Behind books. And not understanding that the premillenial dispensational view touted by those books is not the one and only view out there.
So, in my opinion, asking questions and examining why the church you belong to takes certain stances can only be a good thing. I wish more people cared enough to really investigate what they believe and why.
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quote:The story of Veronica is not told in the gospels, but in early apocryphal writings. An early 2nd century version of The Acts of Pilate reports that a woman named Veronica (Bernice, in the Greek version) was the same woman Jesus cured of a blood disorder (Matthew 9,20-22), and that she came to his trial before Pilate to claim his innocence.
spaceLater versions of the story from the 4th or 5th century say that Veronica possessed a cloth imprinted with the face of Jesus. Western pilgrims returning to Europe passed her story on. As the Stations of the Cross developed in late medieval times, Veronica was remembered at the 6th Station: she wipes the face of Jesus on his way to Calvary and he leaves an image of his face on her veil. A healing relic, impressed with the image of Jesus' face, which came to be known as "Veronica's Veil," was honored in St. Peter's Church in Rome as early as the 8th century.
quote:Perhaps her local leadership has some major issues...
Or maybe it’s just her. I can’t believe some of the things that people have told me they got from my sermons. Usually it’s either something I actually was trying to communicate, or an interesting tangent off of something I said, but every once and awhile . . . *shakes head*
Not everyone has the excellent listening comprehension skills of Hatrackers. Posts: 9866 | Registered: Apr 2002
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posted
And maybe somebody would be kind enough to explain the devotion to the sacred heart of Jesus. The article at that site seems way too complicated. Why do we see depictions of Christ with his heart exposed and wrapped in thorns? We see Mary, Mother of God with her heart exposed as well.
posted
"So, in my opinion, asking questions and examining why the church you belong to takes certain stances can only be a good thing. I wish more people cared enough to really investigate what they believe and why"
Beautifully put, Belle!
As far as the Sacred Heart and all that, I honestly don't know much about that-- I don't recall ever learning about it and it cetainly isn't brought up much. SOme of the more, shall we say, arcane sapect of Catholicism are a bit strange...
It always amazed me, I'm not sure why, that some churches had adult Sunday School classes, but now I think it is great, we Catholics could use them too.
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posted
Jesus knew and loved us each and all during his life, his agony and his Passion, and gave himself up for each one of us: "The Son of God. . . loved me and gave himself for me."116 He has loved us all with a human heart. For this reason, the Sacred Heart of Jesus, pierced by our sins and for our salvation,117 "is quite rightly considered the chief sign and symbol of that. . . love with which the divine Redeemer continually loves the eternal Father and all human beings" without exception.118
posted
Actually an earlier post reminded me, what is the stance of the Catholic Church on saints and Mary. I never noticed how much focus was put on Mary and the saints until someone asked me why and I couldn't honestly answer them.
Do other churches/religions revere Mary as much as Catholics?
Why are we Catholics (or at least for me when I was young) told to pray to saints and to Mary but no one ever suggests praying directly to God? Why would we pray to saints or Mary when we can pray to God (I mean I know he is busy and all...but still)? What can Mary and the saints do for us that praying to God won't do? Posts: 306 | Registered: Jun 2003
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posted
I guess I am also wondering, what place to saints have in the church. For a while I thought they were just people who we were supposed to look up to and try to embody how they devoted their life to God or followed Jesus's path. So if they are just people who we acknowledge to be a good example of Christ's followers, why are we told to pray to them?
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posted
I never saw the "Sacred Heart" depicted until I was in the Philippines. I saw it *everywhere* there. I wondered if it was unique to the Philippines.
While there, a newspaper reporter interviewed me to get the "Mormon Perspective" on how we view Mary. That was a cool experience. They were very respectful, and seemed to appreciate what I had to say.
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quote:Nevertheless, this old woman firmly believed that this is what she was taught. I didn't know what to say to her.Perhaps her local leadership has some major issues...
Or perhaps she came to her mistaken conclusions on her own. I have certainly heard loopy pseudodoctrines coming from people in my ward, like the fellow who insisted to me that the Church teaches that the earth is only 6,000 years old and that any evidence otherwise has been deliberately planted here as a test of our faith... Posts: 1512 | Registered: A Long Time Ago!
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quote:What can Mary and the saints do for us that praying to God won't do?
I'm not Catholic, but I might speculate that to some people, particularly the poor and humble, Mary (or another saint) somehow seems less intimidating and more accessible than the Most High. So they ask her to deliver their petitions to Him, rather than doing it themselves.
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posted
I think that's right, Yozhik. The saints and Mary intercede on our behalf, basically, is what I was taught. I personally don't pray to the saints, or to Mary, any more. It was something I did without thinking when I was younger, but when I got older and began to look into my faith and the teachings of the Church more, I just wasn't comfortable with middlemen (or women)!
I believe the whole Mary thing is fairly recent in the scheme of things, seems like all the DOctrines about her are form the last 150 years or so. Pope John Paul II is really big on Mary. Didn't he declare Mary Co-Redemptrix with Jesus?
I'm still a Catholic, but I have to admit the CHurch has some pretty weird ideas...
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quote:Why are we Catholics (or at least for me when I was young) told to pray to saints and to Mary but no one ever suggests praying directly to God?
Actually, we may only pray to God (or, more precisely, Divine Persons). Saints are not considered Divine. Link::
quote:An act of the virtue of religion which consists in asking proper gifts or graces from God. In a more general sense it is the application of the mind to Divine things, not merely to acquire a knowledge of them but to make use of such knowledge as a means of union with God. This may be done by acts of praise and thanksgiving, but petition is the principal act of prayer.
...
Although God the Father is mentioned in this prayer as the one to whom we are to pray, it is not out of place to address our prayers to the other Divine persons. The special appeal to one does not exclude the others. More commonly the Father is addressed in the beginning of the prayers of the Church, though they close with the invocation, "Through Our Lord Jesus Christ Thy Son who with Thee liveth and reigneth in the unity of the Holy Ghost, world without end". If the prayer be addressed to God the Son, the conclusion is: "Who livest and reignest with God the Father in the unity of the Holy Ghost, God, world without end"; or, "Who with Thee liveth and reigneth in the unity, etc.". Prayer may be addressed to Christ as Man, because He is a Divine Person, not however to His human nature as such, precisely because prayer must always be addressed to a person, never to something impersonal or in the abstract. An appeal to anything impersonal, as for instance to the Heart, the Wounds, the Cross of Christ, must be taken figuratively as intended for Christ Himself.
quote:Why would we pray to saints or Mary when we can pray to God (I mean I know he is busy and all...but still)? What can Mary and the saints do for us that praying to God won't do?
What we may do is ask the saints to pray for us, just as we ask friends to pray for us. There is common, non-spiritual usage of the word pray ("To make a fervent request or entreaty"). In this sense, we may "pray" for saints to pray to (or "intercede with") God for us.
But this does not replace the need to pray, in the spiritual sense, directly to God often.
quote:When the Church invokes Mary under the title, "Coredemptrix", she means that Mary uniquely participated in the redemption of the human family by Jesus Christ, Our Lord and Saviour. At the Annunciation (cf.Lk.1:38) Mary freely cooperated in giving the Second Person of the Trinity his human body which is the very instrument of redemption, as Scripture tells us: "We have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all" (Heb.10:10).
And at the foot of the cross of our Saviour (Jn.19:26), Mary's intense sufferings, united with those of her Son, as Pope John Paul II tells us, were, "also a contribution to the Redemption of us all" (Salvifici Doloris, n.25). Because of this intimate sharing in the redemption accomplished by the Lord, the Mother of the Redeemer is uniquely and rightly referred to by Pope John Paul II and the Church as the "Coredemptrix."
It is important to note that the prefix "co" in the title Coredemptrix does not mean "equal to" but rather "with", coming from the Latin word cum. The Marian title Coredemptrix never places Mary on a level of equality with her Divine Son, Jesus Christ. Rather it refers to Mary's unique human participation which is completely secondary and subordinate to the redeeming role of Jesus, who alone is true God and true Man.
I don't know that this has officially been pronounced yet.
posted
Just to add to what Dag said about asking saints to pray for us: people of many religious persuasions often ask their friends and family to pray for them, for specific intentions. Asking the saints to pray for us is just the same, except maybe the prayers for us don't have as far to go, considering the saints are already in heaven with God.
And we admire saints for the holy lives they led, and look to them as role models.
At an All Saints Day mass, one priest described how we treat saints in his homily. He said that God is like an artist, and saints are like some of the great masterpieces in God's gallery. When you talk to the artist, you for sure always talk to him directly, but you also take time to admire his work and reflect on what those works mean to you. Such is it with saints.
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posted
I'm going to have to disagree that the concept of asking friends to pray for you makes sense. God is omniscient, he already knows your desire or need. Bringing it to his attention is just nagging; asking his friends (the saints) to bring it to his attention is a particularly annoying form of nagging, bordering on marketing.
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posted
King of Men, apparently God doesn't agree with you, since we are instructed in the scriptures to pray for one another.
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quote:Why are we Catholics (or at least for me when I was young) told to pray to saints and to Mary but no one ever suggests praying directly to God?
The why of "praying to" Mary and the saints has already been answered pretty nicely, but I wanted to comment on this idea of Catholics being discouraged from, or at least, not encouraged to, pray directly to God. This might be a particular oddityof the Catholics around you. When I was Catholic, I personally preferred to pray to God myself rather than asking someone else to intervene for me, and I never felt discouraged in this. If you look in scripture (and in the mass) when Jesus was asked the proper form for prayer, he taught his disciples the Lord's prayer, i.e., the "Our Father." That seems to pretty clearly suggest that praying directly to God is more than acceptable. If you look at the actual prayers in the Mass, God is directly prayed to many times:
quote: I confess to almighty God, and to you, my brothers and sisters, that I have sinned through my own fault, 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.
quote: Lord, have mercy.
quote: Christ, have mercy.
quote: Glory to God in the highest, and peace to his people on earth. Lord God, heavenly King, almighty God and Father, we worship you, we give you thanks, we praise you for your glory. Lord Jesus Christ, only Son of the Father, Lord God, Lamb of God, you take away the sin of the world: have mercy on us; you are seated at the right hand of the Father: receive our prayer. For you alone are the Holy One, you alone are the Lord, You alone are the Most High, Jesus Christ, with the Holy Spirit, in the glory of God the Father. Amen.
quote: Blessed are you, Lord, God of all creation. Through your goodness we have this bread to offer, which earth has given and human hands have made. It will become for us the bread of life.
quote: Blessed are you, Lord, God of all creation. Through your goodness we have this wine to offer, fruit of the vine and work of human hands. It will become our spiritual drink.
quote: Lord Jesus Christ, you said to your apostles: I leave you peace, my peace I give you. Look not on our sins, but on the faith of your Church, and grant us the peace and unity of your kingdom where you live for ever and ever.
quote: Lamb of God, you take away the sins of the world: have mercy on us. Lamb of God, you take away the sins of the world: have mercy on us. Lamb of God, you take away the sins of the world: grant us peace.
quote: Lord, I am not worthy to receive you, but only say the word and I shall be healed.
The first prayer is a good example of how Catholics actually pray to God, and simply ask Mary and the saints to also pray for them, believing of course that these people are still alive. All in all, plenty of precedent for the idea of praying to God yourself, if that is what you are comfortable with.
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quote: I'm going to have to disagree that the concept of asking friends to pray for you makes sense.
Why wouldn't it make sense? It's like asking for a little support from your friends when you are in a time of need. Jesus asked his friends to sit and pray with him when he was in a time of need.
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posted
The Catholic I am closest too supposedly doesn't know that much about her doctrine, but it doesn't really cause her to not want to be in the church.
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quote: I'm going to have to disagree that the concept of asking friends to pray for you makes sense. God is omniscient, he already knows your desire or need. Bringing it to his attention is just nagging; asking his friends (the saints) to bring it to his attention is a particularly annoying form of nagging, bordering on marketing.
And if prayer was about bringing your needs/wants to God's attention, you might be right.
Since it's actually about making changes in oneself, it makes perfect sense that we should pray on behalf of others.
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posted
"Since it's actually about making changes in oneself, it makes perfect sense that we should pray on behalf of others."
That would have been my reply to KoM, too, except for two things:
1) Many people do indeed pray for specific things, or on behalf of something specific: "Lord, please cure Janie's cancer."
2) If it's about making changes in oneself, why do we ask saints to intercede? What changes are they making in themselves?
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posted
From the link on prayer from one of my earlier posts:
quote:By prayer we acknowledge God's power and goodness, our own neediness and dependence. It is therefore an act of the virtue of religion implying the deepest reverence for God and habituating us to look to Him for everything, not merely because the thing asked be good in itself, or advantageous to us, but chiefly because we wish it as a gift of God, and not otherwise, no matter how good or desirable it may seem to us. Prayer presupposes faith in God and hope in His goodness.
I think this is very similar to what she was saying. And the second explains that we are directed to pray for others.
Asking others to pray for us is an acknowledgement of our need of help - an expression of humility which can help dispose us to change. Praying for others is an act of charity.
posted
You know, in a parental relationship, it is usually considered healthy not to look to your parents in all things, and eventually to stand on your own feet.
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quote: 1) Many people do indeed pray for specific things, or on behalf of something specific: "Lord, please cure Janie's cancer."
2) If it's about making changes in oneself, why do we ask saints to intercede? What changes are they making in themselves?
Tom, from what I've been taught "God answers all of our prayers just not necessarly in the way we think he might or when we might like it". Basically, we're supposed to trust God to make the right decissions. If we ask God to cure "Janie" that doesn't mean it's the best thing for us/her so God might not do it.
I'd say asking the saints for help to change oneself is more moral support then anything. *shrugs*
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quote:You know, in a parental relationship, it is usually considered healthy not to look to your parents in all things, and eventually to stand on your own feet.
In most parental relationships, the child is going to be, relatively soon, a creature with the same magnitude of abilities and knowledge. Except for Mormons, most monotheists don't believe that is true about our relationship with God. And with Mormons, I don't believe "relatively soon" would be an accurate description.
posted
Well, Dag, that's a good point. For example, I can type in a post on Hatrack. Let's see your god do that. I contend, then, that human abilities are in fact greater than those of Yahweh.
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quote: For example, I can type in a post on Hatrack. Let's see your god do that. I contend, then, that human abilities are in fact greater than those of Yahweh.
Wow-then your abilities are sad indeed since God can do way better things than post a message on the Internet. Let's see you create heaven and earth
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posted
Well, let's see your god create heaven and earth. Go on - I'll wait. But really, it seems a rather large test to begin with. Why not start small?
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posted
KoM, seriously. I've done a pretty good job of ignoring your posts the last several weeks about religion, because better people than I have taken you to task about the reasons your approach to the subject are wrong. Please though, this thread is an honest attempt by one member of Hatrack to better understand her own religion. She is making an open effort to understand the things she does not know enough about, in an attempt to decide just where it is she stands on religion.
She is doing so here because there are people like Dagonee who are believers of the Catholic faith that are able to answer her questions. She would like to hear their side of the story. She already knows yours. Therefore, your childish attempts at scorning both her religion and her attempts to better understand that religion are out of place. There is no need for you here. There are several other threads currently available for your type of conversation. Please confine your scorn and atheistic proselytizing to those threads.
--ApostleRadio
EDIT: Wow, for a moment there even I had no idea what that sentence meant.
posted
ok...moving on to something more worth my time...I am curious as to why Catholics confess their sins to a priest. I haven't done it in years, mainly because I haven't been forced to do it (like I was in Catholic school) and because I never felt comfortable about it. It also probably has something to do with being afraid of the older priest at our church when I was little (the younger guy was cool though).
Why are we told to confess our sins to a priest instead of ask for forgivenness to God directly?
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posted
The Catholic view of this sacramant (first of all, correctly called reconciliation, not confession) is that it is a reconciliation not only with God, but with the entire community of believers. Sin interferes with your participation in that community, and the act of reconciliation heals that separation. It is an acknowledgment that sin is not merely a personal matter between a believer and God. In an oddly ironic way, it also repudiates a perverse notion of shame: all are sinners, so nobody should feel the need to hide his or her particular sins (and thus avoid getting help for them).
There are secondary reasons for the manner of the sacrament as well. For one thing, it's the same intermediary idea as asking others to pray for you. For another, talking with a good confessor--one who doesn't merely assign you two our fathers and an act of contrition, but actually talks to you nonjugmentally about what you do and why you do it and how you intend to improve--can have similar benefits to those some people receive from a psychologist. There can be a sense of relief, and a sense of being loved by God despite one's sins, and one can receive spiritual advice. If you're in a state of sin and keeping it all inside, it may be hard to have the perspective to figure all of this out for yourself.
There is no reason to feel shame in confession: it is not the priest's role to judge you, but to give advice and help you pray. Also, all are sinners, so you're unlikely to be saying anything the priest has not heard. However, all that being said, I would give you some advice if you choose to remain Catholic. Don't be one of those people who simply goes to whichever priest is not busy at a given time. By now you must have realized that not all priests are created equal. Develop a relationship with a priest that you trust, who will be understanding and non-condemning, and always go to that person. You don't need to hide behind a screen then, because you are not ashamed of who you are, and you are really there for advice. I highly recommind having your own "personal confessor," if you are Catholic.
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posted
You shouldn't be forced to do it, but then you run into the age old question of how to encourage someone to do something that may not come naturally. And confession as most Catholics (don't) practice it is such an ordeal, that how can you get someone to do it without forcing them (or them forcing themselves)?
Again, the answer comes down to finding a priest who is not merely a distant authority figure, but a trusted, honestly respected person.
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posted
Icky, my man GKC once said that Psychoanalysis was just confession without absolution... and having been through a ton of therapy lately, I think you are dead on about the counseling effects of having a good priest to confess to. (Yes I ended with a preposition. Shoot me... then see a good priest about it )
As for bilbical basis (which seems to be important to RR, forgive me if I'm off on that), at the end of the Gospel of John, the risen Jesus appears, breathes on the disciples, and says something like "receive the holy spirit. If you forgive mens sins, they are forgiven in heaven. If you hold them accountable, they are held accountable in heaven."
The Catholic Church interprets this as applying to the 10 men in the room (Thomas was absent) and their designated successors in the apostolic tradition (Thomas, Matthias, Paul, etc.) and, eventually through that, to today's priests.
If you say this applies to all believers, then I have a problem with it because any prideful and hypocritical believer (and, let's face it, we all are, to some degree, both) could condemn several hundred people to hell quite easily.
If you say it only applied to the men in that room, then it begs two questions:
1) why did they pass it on? 2) why would Jesus make such an important statement (and this is one of three places in the Bible, if you count Pentecost, where God "breathes on" [inspires] man... no small event) with such short-range consequences?
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posted
Also, someone mentioned something about Marian Doctrines being recent inventions.
Yes and no.
They only became doctrine recently, but the the beliefs of the Immaculate Conception and the Assumption are QUITE old. They were only codified and made dogmatic recently (mid 19th and mid 20th centuries, respectively).
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posted
Icarus and Jim-Me answered beautifully, but this can expand a little more on the asking God directly point:
quote:that penance is not a mere human invention devised by the Church to secure power over consciences or to relieve the emotional strain of troubled souls; it is the ordinary means appointed by Christ for the remission of sin. Man indeed is free to obey or disobey, but once he has sinned, he must seek pardon not on conditions of his own choosing but on those which God has determined, and these for the Christian are embodied in the Sacrament of Penance.
No Catholic believes that a priest simply as an individual man, however pious or learned, has power to forgive sins. This power belongs to God alone; but He can and does exercise it through the ministration of men. Since He has seen fit to exercise it by means of this sacrament, it cannot be said that the Church or the priest interferes between the soul and God; on the contrary, penance is the removal of the one obstacle that keeps the soul away from God.
Some of the concrete benefits have been discussed nicely above. The following is a perspective I've had for a while, although I've not seen it explained this way before:
One of the difficulties in praying, at least for me, is the difficulty in trying to mentally differentiate between the praying and the thinking about praying. This is problematic enough for normal prayers. In situations where I actually need to be forgiven, it can be almost insurmountable to me. Have I really asked for forgiveness? Am I truly repentant?
Although these are important questions, the mere asking of them can divert me from the process of reconciliation. Both the process and the help of a good priest can make this easier to overcome.
Dagonee P.S., confession is the element of my faith I have the most difficulty following in practice (I don't go often enough, and I don't do it well), yet it's also one of the few I don't have any difficulty in appreciating the theology behind.
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posted
Wow. Thanks, Icarus and Jim-Me and Dag. RR isn't the only one learning a lot about her faith from this thread! I always hated reconciliation but lately I've been changing my attitude towards it... I know I wasn't the only Catholic who did see it as the priests trying to "control" us, but you've all given me a new insight into it.
posted
My Catholic question has to do with ancient history, but I think also has some present-day doctrinal implications. It's about heresies.
While reading the Belisarius series by David Drake, I came across several mentions of a heretical group (from around the 5th or 6th century A.D.) called the Monophysites. Simply understanding that they were considered heretical was enough to understand the plot itself, but I couldn't help but wonder what their heresy was really all about.
So I went to an online Catholic encyclopedia and looked it up. I learned that the Monophysites had a distinct belief about the nature of Christ, which was diametrically opposed to the belief of the Nestorians, who were another heretical group. The orthodox doctrine was in between the two. Fair enough.
But for the life of me I couldn't understand the distinctions being made. I couldn't understand the controversy. It had something to do with the word "hypostasis" (I think), but I couldn't figure out what that meant, either.
Dag, or anybody else, can you shed some light for me on the concepts that are in question when talking about the nature of Christ, hopefully with reference to these two ancient heresies?
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quote:The Incarnation implies three facts: (1) The Divine Person of Jesus Christ; (2) The Human Nature of Jesus Christ; (3) The Hypostatic Union of the Human with the Divine Nature in the Divine Person of Jesus Christ.
quote:the historical person, Jesus Christ, is really and truly God, --i. e. has the nature of God, and is a Divine person.
"Christ is true Man," which means he had a material body, was born of Mary, and a human soul. (summed up from opposition to several heresies)
Hypostatic union:
quote:the Divine nature was really and truly united with the human nature of Jesus, i. e., that one and the same Person, Jesus Christ, was God and man. We speak here of no moral union, no union in a figurative sense of the word; but a union that is physical, a union of two substances or natures so as to make One Person, a union which means that God is Man and Man is God in the Person of Jesus Christ.
Nestorianism was best described as disbelief in the unity (note, it's not clear from the quote, but the following is considered heresy):
quote:Nestorius called the union of the two natures a mysterious and an inseparable joining (symapheian), but would admit no unity (enosin) in the strict sense of the word to be the result of this joining (see "Serm.", ii, n. 4; xii, n. 2, in P. L., XLVIII). The union of the two natures is not physical (physike) but moral, a mere juxtaposition in state of being (schetike); the Word indwells in Jesus like as God indwells in the just (loc. cit.); the indwelling of the Word in Jesus is, however, more excellent than the indwelling of God in the just man by grace, for that the indwelling of the Word purposes the Redemption of all mankind and the most perfect manifestation of the Divine activity (Serm. vii, n. 24); as a consequence, Mary is the Mother of Christ (Christotokos), not the Mother of God (Theotokos).
Monophysites is described a little more clearly:
quote:A new heresy soon began. It postulated only one Person in Jesus, and that the Divine Person. It went farther. It went too far. The new heresy defended only one nature, as well as one Person in Jesus. The leader of this heresy was Eutyches. His followers were called Monophysites. They varied in their ways of explanation. Some thought the two natures were intermingled into one. Others are said to have worked out some sort of a conversion of the human into the Divine.
If you're interested in more in-depth knowledge, the whole article will help understand what was going on.
posted
In reference to the sacrament of reconciliation, I have to raise my hand and say that I'm one of those that finds the grace of God's forgiveness just a little more tangible thanks to it. The physical and mental actions of preparing to receive the sacrament (examination of conscience, preparing to go in to talk to the priest, expressing the Act of Contrition, and especially doing the penance) all bring it home to me much more as a result.
Not to mention the fact that I believe strongly that just saying you're sorry just isn't enough. When we do something that harms our relationship with God or with one another, it's like there's an imbalance, and actively doing something to try to right the wrong (even if all you can do is pray) satisfies me in a way that I almost can't explain. I don't mean to imply that forgiveness isn't total, it's just that the wrong was still done, and something constructive done to help restore the "balance" is just plain the right thing to do. And since I often run out of ideas on how to do that, I also very much support the idea of having a long-time relationship with a single priest who can know you well and help you work on improvements.
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